Woodstove and kitchen setup

Hi! I have been searching in the forum and have not found answer to my question. Maybe I did not search well, but, anyway, here is my question.

We are moving now to my family property, to keep working on the food forest and giving a try to the wild life. On the property there are two houses. One, the big one, is where we are right now and where my grandma lived, and where we are on holiday with parents, brother, relative… the second one , smaller, had different uses in the past. But it has been uninhabited for the last decade or more. That one is where we will stay (me, my wife, the kids) in order to have our own place and privacy.

There is work to do there, walls to eliminate, pipes and cables, you know. The challenge is to make it as self suficient as we can. For heat, we will use a wood stove.

But, what about the wood stove kitchen? We have two concerns:

1. Many of the things we cook are just steared. “Vuelta y vuelta” as we say in Spanish. For roasting and boiling, wood stove looks great. But how do you do it for stearing and fast stuff? Like, for fried eggs and the like. Is not unefficient?

2. Hot. From April to October, it is hot here. How hot is cooking that way? Does it make the kitchen a living oven?

Now is the moment to decide the kitchen set up. So I was wondering if maybe somebody could give me some tips on the kitchen setup, experiences etc. Maybe combining that with some fast whatever? Maybe putting it outside the house? Ideas?

We have a separate, summer kitchen with a woodburning cookstove. It is screened in for bugs and ventilation, so we can still do cooking, baking, etc. In our yurt, we have a small alcohol stove that we use for frying or making coffee. It is clean burning and doesn't require any venting.

Outdoor Kitchen
We like to grill outside alot, maybe you do too?
You could maybe put a cooktop right outside the window so that you can stay inside the house to stir the pot.
You can expand on that and add a full kitchen outside, with you stay outside too.


Semi-outdoor kitchen
Do you have a covered porch, maybe you can add a stove+sink+fridge out there


Separated Kitchen
Even though the kitchen is inside the house, you can close the kitchen door and open the window.

Open Floor plan kitcken
You can place a vent right over the stove so that all the hot/aromatic air (fried fish?) goes right outside.

Hi Antonio;
Yes an outdoor kitchen is a wonderful thing to have!
I have been using "temporary" outdoor kitchens for over ten years.
Just a 10x10 popup canopy worked great until... winter!   Rain on snow events crushed them to the ground every year!

This past summer I finally built a permanent outdoor kitchen.
The rain and snow are done crushing my kitchen!
I have a wood fired rocket powered black or white oven, I have a 1/2 barrel grill, and I have a 2 burner propane stove .

Here are links to the oven build and the brick smoke shack build.
https://permies.com/t/166800/rocket-ovens/Brick-Outdoor-Kitchen
https://permies.com/t/164923/rocket-ovens/Build-Black-White-Rocket-Oven

Wow Thomas - so good to see the final kitchen. I saw what you had started when I asked about a moveable rocket stove. I’m now totally rethinking my future kitchen set up. I decided a long time ago that i wanted two kitchens - a regular family kitchen and a project kitchen. The second kitchen would be for bulk projects like food preservation etc. I’m now thinking of building an entire outdoor kitchen. It would include rainwater collection, sink and greywater collection, rocket stove / rocket oven, solar drier . . .

Thank you Antonio - indirectly I’m now inspired to build an outdoor kitchen. I’m wondering if you could also make use of the sun and solar cooking? I have a friend in the UK who has a woodburning aga (oven / stove that uses wood to cook and heat the house). It’s great for six months of the year and an they have the warmest cosiest kitchen I know, but the other six months, it was a pain. He’s now installed a second oven . . .  It’ sounds like you’ve got a great project ahead. I hope you keep us up to date with the decisions and progress you make.

Antonio said, "Now is the moment to decide the kitchen set up. So I was wondering if maybe somebody could give me some tips on the kitchen setup, experiences etc. Maybe combining that with some fast whatever?

When I designed my kitchen setup I thought out what is the best way for everything to flow easily.  

Here is some information that I found:

With careful planning, working in your kitchen can become a pleasure.

Dishes and silverware near the sink and dishwasher if you have one.
Pots and pans near the stove.  Food prep area near the sink and the stove.

There are usually four zones present: food preparation, baking, cooking, and cleaning.  We usually have to work with an already designed kitchen so lets set up one that will flow easily.  With careful planning, working in your kitchen can become a pleasure.

The kitchen work triangle principles are used by kitchen designers.

From this thread has and there are some videos that might help:

https://permies.com/t/84920/purity/Kitchen-Work-Share-Ideas-Tips

This family's little stove changed my life. I followed the video exactly. Placed right off the garden, against an adobe wall, it's where I make tea and watch the sun come up. We don't have much wood here in New Mexico but dry salt bush, fruit tree trimmings and scrap wood works great and it is FAST: takes 20 minutes from lighting the fire to boil. Eggs are even faster. I made mine in day with "found" bricks. Maybe this isn't your future deluxe outdoor kitchen set up but you can experiment, move it around, play.

Its also good to only have one wet wall. With the bathroom on one side and the kitchen sink on the other side.

thomas rubino wrote:Hi Antonio;
Yes an outdoor kitchen is a wonderful thing to have!
I have been using "temporary" outdoor kitchens for over ten years.
Just a 10x10 popup canopy worked great until... winter!   Rain on snow events crushed them to the ground every year!

This past summer I finally built a permanent outdoor kitchen.
The rain and snow are done crushing my kitchen!
I have a wood fired rocket powered black or white oven, I have a 1/2 barrel grill, and I have a 2 burner propane stove .

Here are links to the oven build and the brick smoke shack build.
https://permies.com/t/166800/rocket-ovens/Brick-Outdoor-Kitchen
https://permies.com/t/164923/rocket-ovens/Build-Black-White-Rocket-Oven

Hola Thomas! That is impressive and very inspiring. I am thinking in having that outside and maybe some faster setup inside.

Edward Norton wrote:Wow Thomas - so good to see the final kitchen. I saw what you had started when I asked about a moveable rocket stove. I’m now totally rethinking my future kitchen set up. I decided a long time ago that i wanted two kitchens - a regular family kitchen and a project kitchen. The second kitchen would be for bulk projects like food preservation etc. I’m now thinking of building an entire outdoor kitchen. It would include rainwater collection, sink and greywater collection, rocket stove / rocket oven, solar drier . . .

Thank you Antonio - indirectly I’m now inspired to build an outdoor kitchen. I’m wondering if you could also make use of the sun and solar cooking? I have a friend in the UK who has a woodburning aga (oven / stove that uses wood to cook and heat the house). It’s great for six months of the year and an they have the warmest cosiest kitchen I know, but the other six months, it was a pain. He’s now installed a second oven . . .  It’ sounds like you’ve got a great project ahead. I hope you keep us up to date with the decisions and progress you make.

Hola Edward! Yes, this is what I am starting to think. Maybe some outside wood stove, and inside having some solar powered kitchen. Here in Denia we have nothing but sun and sun. The big house is solar powered, so that might be the way to go.

I could have a “ready to go” kitchen for the “vuelta y vuelta stuff” (steak, fried eggs and 5 minutes foods), with some other devices powered by the sun. And outside, I could have a small woodstove . Maybe this is the best way to go

Michael Helmersson wrote:We have a separate, summer kitchen with a woodburning cookstove. It is screened in for bugs and ventilation, so we can still do cooking, baking, etc. In our yurt, we have a small alcohol stove that we use for frying or making coffee. It is clean burning and doesn't require any venting.

Thanks Michael! This cam be my inside solution. Thanks!

S Bengi wrote:Outdoor Kitchen
We like to grill outside alot, maybe you do too?
You could maybe put a cooktop right outside the window so that you can stay inside the house to stir the pot.
You can expand on that and add a full kitchen outside, with you stay outside too.


Semi-outdoor kitchen
Do you have a covered porch, maybe you can add a stove+sink+fridge out there


Separated Kitchen
Even though the kitchen is inside the house, you can close the kitchen door and open the window.

Open Floor plan kitcken
You can place a vent right over the stove so that all the hot/aromatic air (fried fish?) goes right outside.

Very good ideas! I could go with semi outdoor or something alike. There is a kitchen door, so I could place a woodstove just outside and cover it a little bit with something, and that could be the whole thing

Anne Miller wrote:

Antonio said, "Now is the moment to decide the kitchen set up. So I was wondering if maybe somebody could give me some tips on the kitchen setup, experiences etc. Maybe combining that with some fast whatever?

When I designed my kitchen setup I thought out what is the best way for everything to flow easily.  

Here is some information that I found:

With careful planning, working in your kitchen can become a pleasure.

Dishes and silverware near the sink and dishwasher if you have one.
Pots and pans near the stove.  Food prep area near the sink and the stove.

There are usually four zones present: food preparation, baking, cooking, and cleaning.  We usually have to work with an already designed kitchen so lets set up one that will flow easily.  With careful planning, working in your kitchen can become a pleasure.

The kitchen work triangle principles are used by kitchen designers.

From this thread has and there are some videos that might help:

https://permies.com/t/84920/purity/Kitchen-Work-Share-Ideas-Tips

This thread is awesome and inspiring

Amy Gardener wrote:This family's little stove changed my life. I followed the video exactly. Placed right off the garden, against an adobe wall, it's where I make tea and watch the sun come up. We don't have much wood here in New Mexico but dry salt bush, fruit tree trimmings and scrap wood works great and it is FAST: takes 20 minutes from lighting the fire to boil. Eggs are even faster. I made mine in day with "found" bricks. Maybe this isn't your future deluxe outdoor kitchen set up but you can experiment, move it around, play.

Hola Amy! This is wonderful. We dont need delixe right now, just functional. This could do the trick 😊😊

Antonio Hache wrote:Many of the things we cook are just steared. “Vuelta y vuelta” as we say in Spanish. For roasting and boiling, wood stove looks great. But how do you do it for stearing and fast stuff? Like, for fried eggs and the like. Is not unefficient?

For searing alone, it probably is inefficient, and a rocket stove would do a better job. I do a lot of baking and also boil lots of water and make broth, so I just use the top of the woodstove for searing and frying things while the oven is heating up.

In general, the top of the wood stove will heat up quicker than the oven, so you could just light a fire before you want to cook, allow the top to heat up, and if your wood is nice and dry and your technique is good, you can be searing in half an hour, and then can let the fire die down afterwards.

2. Hot. From April to October, it is hot here. How hot is cooking that way? Does it make the kitchen a living oven?

Now is the moment to decide the kitchen set up. So I was wondering if maybe somebody could give me some tips on the kitchen setup, experiences etc. Maybe combining that with some fast whatever? Maybe putting it outside the house? Ideas?

My kitchen is in an open plan space with the dining area and lounge all in the one big room, this probably helps, as does having plenty of opening windows.

On the hottest days here we've also restricted the amount of time when we're using the woodstove - focusing all the baking, cooking, and water boiling all at once, so that the fire is only lit for 2 hours, and then eating cold food for the rest of the day.

Some woodstoves are also better at not heating up rooms than others - I know Thermalux here in Australia are designed for Australian summers. We have a Rayburn and it's good for heating in winter, but it doesn't heat up quite as much as some other stoves, so it's possible to use it in summer also.

Hola Kate

This is very helpful. I think we will have an outdoors woodstove and an indoor solar kitchen. But we change our minds as we go. We have got lots of sun

Kate Downham wrote:

Antonio Hache wrote:Many of the things we cook are just steared. “Vuelta y vuelta” as we say in Spanish. For roasting and boiling, wood stove looks great. But how do you do it for stearing and fast stuff? Like, for fried eggs and the like. Is not unefficient?

For searing alone, it probably is inefficient, and a rocket stove would do a better job. I do a lot of baking and also boil lots of water and make broth, so I just use the top of the woodstove for searing and frying things while the oven is heating up.

In general, the top of the wood stove will heat up quicker than the oven, so you could just light a fire before you want to cook, allow the top to heat up, and if your wood is nice and dry and your technique is good, you can be searing in half an hour, and then can let the fire die down afterwards.

2. Hot. From April to October, it is hot here. How hot is cooking that way? Does it make the kitchen a living oven?

Now is the moment to decide the kitchen set up. So I was wondering if maybe somebody could give me some tips on the kitchen setup, experiences etc. Maybe combining that with some fast whatever? Maybe putting it outside the house? Ideas?

My kitchen is in an open plan space with the dining area and lounge all in the one big room, this probably helps, as does having plenty of opening windows.

On the hottest days here we've also restricted the amount of time when we're using the woodstove - focusing all the baking, cooking, and water boiling all at once, so that the fire is only lit for 2 hours, and then eating cold food for the rest of the day.

Some woodstoves are also better at not heating up rooms than others - I know Thermalux here in Australia are designed for Australian summers. We have a Rayburn and it's good for heating in winter, but it doesn't heat up quite as much as some other stoves, so it's possible to use it in summer also.

Hola, Antonio,

it's good to know you've moved with your family. This surely means you are really seeing potential in your new location.

As for the thread issue, I'd say it depends on what are your goals. A gas stove running on butane is pretty unexpensive here in Spain. We have a good kitchen in sale where I work from 30 euros. Add one bottle and the connection kit, and you can start cooking for less than 60€ for more than a year. In a catastrophic future, you might convert it to work with methane, which you can obtain from feces.
If your goal is to run exclusively from your own wood, then the choice is the rocket stove. It runs on sticks, it's pretty safe and clean, and it's fast and hot. Too hot, maybe.
The cheap version of the rocket stove is the snake hole fire; you can find how to build one in survivalists' videos. It's just an L-shaped hole dug in the ground, it actually looks like the stove shown in the video above. It produces some smoke at the start, so it's better to use it outdoors.

As for the heat in summer, my choice is to close the kitchen door and to open the windows while we are cooking, since I'm limited to just one kitchen room. The living room will stay cool this way, and that's what really matters.

I'd been thinking about this problem too. I also do most of my daily cooking as a quick sear or boil. In the winter I cook on my heating wood stove, but in the summer I've been using propane ... and I think we can all see the problem with being dependent on fossil gasses, especially now that we're having a war about them. At the same time, this is a soggy climate and our summers involve an awful lot of blowing sideways rain / general moldy damp / hungry wildlife / other reasons why an outdoor kitchen can be challenging.

It seems like for quick efficient sear/boil cooking without wasting much home-gathered fuel and without dumping much extra heat into a space, it's hard to beat the tin-can type rocket. However, clean and efficient burn or not, everyone agrees these are "not for indoor use" because they are logistically difficult to connect to a chimney.

So here's my question: What about an UNCONNECTED chimney? I.e., a hood. Or even a hood with a fan in it?

In fact, it occurs to me that since I disconnect my wood stove stovepipe yearly for cleaning anyway, I could simply take it off in the spring, place a little tabletop rocket on top of the unused stove, and vent directly up the existing insulated chimney until heating season began again and I reconnected the main stove. I do of course have a carbon monoxide detector in the house, as anyone with a wood stove should, and the windows tend to be open in the summer anyway.

Anyone see a reason this is a terrible idea?