Outdoor Kitchen update including Cob Oven

Our outdoor kitchen is almost complete. We installed the chimney on the new Cob (adobe) oven today. Take a look at all the photos here:

http://www.facebook.com/MeanwhileBackinSaluda

If you scroll down, there are more photos of the Cob Workshop day showing the building of the cob oven.

It looks as though this stove does not use the rocket stove concept. If this is the case, are there benefits to using other designs?

None of the four stoves / ovens are rocket stoves. On the far left is an old time top loading wood stove. We use it as a "cook top". The next is a Dry Stack Oven designed and built by our students. Later the dry stack was insulated and covered with a "skin" but its interior is still the "dry stack" method. The next oven is the "guts" of an old Franklin stove. We use it just for an ash dump since it is pretty and we like it and so, we use it. The last oven is a Cob Oven and has a double door design.

Our favorite oven is the dry stack design. We love it. We first built the dry stack even though everyone told us it would not work at all. It did work and worked great. A dry stack can be moved, moved again, re-stacked to be smaller or larger. We moved our first dry stack oven 6 times before it was finally in the current location and finally, we put the insulation on the outside and made it permanent.
We also added a roof, and a chimney which makes it a year round full time no matter what the weather type of oven.

The ovens do use more wood than a rocket stove but, we have so much wood and brush to clear and clean up that the ovens are helpful with clean up. If we did not have a free source of wood, the rocket stove would be a better choice.

We love the outdoor kitchen and use it all the time. Thanks for looking and replying. Have a good week.

a nice propane barbeque with a rotisserie and a side burner would add a nice touch to an outside kitchen..and maybe a sink to wash things off in..wood is great but gets awfully hot in the summer time.

We have a sink and pitcher pump just behind the outdoor kitchen. The wood is not too awful hot in summer! We just fire up the ovens, let them burn while we are off doing something else and when ready to cook, we just shove the fire out of the way. It works good. It is hot and more smokey in the summer but not too much. We have another "wash up sink" on the side of the house too. It is closer to the garden and we wash vegetables out there. Have good week. Thanks for looking at my post.

I love your outdoor kitchen. It looks like fun to use year round...the closest we've come to having one would be the several years we carried our wood cook stove (a little Daisey Washington) outside for the summer to cook and can on, no screen and under a tarp. I always wanted a summer kitchen like my grandma had, like yours, screened in and with a pitcher pump (I am guessing hers was to a cistern) Thanks for posting pictures. Is it off the north side of your house?

The outdoor kitchen is right in front of our house. The kitchen has a south exposure but the summer heat is blocked by trees. We walk out the main door to our house, walk across a gravel driveway and just a few steps more is the outdoor kitchen. We planned it so that the outdoor kitchen is next to a water cistern (cannot see it from the photos) and when you walk behind the outdoor kitchen, the water pump is there. Plus we have a hot tub beside the kitchen and a big fire pit. The ashes from outdoor ovens gets dumped in the fire pit. Our wood sheds are nearby too.

Our outdoor kitchen does not have screens. It is just open air. A screened kitchen would be nice!

Carrying your wood cook stove outside is a good idea! Bet that worked good too. I love the outdoor kitchens. It helps keep heat out of the house, can be used year round even if the power is out. And, best of all the food tastes better and it keeps people outside and away from the TV!

Happy Thanksgiving.

Wow, nice looking set-up. I am eager to build my own summer kitchen this year.

Ryan, you won't regret it. I always wanted an outdoor kitchen and last year we got ours up and running. I was great! Ours is on our screened front porch, sink, gas stove/oven, grill, lots of counter tops.... I really like using it, sadly it's too hard to keep the pipes from freezing in the winter, so we shut it down, but that's ok, keeping the cooking heat in is more efficient for winter anyhow.

I love being able to season cookware and cook smoky things like blackened chicken or cooking fish outside so it doesn't smell up the house, not to mention canning outside is great without heating the place up. I used to have a love hate with baking during the summer.

I recommend to anyone who can have an outdoor kitchen to put one in ASAP!