Vickey McDonald

Thomas Rubino and Cristobal Cristo, thank you both for the information. Sounds like we need to rethink our plans and figure out how to incorporate two stoves instead of trying to combine everything into one stove.  In some ways that makes the separation of the heat source and our cold room we are building a bit easier.  Thank you again for your help.  

My idea was for something I could bake in without it tasting like wood smoke, as well as having a cooking surface on top that got hot enough to use a 30 quart pressure canner and even better if it could handle that and a 21 quart at the same time.

We have a camp wood cook stove that we don't use. Our thought is to take the cast iron cook top off it and use it for the top of the rocket stove. Being able to incorporate the mass when we are not necessarily cooking is our hope using the bypass.

If we use the batchbox and leave the bypass open in the winter the extra heat may be useful for heating the house, but it sounds like not as good for cooking, except on the surface when pans could be moved to a cooler area of the stovetop.

Just hoping to find a setup that would not require two different stoves in our place which will take a lot of room.

We will be starting on our house this spring. Wanting to add a walker style cook stove and/or a batch stove style. My husband wants it combined with the mass for heating the house with a way to close off the mass when we don't want to heat the house up, but just use the cooking portion.

My question is about the oven insert, or actually two questions.
Where can you source the oven insert?
Would it be possible to use the oven insert from a propane cook stove?

Most of what I have seen as the inserts are fairly small and if they have a rack there is only room for one. I do a lot of larger items, half or 3/4 sheet cake size and wondering about cooking on the holidays... large turkeys, multiple pies and cakes, large batches of cookies, breads etc. The small oven box would take me weeks of cooking to get the same amount ready.

Anyone have a solution for this issue?

This is good to know, I'm in South Central Alaska and would very much like to grow peanuts. I grew up in the South and one thing I really miss is a good boiled peanut.

We live off grid and freezer runs on a generator run several hours a day. So we often have the same issues of things freezing to the walls and floor of the freezer. We are planning to add some of the thin foam board insulation to put a layer around the sides and bottom of the freezer then put everything back in.

Might be worth a try. Or even some of the Reflectix insulation used the same way.

I love sourdough and will definitely be backing if the timing is right for my social security check. I have to pay bills first. Nice to see the loaves are not the dark brown burnt looking bread so many are proud of because the crust is so crispy. I have never liked the look of those.

Would love to see a golden brown sandwich loaf. Something to show it doesn't "have" to be the dark, crispy crusted round loaves and that you don't need a big cast iron dutch oven to bake good sourdough bread.

Liv Smith wrote:

Luetta Robinson wrote:Hi Paul,

Since you're coming this direction, how about visiting Alaska?? We'd love to have you here! Rocket Mass Stove Heaters would be a great topic.

Luetta

Alaska, as good as it sounds, is a little far. Paul is willing to drive 7 or 8 hours from his Montana home.

Let’s see what he has to say about it, though!

Liv- I agree. Would love to have him come to Alaska. Not sure what area your in but there are plenty of us here who would love some time with his knowledge. I bet just out here in the upper valley we could come up with at least a dozen.

Bumped mine up. I'm sure the kickstarter will at least meet its goal. Hope it does more than that.  

For everyone who has not donated or upper their donation... I have a challenge, If an old lady living on Social Security in an expensive place like Alaska can donate and increase my donation, knowing I will likely never build one of these. I challenge you all to pledge at least a dollar, more if you can. That's  not much, probably less than a cup of coffee even where you are.  Let's make this happen.

Got an email about increasing our pledge. How do we go about doing that?

Cécile Stelzer Johnson wrote:Cutting elderberries does encourage suckering. My biggest elderberry bush made a couple of stalks that were the size of those jumbo permanent markers [Like 1.5" in caliper]... and then it died. I can use those 2 stalks for biomass but I suspect that elderberry bushes do not have very long lives. Instead, they can sucker profusely, so I can't see raising them for biomass, at least not where I am. I make terrific jelly from the berries, however.
Perhaps I have the wrong cultivars for biomass?
Once the stalk dies, then I will cut it and put in on the brush pile or grind it for mulch.

Depending on when it "died" I would wait a bit before you decide to do anything with it. I had two "Ranch" elderberry cutting that started off great, then we had a day that got very hot while they were still pretty small and had not been transplanted out yet. They wilted badly, I went ahead and transplanted them into large containers outside, then the leaves all turned brown and dried up. I was sure they were dead. I'm in South Central Alaska, formerly zone 3b and now it's been changed to 4a.

I figured they died and I Ignored them for a couple weeks.  Had some time and needed the containers somewhere else. Went out to get them and to my surprise they had about three inches of new growth at the base. I quickly moved them to a new location where it would not get so hot and was easier to water.

It's possible yours could come back if it hasn't been a long time.