Cookstove

“ The Kitchen Stove. The chief business of the kitchen stove is to provide heat for cooking. It must hold a fire, and so must be made of something which will not burn. Stoves are usually made of iron. Fire will not burn without air, so a place must be arranged to let air into the stove, and just enough to make the fire burn clearly and furnish the right amount of heat. That is what the front dampers or slides are for. The fuel, wood or coal, is held in the fire-box. The heated air makes the top of the stove hot for frying, broiling or boiling, and the oven hot for baking. ”

“ A coal stove is an enormous consumer of time and energy. An alcohol stove furnishes the cleanest method of cooking, quite practicable, with a fireless cooker and steam cooker, for a small family. Next in convenience, and more economical, are the gas or oil vapor stoves. A good fireless cooker vastly reduces the time required in the kitchen, and cuts the fuel bill in half.
In serving meals, labor is saved by using a tray, or better still a wheeled tray with several shelves, which may be drawn up to the table to hold the additional courses and the soiled dishes as removed. ”

“ The kitchen fire-place is no larger than is requisite for roasting; all the other processes being performed either in the oven, the steaming vessels, or at the gas stoves. These stoves are placed in the bay of a large window, thus giving the cook the advantage of a good light above the level of the pans. A close boiler at the back of the grate affords steam for the cooking utensils and for a hot closet; it also contains a coil of iron tubing, through which the water of a bath, placed in a dressing-room on the chamber floor, is made to circulate when a hot bath is wanted. ”

“ To his already extensive list of gas cooking apparatus, Mr Fletcher, Warrington, has just added what he calls his ‘Large Cottage Cooker,’ which is simply a Gas cooking-stove in the cheapest and simplest form to be effective. For two pounds may be had a good roasting, and a fairly good pastry and bread oven, with a reversible boiler and grillers on the top. The body of the stove is made of galvanised iron, and the shelves are wrought iron. ”

“ Attention has already been drawn to the importance of thorough ventilation of the kitchens. A cooking stove is much to be preferred to a kitchen range or ordinary kitchener, and may be obtained of any size required, the prices ranging from about £5 upwards. The kitchen should contain either two ‘coppers’ or a gas stove with two boilers, one for boiling water, and the other for making soup. The latter is a convenient arrangement especially where tea and coffee are required at an early hour in the morning. ”

“ Well-constructed stoves made of malleable iron, wrought-iron or steel are usually air-tight, give more evenly-regulated heat, and are altogether better in many respects. Good stoves do not allow the gases and fumes of the coal, or the soot to invade the oven; and the fire-box and oven are protected from undue draughts which would affect the consumption of fuel or the temperature of the oven. No oven can satisfactorily roast and bake unless provided with a reversing damper by which the heat may be directed to the top or bottom of the oven as required. ”

“ The essentials for healthy stove-heat are brick-lined fire-chamber, ventilating or exhaust-flue for foul air, means for supplying moisture, and provision for fresh-air supply. A brick lining is requisite for the double purpose of preventing overheating, and for retaining heat in the stove. For the supply of moisture the means are simple and easy of control, but often inadequate. An efficient foul-air shaft may be fitted to the commonest of close stoves by simply enclosing the smoke-pipe in a jacket—that is, in a pipe of 2 or 3 in. ”

“ These stoves are sometimes a great convenience in places not within reach of gas. No flue is required for their use; and being small they can be easily conveyed from place to place. Cooking on an oil stove may be done 20 per cent, cheaper than by any other means; but unless the wicks are kept well-trimmed and the stoves properly managed, they emit a disagreeable smell and smoke. In a properly constructed stove there is not much danger from explosion, unless a light is, through carelessness, brought in contact with the oil. ”

“ A cheap and very satisfactory drier for use over the kitchen stove can be made by any handy man of small-mesh galvanized-wire netting and laths or strips of wood about 1/2 inch thick and 2 inches wide. By using two laths nailed together the framework can be stiffened and larger trays made if desirable. This form can be suspended from the ceiling over the kitchen range or over a clear burning oil, gasoline, or gas stove, and it will utilize the hot air which rises during the cooking hour. It can be raised out of the way or swung to one side by a pulley or by a crane made of lath. ”

“ The good points of the stove are that it can be made by anybody in a half day's time; it does not smoke the camp, does not black the cooking utensils, gives the maximum amount of heat from the minimum quantity of fuel, and will not give out or go bad unexpectedly in the middle of the winter. If you leave it to me our camp will be equipped with a sheet iron stove. While the stove itself is not now to be considered, we must know before we commence to build what form of heating and cooking apparatus will be installed. ”

“ There is always some soot formed, even in the best-managed stoves, and the flame often carries ashes with it. These in time fill the narrow space about the oven and cut off or check the passage of the hot gases about the oven. When this happens and the oven damper is closed, the stove will smoke and not bake well. No stove should be allowed to get in this condition. The housewife can watch the accumulation of ashes in the stove and remove them before they become one-fourth inch thick. If this is not done, the oven will not heat well and some parts may be considerably cooler than others. ”

“ The heat generated in the stove warms the air in the spiral tube, which accordingly ascends into the room. The ascent of warm air causes a draught from below, and the consequence is, that so long as the combustion is going on, a current of warm air continues to ascend into the room. The products of combustion are carried out of the room by the pipe F. This stove is free from most of the objections appertaining to gas-stoves; it can be fixed into an ordinary fire-place, and made to keep the temperature of a room uniform. ”

“ The best kind of stove is mounted as high as possible so that it may be cleaned underneath. Also it should be set high to avoid fatigue in bending and lifting when using the oven, but not so high that the cook cannot use the hot plate comfortably.
Be sure that no taps are clogged with grease, and remember that when a gas stove smells it is because it is dirty or because the gas is turned on too full and is not being properly consumed, or gas is escaping. Well-managed gas cookers do not smell. ”

“ Owing largely to the strides made in the cycle trade enamelling is stoved by means of gas, and of this a plentiful supply is necessary. Enamelling stoves may really be described as hot-air cupboards or ovens, and for a stove which will answer most requirements—say one of 6 feet by 6 feet by 31/2 feet—six rows of atmospheric burners will be necessary to heat it, while it will be also advisable to fix pipes of 11/4 inch internal diameter from the gas meter to the stove. ”

“ It will take fire if you bring it near a flame, just as alcohol will, but it can't explode. There might be a little danger of its taking fire if you filled it when burning, but nobody would be foolish enough to do that. I meant to tell you that this little stove is another proof to me that our Father pities us in our little troubles, and helps us. I used to have an iron cook-stove, and even with my little work it would heat up everything so. Just as I got all tuckered out with it, I heard of the gasoline stove, but I couldn't afford to get one, for work was rather scarce just then. ”

“ There is often an unnecessarily large amount of heat lost through faulty construction of stoves and lack of judicious use of fuels, which greatly enhances the cost of preparing foods. Ovens are frequently coated with deposits of soot; this causes the heat to be thrown out into the room or lost through the chimney, rather than utilized for heating the oven. In an ordinary cook stove it is estimated that less than 7 per cent of the heat and energy of the fuel is actually employed in bringing about physical and chemical changes incident to cooking. ”

“ A cooking utensil or flat iron can be placed in direct contact with the flame, thus securing full benefit of the heat generated; at the same time not a particle of soot will be deposited upon the utensil. Thus the defects of the old style, yellow flame oil stoves are overcome; there is no soot, no smoke, no offensive odor; perfect combustion is secured and the work is done better, more quickly and at less expense. ”

“ By a distribution so easy to be established, a single stove may supply the place of all the chimnies of a house. Every where inflammable air is ready to diffuse immediately heat and light of the most glowing or most mild nature, simultaneously or separately, according to your wishes. In the twinkling of an eye, you may conduct the flame from one room to another; an advantage equally convenient and economical, and which can never be obtained with our common stoves and chimnies. No sparks, no charcoal, no soot, to trouble you; no ashes, no wood, to soil your apartments. ”

“ Cooking by gas is less heating, and consequently less tiring to the person employed, than cooking by a coal-range. Construction of Gas Stoves.—The oven of a well-constructed gas stove is made either entirely of cellular cast iron and jacketed all over with slag wool, or it is made with a double casing with an intermediate hot-air jacket. This is necessary to prevent heat being conducted from the oven to the surrounding air. The gas-burners are not always inside the oven ”

“ It will be seen, when we say that the entire cooking for a small family having late dinners, bread baked, and much water heated, is done for something under £2 a quarter, that gas as a fuel is not so great an extravagance after all. The stove used has the oven lined with a non-conducting substance, which has the advantage of keeping the heat within instead of sending it into the kitchen, as stoves made only of iron plates are apt to do. ”

“ Ranges set in a solid brick-work are considered the best form of cooking-apparatus; but there are some serious objections to their use, the first being the large amount of fuel required, and then the intense heat thrown out. Even with water in the house, they are not a necessity. A water-back, fully as effectual as the range water-back, can be set in any good stove, and connected with a boiler, large or small, according to the size of the stove; and for such stove, if properly managed, only about half the amount of coal will be needed. ”

“ For Coal Oil or Gasoline.
Code Word “Simplicity.”
A complete family cook stove having five burners, which can be used for cooking, singly or all at the same time. The burners are 31⁄2 inches in diameter and give a powerful blue flame. When used at their full capacity each burner is sufficient for heating two or more cooking vessels. The two step burners are 31⁄2 inches in diameter and can also be used separately for cooking. Together, they give requisite heat for baking in our New Process oven, with which this stove is provided. The oven can be pushed back when not in use. ”

“ The reasons given for failure in any particular point are innumerable, and all cast the burden of blame on the poor, inoffensive stove. There never was such a miserable cooking-stove. The fire won’t burn, or it burns too fiercely; the oven won’t bake at all, or bakes so furiously that everything you trust to it is ruined. It smokes, or the gas escapes, and fills the house with the offensive odors; it burns out more coal in one day than should be used in two; the dampers are useless, or the grate cannot be turned over. ”

“ A cheap form of “German stove” is often made in this country, and used in workshops and small manufactories, where the body of the stove is an upright cylinder, of which the lower part is the ash-pit, closed or opened by a hinged-door, the middle part the fire-place, where the fuel rests on bars, and the upper part a vacant space, which becomes filled with flame, smoke, and heated air, so as to impart great heat to a flat iron plate at the top. There is a door at which the fuel is introduced, and a small flue or funnel of iron pipe, which conveys the smoke into a chimney or into the open air. ”

“ Of paramount importance is, of course, the stove, and what kind it shall be, whether gas, coal, or oil. Those of us who have grown accustomed to the immunity from those inevitable accompaniments of a coal range, ashes, soot, dust, and heat, afforded by the gas range, with its easily regulated broiler and oven, could hardly be persuaded to go back to first principles, as it were, and the coal range. But when this is necessary, either for warmth or because there is no gas connection in the house, one has a wide choice of first-class stoves and can hardly go astray in selecting one. ”