Keeping the Home Fires Burning

I love my cookstove.   I realize not everyone has a dusty, black cookstove these days.  It’s just part of my landscape that I don’t notice much, but it is something people yearn for and are curious about.  Before I get all nostalgic on you though, I’ll admit it is work, although work of the meaningful kind.  So I’ll sprinkle some work in this post too.

In the winter, my day starts by lighting the fire, to cook breakfast and to drive the chill out of the house.  We heat exclusively with wood.  I build the fire, and scoot the cast iron pans from the right side of the stove where they live to the left side, so the pans can heat up as the stove top does.  Building a fire in the cookstove is noisy.  Comforting if you’re in bed waiting for someone else to light the fire, and crucial if you’re the one building the fire.   First the lids rattle and scrape as you open the stove to begin.  Then the scritching as you scratch the ashes off the grates with the poker to let in air for the fire to be.   The fire needs air to get going, so you slide the side draft open with a small bang, the oven damper will clunk when you open it, and the check draft in the pipe makes a tinny sound as you close it.  All this before you even lay in the fire, and all this that takes several sentences to describe, happens with a few flicks of the wrist, while you’re assessing  the woodbox.  Kindling?  Hopefully an odd assortment of sizes for a good tinder pile?  Maybe.  Or maybe a trip to the chopping block.

Throughout the year we make wood, dead or diseased trees and storm damage make up our wood supply.  It all gets stacked for curing in the woodshed which is the twin shed to the feeding shed at the hay barn.  As we stoke the furnace fire we keep an eye out for pieces of wood that would be good for kitchen wood.  This piece of Douglas Fir Pseudotsuga menzeisii is perfect for the kitchen stove.  A little bit of pitch on one side which is good for kindling for many fires, and  it looks to be easy splitting.

Only one knot to split around, but otherwise clear.  This piece could go into the furnace as is, but it will go further as kitchen wood, yielding enough pitchy kindling for a week’s worth of fires and enough wood to cook a meal.

Using an axe, I begin by breaking it down into smaller pieces, splitting on either side of the knot in the center.  Whack, whack.

That’s the process, I just keep splitting the wood  into smaller and smaller pieces to isolate the pitch, and to make odd size pieces of firewood.  You don’t want perfection in your wood, the more angles, the better the fire will burn.  This is for hot cooking so I want the angles.  If I were just keeping the fire at a simmer I would use rounds which make a slow, simmering fire, perfect for stews and soups.  Hot fire, more work, slow fire, less work.

The piece with the knot will end up in the furnace, it’s still too big for the cookstove firebox, but will be perfect for starting a fire in the furnace, as a middling piece on top of kindling.

A small armload of wood and kindling for the woodbox.  It takes about 5 minutes to split this maybe, if you’re dawdling.  Most days while I am waiting for the furnace fire to take, I split kitchen wood and set it aside.  I don’t time myself, I just do it.

To start the fire, the first order of business is to clean the grates of ash.  If you’re the lucky one listening from upstairs, you hear the distinct sound of cast iron on cast iron as the lids are removed.

Usually I use the lid lifter to scrape the ash away from the grooves. This part is important, air needs to flow from the side draft positioned below the grates up through the wood to get the fire going.  Scrape, scrape all three grooves, more fire sounds.

If I’m particularly anal retentive, I use the grate turner and turn the grates to clean off all the ash.  That really makes a clunk like a some kind heavy safe door.

Nice and clean.

Slide open the draft.  It has a little squeak and thud.

Next open the oven damper on the right, and close the check draft on the left.  Essentially this gives the fire enough air to start properly, by pulling the air from the side draft beneath up through the wood, over the oven and up the chimney.  You need a good draw to pull the smoke and heat up the chimney.  (I told you it was black and dusty, just pretend this is some Italian farmhouse kitchen…)

I love pieces like this where the wood is splintered from splitting.  Before this goes in the fire I pull off every small piece I can for future fire starting.  It’s like free kindling I didn’t have to chop.

To start the fire, I remove the lids and connector piece over the firebox, and wad up several pieces of newspaper (not the slick ads, they contain too much clay and make too much ash) and starting with maybe one piece of kindling with pitch and several small plain pieces I lay them in criss-cross fashion with gradually larger pieces of wood.  Smaller sharp-edged wood starts better than round edges.

Then I light the fire, replace the lids as the fire begins to crackle.

You can see the fire being pulled to the right in this view.  I don’t look at the fire so much as I listen.  It will crackle and pop but when it threatens to roar, I close the oven damper.  At that time the stovepipe should be quite warm to the touch, signifying you need to close that damper.  I wait a few minutes and open the check draft on the stove-pipe.  A check draft is just what the name implies – it is checking or slowing down the updraft in the flue.

We use our cookstove as a heating source too, the oven door is usually open allowing the heat to escape into the room unless I am cooking.  And unless you really want to buy or cut lots of firewood I would recommend keeping the oven damper closed whether you baking or not.  With it open you are just sending all that heat up the chimney and to the outside.

Cooking with wood is a much art as science,  the fire can be very hot, but I rarely burn anything on the woodstove, and I like the dance of the pans and kettles.  When you need to adjust the heat you move the pan, not a dial.

Remember keep the ashes off of your oven, your lid lifter away from the heat, and your hot pads handy!

So much for spring…