How To Cook On A Small Wood Stove
Our small wood burning stove is perfect for heating your house or your tiny home, but it also functions as a fantastic little culinary appliance! The cast iron construction of our tiny wood burner and the ability to control the burn rate of your fire means that you’re able to cook a wide range of food, right on your stovetop.
Cooking over a wood fire is a much more natural, sustainable, and environmentally friendly way to cook your food in comparison to using gas, coal, or electricity from the national grid. Although it can take a little while for your tiny wood burner to heat up, this is exactly what makes cooking on a wood stove such a satisfying and rewarding experience!
Along with the routine enjoyment that comes from lighting your miniature stove, using a fire to cook your food provides a temporary escape from the fast-paced nature of modern life. It allows you to stop, slow down, and take a real sense of pride, care, and enjoyment when it comes to preparing your food.
A wood burning stove can also be used entirely off-grid, which means that you can cook in the kitchen or any other room, cabin, or vehicle, without having to install a gas or electricity supply! A glowing hot fire has been used for warmth and cooking for hundreds of thousands of years, and there will always be something deeply fulfilling when it comes to lighting a fire and using its warmth to cook your food.
Things to Bare in Mind: Your Stove Setup
It’s important to consider how much cooking you’re looking to do on your mini log burner, as this might affect your choice of stove and how it should be setup.
We’ve provided you with 3 simple categories below which will advise you on what stove to purchase based on how much wood-fired cooking you’re looking to accomplish.
With any of these options, it’s worth thinking about where your stove is going to be installed and how your flue system will need to be arranged – if you’re able to have your flue exiting from the rear of the stove then this will free up more space for wood-fired cooking!
A different stove might be more suited to you depending on where it’s going to be installed and how much cooking you’re looking to do on your stovetop.
1) Low – Standard Hobbit or Hobbit SE
A standard Hobbit stove or Hobbit SE is great for boiling a kettle or heating any type of pan. Whether you want to make a cup of tea or a hot chocolate by the fire, a slowly cooked stew for dinner or a fry-up in the morning, our tiny wood burner is more than capable of delivering a delicious meal or hot drink that you can enjoy right in front of your own fireplace!
2) Medium – A Standard Hobbit or Hobbit SE fitted with a Stainless Steel Cooktop
If you want to take your stovetop cooking abilities to the next level, then it’s worth adding the stainless steel cooktop to your small stove! This additional option fits a high quality, 4mm thick stainless steel insert into the top of your miniature log burner, which provides a range of temperatures for you to cook with.
Our stainless steel cooktop is intelligently designed to channel the flue gases to heat one specific corner of your cooktop, which allows you to cook food faster or slower depending on the placement of your pan. Plus, it helps to prevent your stovetop from getting scratched over time due to any potential abrasion caused by your pans, and it’s also removable which makes it much easier to clean!
3) High – The Little Range Cookstove
Alternatively, if you really want to maximise the cooking potential of your wood burner, then look no further than our Little Range Cookstove! This stove is the best option for getting stuck into some serious wood-fired cooking, as it’s specifically designed with this in mind.
In contrast to our much smaller Hobbit stove, the Little Range has a larger surface area to cook on as well as a built-in oven. You even have the ability to fit a splashback and a rail, where you can hang your pots, pans, and any other cooking utensils! The Little Range Cook Stove offers a wealth of features that are housed within a compact, high quality package which has plenty of charm and character!
Getting Started: Firing Up Your Wood Burner
Before you begin cooking, you’re going to need to start by lighting a fire in the main compartment of your tiny wood stove. If you’ve not lit a fire in your little log burner before, then it’s a good idea to light a series of small fires in order to season your stove. If your stove has already received a good amount of use, then you can get stuck in!
Riddling the ash grate will help to clear a space for your fire and will improve the airflow, but you should still try to keep a good bed of ashes in the firebox, as this will help to maintain a higher stove temperature and will provide a cleaner and more consistent burn.
Next, you can place a few firelighters inside your stove along with some kindling. Then you can light your fire and place a couple dry logs or briquettes on top! Leaving the bottom door open for a bit will help your fuel to catch, and then you can shut the door and close the airflow wheel more to allow your fuel to burn more slowly and steadily.
You can alter the temperature of your Hobbit stove by:
- Adjusting the airflow wheel, secondary air and tertiary air
- Opening or closing the bottom door to your stove
- Burning more or less fuel
Controlling the temperature of your fire is made easier with the Little Range Cook Stove, as it has a built in thermometer within the oven door, as well as a lever on the top of the stove which can be used to regulate how hot the oven gets.
If you’re going to be using the oven for quite a while then it’s worth ensuring that your fire is adequately fuelled. This way the oven will stay at your desired temperature. Once the stove has fully heated up, all you need to do is load up the oven, place your pan on top, and get cooking! If your fire burns hotter or starts to diminish, you’ll just need to adjust the controls on your stove or refuel your fire accordingly.
