How to Cook on a Small Wood Stove

Pan

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.

Fire

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

Fire

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

Fire

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 Cook Stove

Fire

Alternatively, if you really want to maximise the cooking potential of your wood burner, then look no further than our Little Range Cook Stove! 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
  • Opening or closing the bottom door to your stove
  • Burning more fuel
  • Setting the vent at the back of the stove to either the open or closed position

You can also watch a video on how to light your little stove here, and you can click here to see how to refuel it as well.

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.

Stove top

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.

Even after your fire has burnt out you can still continue cooking! You could always wrap some potatoes in foil and place them in the hot ashes and flickering embers of your fire, resulting in some delicious wood-fired jacket potatoes! Our Salamander cook pots are fantastic for cooking, and they’ll also keep your food nice and hot even after your fire has burnt out.

Pot

Small Stove Review 9

Our Hobbit Stove Has Been Fitted!

"We had a Hobbit stove fitted this week by Alex Reay from Flues and Fires, and I just wanted to get in touch to say it is AMAZING and we love it! We have a lovely cast iron tiled fireplace which I was desperate not to lose when we installed a small wood burning stove, but until I found the Hobbit on Google, everyone told me it would be impossible to keep the fire surround. The Hobbit is perfect - not only does it fit very snugly, but it looks fantastic and the blue door complements the tiles very nicely. We are sitting enjoying a fire now and absolutely loving it! Thanks for creating such an amazing product."

Nicola Williams

Small Stove Review 10

The Best Stove Ever!

"It’s the best stove ever! It’s easy to light, very efficient, burns anthracite and stays in overnight (ours has been in for three weeks now). It even keeps a kettle of water at the ready for a cuppa! What more can I say, we love it! Just the thing to make our Yorkshire home cosy, and the cat loves it too!"

Lynn and Andrew, West Yorkshire

small stove review 16

First Small Stove Installation

Was looking for a small stove for my first self-install. Found Mark very helpful. Knowledgeable, friendly service. Stove burns well and generates lots more heat than the previous open fire. What is not to like?

Sam

Small Stove Review 15

A Huge Thank You!

"Dear Mark and Gill, a huge thank you for designing and making the Hobbit stove! We had two different London-based fireplace companies tell us that we simply had to knock out the old cast iron and tile fireplace to fit in a woodburning stove, and that there was no other option! Then we found you online. We are delighted with our little Hobbit, which swallows up logs and kicks out a good amount of heat. Perfect for the winter! I will also be writing to the London-based fireplace companies to put the Hobbit on their radar. Best wishes."

Nat

Small Stove Review 14

Delighted With Our Hobbit Stove!

"Mark, Gill, thank you for your assistance, we are delighted with our Hobbit! I fired it up this evening after taking all afternoon making a register plate to fit the opening."

Alan

Small Stove Review 5

It's Brilliant!

"Hi Mark, here's a photo of the Hobbit installed in my Yorkist grate. It’s brilliant! It also throws out a lot more heat than the grate did."

Roger T

Small Stove Review 3

Just to Say Thank You!

"I just had a chat with Gill saying how delighted we are with our little Hobbit stove, and to also thank you both for your attention to detail and excellent customer service!"

Derrick

Small Stove Review 4

The Little Hobbit Has Stepped Up To The Challenge!

"We just wanted to say how impressed and how much of a life saver our little Hobbit has been! It was fitted a few months ago in our holiday home in Rhu, Scotland, which is a large open plan conversion in a Victorian house. This weekend our boiler decided it was not going to play ball. The little Hobbit has stepped up to the challenge, providing heat to a very large area, about twenty eight foot by twenty four foot with a high ceiling of about eighteen foot, keeping the room reasonably warm, warm enough for us not to use cardigans!”

Alan W

Small Stove Review 8

Very Pleased With Our Hobbit!

"We are very pleased with the stove and think it looks great! We restored our fireplace (it was hidden under plaster!) and the whole look is better than we hoped!"

Neil

Small Stove Review 2

Absolutely Delighted!

"Just had our Hobbit SE installed in our Victorian fireplace and we are absolutely delighted with the end result. We felt passionate about preserving our lovely fireplace!"

Andy

Small Stove Review 13

Our Pride And Joy!

"What a fantastic fireplace with the beautiful Hobbit stove. It fits perfectly into the small space and throws out a lot of heat. Here's a photo of our little stove, now our pride and joy and much admired by all who see and feel the warmth."

Chris and C

Small Stove Review 11

Fantastic!

"Just to bid you all a Happy New Year and to say how much we’re enjoying having our Hobbit stove! It was easy to fit with the help of your excellent ‘how to’ videos and we’re just awaiting our inspection by building control for the certification. The Hobbit has fitted neatly into the hearth vacated by the old gas back boiler (with a little cosmetic rendering) and never ceases to surprise us how much heat it can deliver to the point that the new condenser boiler is having an easy life, thereby saving us on gas bills too! Everyone loves having a ‘real fire’ in the living room."

Philip Baird

Small Stove Review 6

A Brilliant Little Wood Burner!

"The stove we bought from you is really starting to come into its own as the weather cools down. Here is a photo showing how much one of our dogs is enjoying it!"

Small Stove Review 1

Brilliant Product!

"Just wanted to share a picture of our newly installed Hobbit. Absolutely delighted with it, and so pleased we were able to retain our existing fireplace as well. Brilliant product, thank you!"

Marion

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Tel: 01626 363507 | 01626 333230