Cooking on a Wood Stove

Our small wood burning stove is perfect for heating your house or tiny home, but it also functions as a fantastic little culinary appliance! The cast iron construction of our wood burner combined with 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.

We’ve also made a downloadable cook book, which showcases a range of amazing recipes that you can make with the help of your small wood cook stove!

The Benefits of Cooking on a Wood Stove

Cooking over a fire is by far a more natural, sustainable, and environmentally friendly way to prepare your food in comparison to using gas, coal, or electricity from the national grid. Although it is a more gradual process, this is exactly what makes cooking over a fire an incredibly satisfying and rewarding experience.

Along with the enjoyment that comes from the routine of lighting your little stove, using a fire to cook your food provides a temporary escape from the fast-paced nature of modern life, allowing 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 indeed 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 wholesome and fulfilling about lighting a fire and using its warmth to cook your food.

Cooking on a Wood Stove

Things to Bear in Mind: Your Stove Setup

It’s important to consider how much cooking you’re looking to do on your wood burner, as this might affect your choice of stove and how it should be setup. Below, we’ve provided you with 3 simple categories which advise you on what stove to purchase based on how much cooking you’re looking to do on your stovetop.

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 some stovetop 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 accomplish.

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 a hot drink that you can enjoy in the comfort of your own fireplace!

If you want to take your stovetop cooking abilities to the next level, then it’s worth adding the stainless steel cooktop to your stove. This additional option fits a high quality, 4mm thick stainless steel insert into the top of your 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 from any potential abrasion caused by your pans. It’s also removable, which makes it much easier to clean!

Alternatively, if you really want to maximise the cooking potential of your wood burner, then the Little Range Cook Stove is the best option for you, as it’s specifically designed with this purpose in mind.

In contrast to our much smaller Hobbit stove, the Little Range Cook Stove provides a larger surface area to cook on, combined with a built-in oven and 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 that has plenty of charm and character!

Firing Up Your Wood Burner

Before you start cooking, you’re going to need to begin by lighting a fire in the main compartment of your tiny wood stove. If you’ve not lit a fire in your log burner before, then it’s a good idea to light a series of small fires in order to season your stove. On the other hand, if you’ve previously lit a fire inside your stove then you can get stuck in! If you’ve had a lot of use out of your small stove, then you should riddle the ash grate in order to clear a space for your next fire and to improve the airflow. 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, place a few firelighters inside your stove along with some kindling, before lighting your fire and placing any dry logs or briquettes on top.

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
  • Adjusting the secondary and tertiary air controls beneath the footplate of the stove. The control on the left-hand side is for the tertiary air intake, and the control on the right-hand side is for the secondary air intake/airwash control. Lever to the left = minimum air intake. Lever to the right = maximum air intake.

These elements can be adjust to either increase or restrict the flow of air that enters the fireplace, which will affect the burn rate and temperature of your fire.

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 you’ll just need to ensure that the fire is adequately fuelled so that the oven maintains the correct temperature. Once the stove has reached your desired temperature, all you need to do is place your pan on top and get cooking! If your fire burns hotter or starts to diminish, all you need to do is adjust the controls of your stove or to refuel your fire accordingly.

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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If you have any questions or simply want to talk through your options, please give our friendly team a call.

Tel: 01626 363507 | 01626 333230