How to Cook on a Wood Burning Stove: Tips for Small Spaces
Our small wood burning stoves are perfect for heating your house or your tiny home, but they also functions as a fantastic little culinary appliance! The cast iron construction of our tiny wood burners 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. Learning how to cook on a small wood burning stove couldn’t be easier!
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.
How to cook on a small wood stove: your stove setup
It’s important to consider how much you are going to cook on your small wood burning stove, as this might affect your choice of stove and how it should be setup. We’ve provided you with 3 stove cooking options 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 stovetop space.
The Hobbit or Hobbit SE
- Multi fuel stove: allowing you to burn kiln dried wood, smokeless coal or briquettes
- Cast iron stovetop: brilliant for boiling a kettle or heating any type of pan
- Evenly distributed heat: the high quality cast iron construction ensures an even cook
- Rear exit option: invest in a Rear Flue Wedge to gain the full stovetop for cooking
- Extended hotplate: opt for the removable cast iron Extended Hotplate to double the amount of stove top space
- Ideal for boiling, frying, simmering, and slow cooking
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
The Hobbit or Hobbit SE fitted with a Stainless Steel Cooktop
- Fantastic cooking option: fitted in house, the Stainless Steel Cooktop is made of a 4mm thick stainless steel insert
- Range of cooking temperatures: 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
- The wood fired cooking enthusiast: it helps to prevent your stovetop from getting scratched over time due to any potential abrasion caused by your pans if you are planning on doing lots of stove top cooking
- Removable: it’s also removable which makes it much easier to clean!
The Little Range Cookstove
Alternatively, if you really want to maximise the potential to cook on your small wood burning stove, 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.
- Cooking potential: The Little Range has a large stainless steel cook top and a built in oven
- Easy to use: with an inset temperature gauge and an oven control lever, the Range is very user friendly
- Even cooking: due to the high quality design and evenly distributed heat, the oven is able to cook anything from a crusty load of bread to a whole roast chicken evenly and thoroughly
- Optional extras: we have a range of extras such as a splashback and rail, side boiler, coal bars, heatshields and direct air!
Controlling the temperature of your fire is made easier with The Little Range Cook Stove, as it has a built in temperature gauge within the oven door, as well as the oven control lever on the top of the stove which can be used to regulate how hot the oven gets. We suggest setting the lever at 0 when you light the fire to allow the flue gases to heat up and for your fire to get nice and hot, then set the lever to your desired setting around 20 minutes after the fire has been lit.
How to cook on a small wood stove: firing up your stove
Before you cook on your small wood burning stove,, you’re going to need to start by lighting a fire in the main compartment of your small 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 to. 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. Once your fire is established, cook on your small wood burning stove!
