Turn your tiny wood stove into a tiny cookstove with a cast iron cook pot.

Turn your tiny wood stove into a tiny cookstove with a cast iron cook pot.

If you have a wood stove, a trivet and a good heavy cast iron cooking pot with a lid then you have the opportunity to change your woodstove into a cookstove!

cooking on a tiny woodstove

Make a top oven for your wood stove with a cast iron cooking pot and trivet

By placing a trivet inside a cast iron cooking pot you can create a stove top oven. This small capacity type of stove top oven is great for heating up pasties and pies. I placed my Otter ale and steak pie into my cookpot and then lit the stove at about 3 pm. I hope the pie will be piping hot in time for tea at about 5pm.with a slow to moderate running stove.

To increase the heating speed simply remove the trivet from inside the cooking pot, but remember to rotate the pie or pasty from time to time or it may well burn. A lot depends o the burn rate of your stove and weight of your pan. The heavier the pan the longer it will take initially to raise the overall temperature of the cooking pot itself but it will keep the contents warmer for longer. Quality cast iron rather than steel is such a better material to use in both stove making as well as for making cookware. Cast iron retains and distributes the heat much better and for longer than steel and so is a much wiser material to choose when it comes to heating and cooking.

For most effective ‘cooktop oven’ results you want your stove to be running at a nice steady rate whereby everything is heated nice and gradually.  This simple ‘cookpot oven’ technique takes a little practise but once perfected you can cook a whole range of items using this method.

A good tip to increase the inside oven temperature is to insulate the lid using something like oven gloves. Another helpful tool to ascertain a reference on the temperature inside the cook pot oven is to use a magnetic stove thermometer positioned on the side of the pot.

Pot

When living off-grid or simply for the energy conscious who want to be living lightly, making the most of the heat from your woodstove is a no brainer. Not everyone can afford a purpose built small wood cook stove so it is techniques like this, that if practiced and perfected will save both energy and money.

I have found a perfect marriage between a cast iron enamelled cook pot and an enameled trivet which fits perfectly in the bottom of the pot.

These are brilliant items to look for in charity shops and on online auction websites. You can find whole sets of vintage Le Crueset pans for example at excellent prices and these will work brilliantly on woodstoves as they are nice heavy weight design. They also look brilliant hanging up around your stove with their wooden handles and colourful exterior.

 

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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