Wood cookstove

[justwannano]

I've been thinking about building a wood cookstove.
What I want to do is use it for canning outside.
we'd probably store it in a shed and move it to the backyard come canning time.
Anybody got any ideas?
thanks in advance
just

[skeet]

I ain't trying to stop you or anything..but that is a lot of work...canning on a wood stove. If you are using the waterbath canning method it'll work but it takes an awful lot of time. If using a pressure canner it is really hard to regulate the heat so the temps and pressures will stay in the right range. I do can outside in the summer but I use a propane stove. Much easier to keep the heat range right with a pressure canner and it leaves all that unwanted heat outside. BTW we can tomatoes pepper relish(sweet) string beans lima beans..even done some kidney beans beets even done some corn...but it is much cheaper to freeze it...or even buy it canned. We also do about 125 quarts of tomato sauce for spaghetti chili and such things. The tomatoes are for soups etc. We also can applesauce and make jellies and jams. Especially strawberry freezer jam. Best dang stuff on the planet...right next to Black Raspberry jelly. Well maybe that's a tossup!


If ya just haveta use a woodstove for it...try to find an old used one and just use the top if it is burned out. Can usually get them for next to nothing. Make the sides up to suit yourself and the top. We still have our old lard pot that we used to make lard(and cracklins). Ain't nothing like lard to cook in. Shame it is so "bad" for ya

[justwannano]

Thanks for the response

What i am trying to do is reduce the cost of canning to nothing.
The cost of LP has raised $1.00 since our last fill a month ago.
Don't know how much LP is used in canning but I thought if I can make it nothing I'm just that far ahead.Heck it went up 50 cents just yesterday.
We usually use the waterbath method because we can do lots more at one time.
We'll at least do tomatos and salsa and green / wax beans this year. Like to do jelly but my grapes are not producing enough yet.

I guess its probably easier to find wood stoves in Wyoming cause I've never seen one around here for sale. Don't mean they aren't around just they are not plentiful. Maybe in the big woods of northern Minn.
Thanks again for the advice
just

[Lilred]

Um...I dunno iffin ya'll use different terms over yonder, but a cookstove is a cookstove..not just a woodstove..is that how ya mean it? Iffin that's the case...a cookstove is expensive to buy and a cookstove aint really needed fer cannin. Great if yer bakin bread and all that...although some of em have broilers in em...where folks used to heat up water in. It's a seperate box, usually on the side of the stove. Them stoves run about 4g's today..there are some here you can look at:
Cook Stoves
I buy alot from them folks...esp the gallons of parrafin.

If yer just water-bath cannin...you could buy a huge dutch oven and can over a wood fire in a pit. That's how we used to make apple butter and stews and my folks used to water bath can. Shoot, we were more concerned with sittin round the fire all day BS'n and sippin juleps than how long it took the stuff to can or cook.
Course...we're the type to make a hog killin or steer killin an all day event. You worked yer butt off...but Lord was it fun. It's alot easier when ya got help...freinds & family got "paid" by sharin the meat, eatin fresh sausage all day...and a huge supper followed by some pickin & grinnin and more juleps...lol

Anyway, a regular woodstove or the dutch oven is ok...just keep a hot fire (poplar or pine cooks hot and even on cast iron) and you can buy a cheap woodstove fer about 200$ round here. Just make sure they're all cast iron, so it'll distrubute the heat real even. That's all you need.

Good luck! I think I need a julep now...lol

[GoodOlBoy]

There are some plans out there for wood burning cookstoves that involve 55 gallon drums. HOWEVER they don't hold heat in well so they dont direct it up well so they don't cook well. You might want to consider a bar-b-que pit with a flatspot on the firebox, or ever an old coleman camp stove. The bar-b-que pit will still take a LONG time and alot of wood to get water boiling, the camp stove won't take any time at all. We use an old coleman stove. It will go a LONG LOOOONNNG time on very little fuel and do ALOT with it.

my 2 cents.

GoodOlBoy

[skeet]

I just knew you would chime in to this thread. Good ol country gal like you are. Those hog killings and all are sure a lot of work. When a kid i got to stir the lard pot..or dehair the hogs or shave
'em when all the hair was gone. It's all hard work. But you are right. Lotta bs'in goes on at them things. I also saw a lot of cannin bee's with the women sittin round a tabel quilting while the beans or corn or whatever was bein canned was aboilin. Mostly the tenant farmer wives but some of the town folks ladies were involved. Lord they had great piles of jars and all. About 4 of them ladies had summer kitchens with a wood cookstove out in the yard(under cover of course) and that is where the bakin and cannin took place. And man..what gardens them ladies had. Hard workin folks that never had much money...but they were good folks. Always treated us kids real nice...but if ya got outta line..they take a switch to ya in a heartbeat. They also had us kids aworkin when we wanted to be arunnin off. I remember one night after the cannin we all got on a hay wagon and went to the drive in theater. Tractor an all. Musta been 15 kids on that wagon. We saw a John Wayne movie.

As far as makin a place to can..get some cement blocks and make a pit the size of what ya need. Pile them blocks around the side in a retangle with a place in the front to put wood in and get a nice 1/4 inch piece of sheet steel. Put across the top and you have a fire pit just made for canning or even cookin. Keep the sheet steel indoors and grease it lightly with bacon grease er lard..or if necessary Crisco. Not much just a little. When ya need to use it again..just clean her off and go to town. You can even put a stove pipe in the cement block part to take the smoke away. Couple of farms had them made up and the women folk did a lot of cookin in the summer out on 'em. BTW..make it bigger than ya think you're gonna need it!

[GoodOlBoy]

Yeah my great grandmother had a cannin house my great grandfather built her under a giant olld oak tree in the back yard. It was about 10' square and had a wood burnin cookstove in it. He screened it in for her and she canned a many a item out there. They were on well water and he mounted an old sink outside the front door of the cannin house for her to get water so she wouldn't have to walk all the way back and pack water.

GoodOlBoy

[skeet]

Hand pump??

[GoodOlBoy]

Actually no. It had an old electric pump at the well. Basically the well would fill a container which then ran water out to the lines

GoodOLBoy