[Stoves] Cooking by conduction - plancha stoves

[Miranda, Rogerio]

Kevin:

When I was living in Brazil, at my home there every day my cook Lucia
used the Ecostove to prepare our meals. There usually I had 6 to 7
people for lunch.

While I was in Nicaragua, one day we invited 30 people from NGO's for a
demonstration, and our cook there Luiza cooked rice, beans(with pressure
cooker), fried platanos and meat in one in a half hour for this big
crow.

With the Ecostove in general does not matter how many dishes or how many
people are you feeding, because once the griddle is hot it accommodates
small or larger families easily, given that it has a wide cooking
surface (56 x 56 cm griddle). So, of course as much you cook using the
griddle surface, more efficient the Ecostove will be at the end of the
day.

Rogerio

-----Original Message-----
From: Kevin Chisholm [mailto:kchisholm at ca.inter.net] 
Sent: Friday, June 16, 2006 11:21 AM
To: Miranda, Rogerio; STOVES at LISTSERV.REPP.ORG
Cc: Josh Heyne; Marlyng G. Buitrago Santamaria; Sebastian Africano
Subject: Re: [Stoves] Cooking by conduction - plancha stoves

Dear Rogerio
...del...

Thanks very much for your information on cooking temperatures for
Tortillas.

You mention that teh Ecostove requires less than 2 kG of wood to prepare
a 
meal of 3 to 4 dishes in less than an hour. How many people would this
meal 
feed?

More particularily, I am interested in getting a general perspective on
"How 
much fuel wood is required to prepare a meal?"

This would be a very practical way to  compare "real world stoves."

Best wishes,

Kevin

>To cook tortillas you need around 200 C to cook it well. To test a
stove
to see if it is hot enough for tortillas, throw drops of water on it,
and the water should jump and evaporated immediately, that is when you
are about 200C.



> As for real cooking the Ecostove reaches between 350 to 500 C on the
center, while goes down to 200 on the edges. If you have 400 C, you
should be Ok, 500C usually is overheating, which is not good for the
griddle in the long time.



> The trick with the Ecostove is that you should have all your pots on
top
of it, pre heating, while the main dish being cooked on the hottest
spot. Usually the Ecostove can deliver a meal of 3 to four dishes in
less than an hour with 2 kg or less of wood.



Rogerio