[Stoves] Cooking by conduction - plancha stoves

[Kevin Chisholm]

Dear Rogerio and Sebastian

So, basically what you are saying is that it is hopeless to try and compare 
stove performance, and to get an indication of the heat  energy required to 
cook a meal. You seem to be saying that it is a hopeless issue, and that it 
is not possible to get a reasonable indication of how various stoves perform 
in a similar situation. You seem to be bringing up exceptions and obstacles, 
rather than looking for a way to find a solution.

I would suggest that any stove that is capable of cooking a meal for 30 
people is inappropriate for a small family. The Ecostove seems to be more of 
a commercial cooker or "small institutional" cooker, rather than a Family 
Cooker. Obviously, if it is big and fast enough for a commercial or small 
institutional application, it is oversized for a small family application.

Obviously, if there were "good guidelines" for how much biomass was required 
to good various foodstuffs, this would be a great help in determination if 
one stove system was better for a given application than another.

What about basic guidelines, such as
"A serving of Food "A" requires "X" grams of biomass"

for various foods. Obviously, these numbers would vary as quantities 
prepared at one time varied. Perhaps there could be several classes:
Single Family
Small Institutional
Commercial
Other?

It is not helpful to simply shrug our shoulders and say "It can't be done."

Best wishes,

Kevin


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Sebastian Africano" <seburbanismo at yahoo.com>
To: "Miranda, Rogerio" <RMiranda at winrock.org>; "Kevin Chisholm" 
<kchisholm at ca.inter.net>; <STOVES at LISTSERV.REPP.ORG>
Cc: "Josh Heyne" <heynejos at gmail.com>; "Marlyng G. Buitrago Santamaria" 
<mbprolena at hotmail.com>; "Sebastian Africano" <seburbanismo at yahoo.com>
Sent: Friday, June 16, 2006 4:54 PM
Subject: RE: [Stoves] Cooking by conduction - plancha stoves


> Greetings - this is Sebastian from Honduras.
>
>  All these numbers also depend greatly on the type of firewood used and 
> the state it´s in when used (girth, dampness, etc...), as well as the type 
> of food cooked.  There are so so many variables that we can´t just tack 
> numbers together for a fuel:food ratio.  One example, we have 2 ladies 
> that cart an EcoStove around in their pickup truck and sell pupusas on 
> street corners(a stuffed tortilla treat, directly on the plancha).  From 
> the time they spark the match, they´ve sold their first pupusas in 10 
> minutes.
>
>  With pots, heat transfer does take longer - you have to get the plancha 
> up to a high temperature before it can transfer heat adequately.  But once 
> it´s up to temp, you can keep pots of food hot for an hour, and warm for 2 
> hours with just the coals from the fire.  Even better, you can dry your 
> wood on the warm griddle overnight to use the next morning.  Frying isn´t 
> a problem in flat bottom pots and pans, but ladies that fry food for sale 
> typically do it in a round-bottom, wok style pot, that doesn´t work at all 
> with planchas.  There I would recommend another model which exposes the 
> pot to the flame.
>
>  With the Rocket Plancha stoves, I´ve cooked a large pot of hearty 
> vegetable soup with tortillas on the side using pine cones, corn cobs and 
> coconut husks as fuel - probably as 60% of the fuel mix, with wood making 
> up the other 40%.  If we can get people to cook in this way, the answer to 
> the fuel:food question would be, "not much firewood at all..."
>
>  The ticket, as Rogerio mentions, is using the plancha as a complete 
> tool - cooking on the hot spot and preheating or maintaining foods hot on 
> the rest of the plancha.  Boil your rice, then slide it to the back to 
> simmer.  People here cook a huge pot of beans for the week, and then they 
> only have to reheat them, which doesn´t take long at all.  Many folks cook 
> a big pot of corn daily for the next days´ tortillas, but will typically 
> put it on after dinner, when the plancha has been heated all day.  Since 
> the custom here is to keep a stove lit from 6 - 16 hours straight, a 
> plancha stove remains the healthiest and most economic option for cooking 
> lots of food over long periods of time.
>
>  All the best,
>
>  Sebastian
>
>
>
> "Miranda, Rogerio" <RMiranda at winrock.org> wrote:
>  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
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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