Re: wood cookstoves/canning/etc.
Posted by: dhaley <dhaley@...>
the follow up posts.
I have lived with the cookstoves too...hope to SOON have my woodcookstove
installed in my current house. I would agree it's just way to hot to fire
up the woodstove to can in the summer. Especially when we lived in TN.
I guess about this time of year I remind folks on the list of the outdoor
water bath canner our Amish friends used. I still plan to make one someday.
I've helped them can with this just have never had one of my own.
You take a 50 gallon metal oil drum. Cut the thing in half. This will
leave you with two sections that look like cups when set on their bottoms.
Take the section with the bung hole and turn it so that it looks like a
round table sitting on the ground. Cut out two holes directly across from
each other. One hole should be small, about the size of a tuna can. The
other hole needs to be large enough for you to build a fire and be able to
feed that fire through the hole but no so big you under mind the stability
of the whole structure. You have just now created a cooking surface that it
wood fired. The tuna size hole is your draft. Now take the other half of
the barrel. It should be water tight. Set it on it's bottom. Solid top
surface meeting bottom surface. Fill the top with water and get a good fire
going underneath. When the water is boiling keep the fire regularly
stocked. You will be able to water bath outside all day without have to
dump canner loads of water. You will want to have an extra lifter though.
You will be able to put about 12-15 jars in at a time, help lifting is
beneficial. If you move your "stove" to a shaded area you can sit the
picnic table nearby and throw towels on the table. A nice clean surface
ready to set your just canned produce to cool...Deanna