weblife.org video :: episode 01 :: full text
transcribed by hannah joy ~

alternative cooking techniques

how to build a rocket stove

and an introduction to solar cooking

vavrek

today i am going to show you how to make a rocket stove.

with a rocket stove you will be able to cook a full meal just with a handful of twigs,  sticks that  you can find anywhere, any kind of debris paper, you name it, if it burns it can cook your meal.

first of all, the most important item is this can right here.  

it's about a five gallon can.  

i picked this up at a japanese food restaurant near by.

the second item you are going to need is some stove pipe.  

this is 4 inch stove pipe.  

the stove pipe is 4 inches across.

you'll need a straight long piece and an elbow piece.  

and you will need one tin can.

now lets talk about what tools you need.  

first of all most importantly,  you are going to need a set of gloves.

some kind of leather glove,  something to protect your hands,  because we are going to be cutting steel and it is very sharp and it's very dangerous.  

i have cut myself a number of times working with these things.

you are going to need a pencil, a knife, a serrated edge knife.  

i like the kind of knife that has very tight edges here,  because they cut through the tin much easier.

you are going to need a chisel to start your holes,  and one of the most important tools, this is a tin snip, or metal cutters.

you need a hammer and a brush to clean up with.

before i begin making it i want to let you know where i found out how to do this.

this is 'Capturing Heat'.  

it's released by Aprovecho Research Center (aprovecho.net) and inside of it there are plans for a Winiarski Rocket Stove.

the first thing you are going to want to do is take your pencil and draw outlines of where we are going to make the cuts.

take your elbow and pick a side of the rocket stove that is going to be the front.

it doesn't really matter because usually they are all the same size.

so, you just pick a side and plan out where you are going to cut the hole.

you want the hole to be about an inch or so away from the bottom.

you don't want it to low or else it will get the bottom really hot when it cooks and you don't want it too high because you want the maximum amount of space to go for the chimney.

so, it doesn't really matter exactly where but i am going to pick about an inch, maybe about there, just because it fits in with this nice little box here and i am going to draw a circle all the way round it.

we have a faint circle.

now you'll need the hammer and chisel to begin the hole.

once the hole is created, you take your tin snips, get them in there, and you start to cut around the line you just made.

it's good to actually be on the inside of the circle a little bit, so that way it is tight enough to hold the stove pipe.

the first hole has been cut.

the other important thing is that your can needs to have a lid.

the lid is actually important to hold the top part,  the chimney.

one thing which you are going to need for this, which i forgot to mention, is a file.

take your file and go along the edges of the can wearing down all the points / sharp edges.

so, take your long piece of stove pipe. get your measuring tape.

as you'll notice there is two sides. the crimped side and the non crimped side.

from the crimped side you want to measure 4 inches take your pencil and make a mark.

take something straight and continue that mark all the way around.

you can just eye it, it doesn't have to be exact, all the way round the pipe.

open up your pipe and take your tin snips and cut all the way around it.

as my wife just mentioned, wear your gloves!

it helps to lift this side up as you cut it.

with your piece cut snap it all together, like so.

so, you have a small round piece. 

take your file and go round the edges again.

get the edge smooth and safe and test it to see if it fits inside the hole.

just take a little off the edges if it is too tight there we go, fits in rather snug, perfect!

and there you have the opening to the rocket stove.

the 4 inch piece of stove pipe is inserted into the can with the crimped edge towards the inside.

the elbow goes over the top of it with the crimped side coming up.

the next step after you have your elbow in place, is you measure out  5 inches of the long stove pipe to cut, and just like before, you go around the whole length of stove pipe.

and then again take your tin snips and cut.

and once again...wear your gloves!

once the piece is cut, snap it together. 

take your file and file the edge.

once this piece is finished take out your elbow and fit it over the top of the crimped edge.

with the full stove pipe in place you can se that it rests about an inch below the top of the can.

with this kind of lid that goes over the top of it like this...

what we are going to have to do is cut the outside edge off.

you'll need to take one of your pieces of stove pipe out.

in this case i am going to use the front of the elbow.

you lay it down on top of  the lid in the center and draw a circle around the edge.

in our case there is already a circle here.

once again we take our chisel and hammer and start the hole.

once you have the hole you take your tin snips put them in and cut around it.

once you have cut your hole take your stove pipe and make sure that it fits around it.

now that you know it fits take it off put the stove pipe back in.

now that the rocket stove is basically put together, you have to fill the inside with ashes which acts as an insulator.

it keeps the heat in so it doesn't burn up the can.

it also cause heat to build up inside the stove pipe which causes air to rise very quickly.

which is why it is called a rocket stove because it pulls air through the chamber like a rocket.

take your ashes and pour them all around the stove pipe on the inside of the can.

now that you have your rocket stove filled with ashes, take the lid that you cut out and put it in on top to hold the ashes in.

the lid sits on top holding the ashes and the heat in.

one thing we need now is a small platform, a piece of metal, that is going to sit in this entry here, and that is what your tin can is for.

i am going to open up both sides.

with both sides open you cut it down the middle and open it up.

you take a tape measure and measure 4 inches.

you want to leave a little bit on both sides so that it will fit in but won't go completely through.

what you are doing is creating a platform which will hold the sticks over the top of an airhole that will allow air in through the bottom.

so you cut it up a bit and leave basically a little wing on each side.

doesn't have to be too big and you just cut it off a little bit.

leaving about an inch on each side.

so it ends up looking something like this.

once you have your piece ready made from the tin can, you put it in the hole.

you'll need to find yourself a piece of grate, something like this, or a couple of strips of metal to sit on top and to hold your pot.

let's fire it up!

whatever pot you use to cook on this is going to get totally black.

so, i store them in paper bags so they don't blacken everything around them.

i've given up washing them.
to light a rocket stove you need some kind of paper, some matches or some way to ignite this, could be a bow drill.

you take your paper and you put it under the platform we just made.

you take your twigs, 

just little sticks that you find anywhere and you put them in on the top.

it's good to have your pot sit at the side not directly over the chimney,  so that when you light it up, it gets a good draft and pulls the air up.

once it really ignites, once it really starts going, then you can move your pot over the flame.

sometimes to get it going you might want to blow on it a little bit.

so, there you have a very focused flame exactly where you want it, right to your pot. 

so, push your pot over the flame.

i find that this works better or as good as any household stove.

you can actually boil things faster because you get a greater flame and if you forget about it, if you forget that you are cooking something, it goes out by itself.

right now the flame is a bit high, you really wouldn't want to burn it this high all the time.

it generally doesn't smoke this bad.

i am going to let it burn down a little a bit.

as the twigs burn down you just push them in.

whenever you are boiling something it is much faster if you use a lid on your pots.

~

as a side note, i wanted to show you a solar cooker that i recently bought from Solar Cookers International, online.

solarcookers.org

this is called a Sun Toy. 

basically it is a large reflector that concentrates the heat on a black pot.

it opens up like this. 

these clothes line pins hold it together here on the bottom.

you put 2 little blocks, pieces of wood, like this, to hold your pot.

you need a black pot, something that is thin and light.

cast iron takes a long time to heat up and doesn't work very efficiently.

so you take your food and you put it in here.

you take a plastic bag that comes with the kit, or you can pick them up at grocery stores as oven roasting bags.

you put your food inside the pot and inside of the bag.

you set it here and the bag pulls through one of these tiny holes in the reflector.

if you put your food in here on a nice sunny day, let it sit for a few hours, it cooks up without any energy at all, except for the sun.. 

not bad. :)

this concludes our first segment of alternative cooking techniques for weblife.org.

hopefully we will be able to bring you more videos to share the information, teach you what we know, and maybe, you can teach us what you know.

take care.