Cookin' With Coal

Found a recipe that let me experiment with the "pie shelf" that comes with many of these old ranges.

With the firebox on the side feeding heat over the top of the oven first, the top area of the oven can be as much as 75 - 100 F hotter than the floor of the oven.

Just happened to see a Your Tube video of how to make an easy pizza crust with just two ingredients and about ten minutes of mixing/kneading the dough. No waiting for it to rise, either. Fresh made pizza in about a half an hour.

Uses a cup of plain Greek yogurt mixed with 1 to 1-1/4 cups of self-rising flour. There's a bunch of videos on Your Tube if you use the search, "two ingredient pizza dough". The dough rolled out nice and even and not the thick/thin rubber-band stretchiness of the store-bought pizza dough we've tried and had such trouble getting it a uniform shape and thickness.

It needs at least 400F and most of the recipes suggest 450F. I decided to go with 450F so it wouldn't risk being soggy.

Rather than crank up the firebox so hot and get the kitchen to hot ( it was 60F outside when I baked this), I shut off the water tank dampers to send all the heat to the oven and have the tank end work more as a heat shield. Then use just the top area of the oven, rather than try to get the lower section up to that temp - a difference of about 50F.

To get more heat up into the oven top, I took out the half sheet baking try we leave in the oven bottom as a drip pan, and the left side oven baffle I made that evens out the oven left verse right side temps much better (thanks again to Randy's (Photog200) for that suggestion). I put in the pie shelf and an oven thermometer and ran a test. Sure enough, with in a half hour the temp was 450-ish on the shelf.

The pizza turned out great. One cup yogurt to one and a quarter cups flour gave me a nice thick crust pizza in a 12 inch rough pizza pan.

Worried the I might burn it (I'm really good at that ) I only put it in for about 13 minutes turning it 180degrees about halfway through that time. Could have gone a few minutes more to get the crust a bit crisper, but still, it was good.

I don't bake pies, so after 14 seasons, I finally have a use for the pie shelf with the pretty designs.

Enjoy

in the 19th century it was common practice to separate the kitchen and the house, by "Breezeway" to keep the kitchen from making the house too hot, this was more uniformly practiced in the southern states, but almost never done in upstate NY or New England

Gotta luv the slow low steady heat of coal.

Momma milk cow is given us enuf milk that this is the 3rd 5 gallon batch in a week. Yup its 70+ outside and lit fire just to make cheese.

Hey Paul.... look what I found today

Gee, the nickeled rails for a 1903 Sunny Glenwood range. Looks like there's even a water reservoir rail, too. I think I know someone with a stove just like that.

Paul

I have them set aside if you want them

D.lapan wrote: ↑

Mon. Apr. 22, 2019 7:54 am

I have them set aside if you want them

Yes, thank you, PM sent.

Paul

Found this in some of the paperwork

Nice find. I've seen copies on eBay, but never bought one.

I wonder if it has any info that we haven't covered in this thread ?

Paul

I don’t think so
It was written by the wife of the guy I bought the lot from he mentioned there might be a few copy’s mixed in

Couldn’t help it, still haven’t come across the coal grates for the hike grand so I threw in the wood slider last night and played musical stoves

D.lapan wrote: ↑

Wed. May. 08, 2019 7:39 pm

Couldn’t help it, still haven’t come across the coal grates for the hike grand so I threw in the wood slider last night and played musical stoves

Nice looking stove Dana!

Randy

Finally trying this thing out

Neat accessory, Dana. How well did it do grilling ?

Did it being that open and letting air in over the firebed slow it down ?

With the raised bead around the edge, I wonder if it original had a cover to prevent any stalling of the fire ?

Paul

It actually worked incredibly well, I initially put a Pyrex casserole dish over it thinking it would smoke especially being I had wood in it, however the way is drops into the actual fire box and the fact that it has rectangular openings on the flue side the draft sucked all smoke and burger smells up the chimney so I did away with the pan until it was time to melt the cheese.
The ribs that the meat sits on are fluted and also arched up in the center so the grease runs to the outer edges then the back side is lower by about 3/4” so it then runs to the back where 2 holes drain the grease into the fire.
When the burgers were done I lifted the whole thing up and out and then the smoke came so I dropped it back in and use the spatula to remove them then quickly put the i and lids back on all totaled the cooked from raw hand packed to done with melted cheese in 12 minutes the best part was my wife sat there telling me it was going to take all night to cook! They were done before she had the buns defrosted haha win for me

I posted a few pictures on a cookstove face book page and I’ve had 4 requests to re cast it not including 2 friends and my dad so I may have a few this made this summer