Getting the best out of a stove.... ideas

Tygermoth

Hi all,

We have had multi fuel stove fitted this week.

While its burning (we will mainly be using wood) I was wandering if anyone had and ideas how to get the best out of it. We have already thought of proving bread, airing clothes and drying sprigs of lavender/mint but there has to be more!

The stove has a curved top so we can’t place pans or such like but does have a small shelve so a medium cup or bowl would be able to sit on there or a tiny milk pan.

Let me know what you think!

Tyger

Butterfly_Brain

You could get a griddle and bake welsh cakes etc, dry fruit or even bake jacket potatoes and sausages in foil.

Patchwork_Quilt

Meringues need long, slow drying out.

Seriously though, we found that the sides of our stove got hot enough to scorch the wood we put there to dry out, so if you have room to put anything down the side, you might be able to use that heat too.

Greatgimp

It may not be so obvious, but whatever you use the heat for, you would be reducing the heat available for the room.

mambury

apart from dying herbs etc, I use mine for defrosting. I put the frozen stuff NEAR the woodburner so it defrosts quicker. Apart from that I can;t think of anything else.

meanmarie

I have a new stove as well and plan on keeping a kettle on top in the winter for hot water, doesn't seem possible with yours...the ideas mentioned above sound good....you could open the front and use a grill to toast, wouldn't advise grilling as fat from whatever will smoke up your room.

Marie

maryb

Put a cake cooling tray on the hearth and use it to dry orange slices for Christmas decorations/pot pourri

paddy's_mum

Is the curved top that you mention part of the stove's actual body or a shroud-type piece, to give a fashionable shape, that could be removed?

We deliberately chose a flat top stove so that we, like you, could get the most value from our fuel. During the coldest months, when it is running constantly, we have two heavy kettles of water on the top for washing up etc; a Sheila type ceiling airer above for finishing off damp laundry; stale bread gets crumbled and dried for coating chicken pieces or to make stuffing; the pans of water for dinner time veg go on late afternoon ready for transferring to main cooker so saving electricity; pop must-be-bone-dry things like steel sieves or storage jars on a cake rack on the top; I've even had a cast-iron casserole or rice pudding on there all day and just finished off for an hour in the main oven. A couple of cup hooks in the brickwork just to the side allow damp teatowels or wet gloves to be dried quickly.

I wouldn't be without mine - can you tell?

ktpie

I'm paying attention to this, we recently moved house and now have a multifuel stove so interested in what else I can do with it. DH has been chopping wood this weekend and I am actually looking forward to the cold weather this year so we can get it going!

Think I'm going to look for a kettle for the top!

Beki

We've got a big multifuel stove in our living room. It used to power the radiators and hot water but wasn't really very effective so we had a central heating boiler installed when we first moved in (the stove heated the rooms enough, but not the hot water very well for some reason?!).

However, this year i'm turning all my radiators off and just using the stove to heat the house again! It won't have to power the hot water, just keep us warm

The heat it throws out is astounding! We have to keep a fire-guard around ours now, as it gets so hot that when DS accidentally touched the side of it a couple of years ago he had a whacking great blister on his finger!

We tried jackets in foil on the top of ours last year, but i forgot about them and left them for about 4 hours... when i finally remembered them they were as hard as rock and black! lol

I too can't wait until it's cold enough to light it up again! It always feels so warm and cosy when it's on - i love the smell aswell

I've got a photo of it somewhere with the doors open (after DS had gone to bed)... hold on i'll see if i can find it.... here it is! xx