Domestic Civil Defence - No Power

Annex B : Improvised Cooking Stoves

All Stoves need to be Lit - Make Sure you have Several Packs of MATCHES !

One can classify stoves by their fuel :

• Liquid Fuelled - Petrol, Paraffin / Kerosene, Methylated Spirit, Oil.
  Rapidly lit and fast-burning, but suffer losses from evaporation, can give off explosive vapours and have to be manufactured. If burners are not made properly, they can give off soot or explode. Petrol and Meths are generally available and Paraffin is less common than it was. Oil is difficult to burn except in special pressure-stoves, but improvised burners can be made.
• Gas Fuelled - Butane or Propane fuelled commercially-made burners.
  May be used up rapidly and are expensive and dangerous to store. Fuels fairly widely available.
• Semi-Solid Fuelled - Solidified Methylated Spirit (Meta Fuel) and Paraffin Wax.
  Meta fuelled stoves and nightlight-type or hobo-type designs. Effective improvisations possible but the fuel is not generally available.
• Solid Fuelled - Paper, Firewood, Coal, Charcoal and Peat, are the main solid fuels. Generally, at least two kinds will be available. In remoter areas, Peat may be more common than firewood. Most improvised stoves run on some kind of solid fuel.

Given that paraffin, petrol and gas camping stoves are efficient, they do have the disadvantages of (a) initial capital cost and (b) replacement of fuel and parts at intervals. It is worth knowing how to make a few improvised or expedient cooking stoves that can be used if the camping stoves are too much to buy or their fuel is unobtainable. There is also considerable fun and satisfaction in making these systems work.

A note to cooks is that most of these stoves produce soot; to overcome the cleaning problem, coat the outside of the pans, pots, skillets or frying-pans with one of the following. :-

• Washing up detergent.
• A 'slip' of fine clay mud.
• Water-soluble emulsion paint.

WARNING : UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES BURN PLASTIC IN ANY OF THESE STOVES. THE FUMES CAN BE POISONOUS AND CAN INJURE YOU OR YOUR FAMILY !

It is a good idea not to waste any fuel. If a fire has to be kept lit all the time, let it boil water for washing up or to sterilise cooking tools or to simply boil unsafe water for ten minutes to sterilise it.

Improvised Solid-Fuel Stoves :

There are commercial charcoal barbecues on the market that can be easily altered to become bucket stoves. Alternatively, take a metal bucket or a five-gallon metal can cut in half, then cut out a side panel as a stoke-hole and air control. A simple fire-hearth and pot supports can be made from mild steel fencing wire or wire coat hangers.

American Girl Scouts apparently make regular use of so-called 'Vagabond' or 'Hobo' Stoves. These consist of large tins with a slot cut in the side, wide enough to introduce a smaller tin holding a spiral of corrugated cardboard filled around with paraffin wax. The top of the stove has perforations to allow the hot gases to escape and heat up a pan or skillet. Alternatively, the stove can be lidless, forming a burner inside some kind of support of metal, piled stone or bricks.

This is nothing more than a couple of low walls of bricks, set wide enough to support a steel plate that supports cooking pots, saucepans and so on. The two-brick high version is for use with improvised petrol burners or with scrap wood and paper. The three-brick high version with a built-in grid is for use with coal and charcoal. The steel plate may be hard to obtain, but some welded steel mesh can be covered with several layers of aluminium cooking foil as a short-lived replacement.

Unless your plate or support grid is really strong, DO NOT USE THE PLATE TO SUPPORT FULL PANS, SAUCEPANS AND SKILLETS. Make the separation between the brick walls just enough to let the weight of the cooking vessels be taken by the bricks. A narrow gap may also mean that you use less fuel and encourage a good draught. The walls can be set wider at the upwind end than the down-wind end, giving support for different sizes of pans.

2 - Course Trench Cooker

3 - Course Trench Cooker

Disposable charcoal barbecues can be bought for under £ 2. They can be placed between two lines of bricks as trench cooker burners, or cannibalised for their grids and heavy expanded steel mesh. The writer has found that the mesh, wrapped in the foil of the barbecue, makes a good replacement for a steel plate, or the mesh can be used on its own as a grate. Although not long-lasting, the re-use may be enough to protect pans and skillets from smoke damage. Old and scratched or rusty roasting trays can make excellent barbecue fire trays and replacements for steel plates.

The writer has turned an old roasting-tray into a rechargeable charcoal barbecue, simply by cutting 13mm (1/2 inch) steel mesh from a hardware store into a shape roughly 25mm (1 inch) wider and longer than the top of the roasting dish. Important : Burn off the galvanising from the mesh with a blowlamp or other strong heat source before use as a barbecue grille. Once the mesh has cooled, bend the overlap under the lip of the roasting dish on the long sides, so you have a device you can slide off the roasting dish. It is a good idea to spray the grill with WD40 to protect the bare metal against rust - the WD40 will be burnt off during ignition and before the grill is at cooking temperature. You may like to cut a lighting-sheet of thin card or thick paper to size and impregnate it with barbecue lighter fuel in the roasting dish. Once the impregnated sheet has dried, remove it, Fill the roasting dish with impregnated charcoal, then place the impregnated lighting sheet on top. Slide the barbecue grill into place and the barbecue is ready for service.
After using the barbecue and it is cold, spray the grille with a little WD40 against rust, then refill the barbecue. It is best to replace the mesh when it starts to show signs of rust or heat-damage.

If you have a Trench Cooker with a steel hotplate, then you have half of a Dutch Oven. You will need a large cast iron, steel or pottery 'box' to put upside-down onto the hotplate. Underneath this 'box' your food will need to be placed on a metal grille or 'trivet' to keep it from being burned. The trick is to have a steady heat from the source under the hotplate, so that the 'box' cooks your food safely. Steel mesh bent and wired to shape as a 'box' and covered with several layers of aluminium cooking foil may be enough to hold in enough heat, but this needs to be tested. A small tin of water on the trivet beside the food would prevent it from drying out.

The writer has considered building a six brick-high Trench Cooker with two metal plates forming an oven floor and a top, and bricks insulating the top and back, which would form a chimney behind the oven. Unfortunately, this would need in the order of seventy bricks. Readers may wish to experiment with this idea for themselves.

Improvised Liquid Fuel Stoves :

Liquid fuels such as Methylated Spirit, Petrol, Paraffin, Diesel, Lubricating Oil and Cooking Oil, can all be used in improvised cooking stoves.

Improvised Fireless Cookers :

These are not, technically, cooking stoves, but they are a very effective way of using the minimum amount of fuel to cook a meal. The food is brought to boiling point, then either placed in a pre-heated steel thermos or in a heavily insulated box with an equally insulated lid. A haybox can be made from a cardboard packing box lined with wadded newspapers, blankets or dry straw, leaving a hole big enough for the cooking pot. Lay more of the same insulation on top, to give you at least 15 cm insulation all around the pot, then close the box and leave for the specified time. One basic point is that the larger the pot and the thicker the insulation, the better is the heat retention.

The 2-pint Aladdin stainless steel flask costs £ 25 in the average shop and lasts forever. To use it for cooking helpings of (for example) stew or cereals, preheat the flask with boiling water, heat the food to boiling point, then pour it into the thermos with the help of a scalded plastic funnel used only for food. You can make a crude funnel from the upper half of a polythene milk container without its stopper. As with the haybox, leave the flask for the set period. You can further ensure that the flask works properly by putting it into into a miniature haybox. Remember to clean the flask out THOROUGHLY after using it - apparently some people keep two flasks for cooking and one for drinks. The writer currently has one used for hot drinks.

Improvised Equipment and Emergency Information :-

Lighting : [Twelve-Volt Inspection Light] [Candle Pot] [Jamjar Oil-Lamp] [Recycling Nightlights]
Cooking : [Bucket Stove] [Trench Cookers] [Dutch Oven] [Haybox & Thermos Cooking]

Make your own Power : [Otherpower.com] [Cheap Bike-Based Generator]