Food woes and my mighty, home-made rocket stove

My rocket stove, made out of five tin cans, used a minute amount of fuel to cook my dinner.

Adversity is the best impetus for experimentation. A summer of continuous sunshine would have made my off-the-grid summer very easy. So I guess it was a good thing that we've had a couple of weeks of cloudy weather and a fair amount of rain.

Since at least July 11th, after a very long heat spell, we've had primarily overcast days. For me, that means I have to be doubly careful with my electricity use because I don't know when I'll get a good charge in my batteries again. It also makes cooking - and entertaining - very complicated.

Most of the time I have been eating raw food or cooked food that is cold or luke-warm. Unless I plan to have a raw-food dinner I can't invite friends over because I can't count on enough sun to cook for them. A solar cooker is, after all, a slow cooker and requires hours of sun to properly cook food.

If I did manage to cook something, I would cook enough to have leftovers which I would just reheat - which takes less time. Still, putting meat out for two hours in half-hearted sunshine left me with worries of food poisoning - another reason I wouldn't share with friends.

Photo: Agathe Bernard

On the morning of July 18th I was scheduled to give a solar cooking demonstration for our NCES Sustainable Living Committee outside Big Mountain Kitchen. Luckily we had beautiful sunshine for the event and I was able to cook a sizzling sausage stew, accompanied by raspberry smoothies and home-made pesto on spiralized zucchini.

But then the clouds returned, just as I was wrapping up my demonstration.

Sausage stew before cooking at solar cooking demonstration.

Photo: Agathe Bernard

After so many cloudy days, I was beginning to feel a bit sorry for myself and was madly looking for options. On rainy, cloudy days it's nice to enjoy a hot dish or a hot cup of tea.

My family and friends have been wonderful. They continue to invite me over for hot meals. Applying the potluck rule, I bring a dish - often a Greek or tomato salad as the tomatoes and cucumbers in my garden are plentiful.




I began to experiment with quick-cook options. I was able to make an almost-cooked quinoa dish in two hours of sunshine one morning. I topped that with some tinned mussles, feta cheese and tomato for dinner and it was delicious.

The next day we had an hour and a half of sunshine around noon. I whipped up some eggs with onions from the garden, cheese, peppers and herbs and had a delicious and fully-cooked omelet.

In the meantime I researched every alternative to cooking with solar or fossil fuels (see below) that I could find.

I found the website instructables.com to be very helpful. There were several items that explained how to produce biogas that can fuel a small stove using compost and cow manure (I would use horse manure as that is more readily available). The process takes about 10 days but I would happily eat cold, raw food if I could accomplish that!

The downside is that it doesn't seem to produce much gas and it seems to be better suited to warmer climates. If it were warm here, I'd be using solar. Unless I become very desperate it doesn't seem to be practical for my project.

I also researched other ways of generating electricity such as using a biolite campstove to trickle-charge my phone or building a bicycle- or wind-powered electrical generator. The latter two would help me charge my appliances but they wouldn't help my cooking situation. The biolite requires small amounts of wood (see below) and I need more electricity than it would likely provide.

My cousin, Heather, has been researching fuel-efficient cooking technologies. She mentioned the rocket stove, which uses very little fuel. I like the idea of experimenting with low-fuel cooking techniques, although it meant adjusting my rules a little to allow fire for cooking.

I found instructions for a rocket stove made out of five tin cans on instructables.com. I was able to get an empty big can from the deli section of Cooper's Foods. I raided my neighbour's recycling bag for the other four cans. The latter cans were slightly bigger than those mentioned on instructables, but it was what I had and it worked.

But there was a problem. After a long heat spell the fire hazard rating in much of southern BC is high. In our area, the Southeast region, there is currently a ban on open fires and campfires. I was sure that my rocket stove was safe, especially after so much rain, but would it be permitted? I have a nice stone patio close to a hose bib so I had a good, safe set-up but I also didn't want to break the rules with a public project.

I phoned the fire department to find out if I could use the stove and the answer was no. According to the assistant fire chief, "The prohibition does not apply to cooking stoves that use gas, propane briquettes, or to a portable campfire apparatus with a CSA or ULC rating that uses briquettes, liquid gaseous fuel, so long as the height of the flame is less than 15 centimeters. The use of any apparatus that does not meet these specifications is prohibited."

This means people have no legal options to fossil fuels except briquettes; home-made stoves seem to be out of the question. In my mind, this discourages experimentation and innovation, something we need right now as we try to adapt to climate change.

I'm not inclined to use charcoal briquettes as they are much more process and polluting than what I am proposing. However, the thought of manufacturing briquettes out of waste material is appealing. I might pursue that.

Anyway, after I told my friend Maria-Lynn, that the fire department vetoed my stove, she said she had recently come back from volunteering with a 'Learn to Camp' program with Parks Canada at Mount Revelstoke National Park, right next to our town. She mentioned that the fire hazard rating in the park is low.

It is just a short hike up Mount Revelstoke to the national park and I could just taste the sausages I would soon be cooking.

I phoned Parks Canada and even brought my stove to their reception. The response was
enthusiastic and soon I headed back home with my stove in hand and official confirmation that I could use it at a fire pit in the park.

My dad and I up Mount Revelstoke, probably in the early 1980s.

I packed dinner for three and invited my friends Maria Lynn and Marc to join me for a meal up at the Monashee cabin and lookout. The stove, which is insulated by sand, weighs just over six pounds so the pack, with food and stove, was fairly heavy.

It was an hour-long walk up the mountain to the cabin, up a beautiful trail, past where we scattered my father's ashes only two months ago. Dad and I had walked that trail together so many times that it felt like he was joining me on my adventure.

Unfortunately I had forgotten that the road up Mount Revelstoke closes at 4:30. My friends never managed to join me, despite their valiant efforts. Still, I got to try out my rocket stove and that, and the beautiful view was well worth the hike. Ironically, this was one of the few sunny evenings and I could have cooked at home with my solar cooker.





The rocket stove was really interesting. It uses very little fuel. To say that I used kindling as fuel would exaggerate the size of the wood. I brought up two tiny scraps of wood and some newspaper. I was able to gather some twig-sized pieces of wood at the cabin. I found that if I pushed more than two small pieces of wood into the stove the fire would go out. With this first effort, it did not burn as hot as I hoped but it cooked my sausages and bacon with very little fuel. (Here I am showing a before and after shot of the fuel consumed).

My rocket stove before I lit it.

As I walked down the mountainside the moon was out and the view was spectacular. Despite the hike and relatively heavy load for a simple dinner, I felt that my experiment was well worth it.

I don't think my rocket stove constitutes an 'open fire.' When the pot is on it there is no flame to be seen. I hope that some day soon I'll be able to use it in my back yard.

The moon was shining on my way down and the view of Mount Begbie was spectacular!