What Does "Back of the Stove" Mean?

200th Post!  200th Post!  200th Post!  200th Post!  200th Post!  200th Post!

Sorry.  I'm excited that this is my 200th blogpost!

A while back, I had a reader suggest to me that I write a blog post explaining the phrase "back of the stove"--as in "Let it simmer on the back of the stove for six hours" or "Cook at the back of the stove until thick."  It is a very common phrase in old recipes and cookbooks and is perhaps a little confusing to today's cooks.

In actuality, this phrase even predates the most common designs for woodburning ranges, so we have to go back in history a little to understand it fully.

When household cookery began to move from open fireplaces to cast iron stoves, the stoves were built with very low fireboxes at the front, which then vented toward the rear of the stove beneath an oven, the bottom of which was even with the level of the cooktop, as in the picture below:

Photo courtesy of farmallclub.org

This stove design then changed to have the oven be tucked under the cooktop, and the firebox was raised to a more comfortable height. Cookstoves then looked like this:

Photo Credit: amberghistory.org

A door is open on the oven in the picture above, but the photos only show one of the two oven doors on each stove since each of these cookstoves was equipped with an oven which could be accessed from either side.

This type of cookstove was usually installed with the firebox side toward the room as in the first picture above.

Thus, the firebox side was literally the front of the stove, and the cooler, rear part was at the back.  The phrase "back of the stove" meant the cooler part of the cooktop.

As with so many things in the human experience, our tools changed before our terminology did.  More recent stove designs put the firebox on the left (only rarely on the right), and the cooler part of the range top is now on the side of the stove instead of the back.

In the pictures below, you can see the firebox on the left side of the Margin Gem, and in the second picture you see a saucepan and our teakettle "on the back of the stove."

Basically, the phrase "back of the stove" means the coolest part of the cooktop even though it is no longer necessarily at the stove's back.  The phrase indicates an area used for slow cooking and keeping things warm while still having direct heat.

I hope that clears things up for everyone who might have been wondering!

Air-Jet Re-burn Drafts

After my last post about Marjorie singing, a reader used the comments section to ask me what Margin Stoves' "Air-Jet Re-burn" drafts are, so I wanted to take a quick minute to explain them.  From what I have read, studies that were conducted in order to find out how to improve the efficiency of woodburning appliances proved that the highest efficiency was achieved when hot air entered the firebox from above the fire.  In most of the new-style heating stoves that I have seen, the hot air enters through rows of small holes along the ceiling of the firebox.  Our Jotul heating stove is designed this way.  The reason that this design results in high efficiency is because the hot air coming in the "jets" often ignites unburned gases that are the result of combustion (hence the "re-burn" part of the name).  In fact, in our Jotul, you can watch the flames shooting out of the little air jets as this happens. 

Margin stoves are similarly equipped, but because the roof of the firebox is also your cooking surface, the entry point of the hot air is a little different.  First, room air enters the stove from the bell draft on the firebox side of the stove.  It begins to be heated right away.

The "Air-Jet Re-burn" draft is the silver bell draft
between the louvers on the firebox side of the stove.

The air then travels down the side of the stove into the area where the ash drawer is, entering through two holes in the sidewall.

The two holes where the air enters the area where the ash drawer
 sits beneath the firebox.

This picture shows what it looks like when the ash drawer is in place.

Now, in many cookstoves the air would be able to travel up through the grate to the bottom of the fire.  If you have completely cleaned the ashes out of the firebox, this will happen when you initially start a fire in the Margin Gem, too.  However, once the fire has been going for awhile, a sufficient layer of coals and ashes will prevent much air coming up through the bottom of the fire.  Instead, air travels into the firebox through the air-jets in the corners and in the middle of the side of the firebox which is against the oven.  These holes are evident in the picture below.

A view of the Margin Gem's firebox from above.
Note the air-jets in the corners and on the middle
right.

Frequently, when I lift one of the lids to stir, stoke, or view the fire, I can see rivulets of flame coming out of the air-jets as the hot air entering the firebox from them ignites combustion gases before they exit the firebox.  Unfortunately, I haven't figured out a way to photograph this because they don't last very long since opening the lid spoils the draft of the stove.

At any rate, I hope this answers and clarifies what "air-jet re-burn" drafts are and how they function.

The Difference Between a Cookstove and a Range

I have been preparing a post (actually, what may become a series of posts) about regulating the heat of a wood cookstove's oven.  During my research, I was reminded of a technicality that I think perhaps I ought to address, especially since I always say that I want this blog to be about "all things cookstove."

I always use the word "cookstove" to denote a stove which is used for cooking and is fueled by wood or coal.  This is a common use of the word, and most people know exactly what I mean when I use the word this way.  However, our ancestors used this word to indicate only the small stoves which looked like the picture below.  The Original Fannie Farmer 1896 Cook Book notes that the ovens on these stoves could usually be opened from both sides.  One of the oven doors is open in the picture below.  The door to the upper left of the oven door would have been one way to access the firebox, which jutted into the top left area of the oven.

Photo from amberghistory.org

 A kitchen "range" was so named because of the larger range of different heat levels that it allowed the cook.  A range, or "set range," was a built-in affair which usually had its firebox in the center.  Ovens would appear on each side of the firebox, or might appear above the cooktop altogether, as in the picture below. 

Photo of a range at the Culinary Arts Museum in Providence, RI,
from abetterbagofgroceries.com

In 1896, Fannie Farmer wrote: "Set ranges, as they consume so large an amount of fuel, are being replaced by portable ones."  She further states that "A portable range is a cooking-stove with one oven door."  Thus, what I am always referring to as a cookstove is technically a "portable range."

Enterprise-Fawcett's Monarch Range.  This picture
is from their website: www.enterprise-fawcett.com.
This is a "portable range."

Something tells me that I might have a hard time convincing the four men who helped us move the Margin Gem into our kitchen that it is "portable."  I'm going to continue to refer to the portable range as a cookstove, and you'll all just have to forgive me for being technically incorrect. 

Phew!  I'm glad we've got this all cleared up.