[Stoves] ***SPAM*** Cooking Hole Modification to Three Stone Cookstove - Update

[K McLean]

Adding a 25x25x25 cm hole to traditional open-fire cookstoves may end the
collection of firewood from forests in many areas.  By piling fuel in the
hole beneath the cookpot and lighting the pile on the top, the fuel burns
long, hot, with no tending and with less smoke.  And by quenching the
embers, cooks make biochar.

We found that most woody biomass bigger than thin twigs burns well in
the cooking
hole <https://youtu.be/DmzQFCp2kNI>.  Firewood the size that is typically
burned in unmodified three stone cookstoves burns for three hours without
tending.  Much less smoke is emitted than from an unmodified three stone
cookstove.  A colleague estimates that the amount of wood in the cooking
hole would burn for 30-40 minutes in an unmodified three stone cookstove.
Here's a video
<https://drive.google.com/file/d/15V4vTJxO1Lcm0wFzB96pQT9jvgjaXkwh/view?usp=sharing>
.

Thick twigs burned without tending for 1.5 hours.  Thick twigs and small
branches are abundant and unused in much of Africa.

The cooking hole also works with crop waste (maize stalks and cobs, cassava
stems, banana peels, bean stems, ...), elephant grass, bamboo, large
sawdust and wood shavings, sawdust briquettes, dung patties and more.
Depending on the fuel, the fire will burn without tending for 20 minutes to
several hours.  Here's our training video <https://youtu.be/DmzQFCp2kNI>.

Women can:

- All but stop collecting firewood.
- Leave the kitchen to do other things once they start the fire.
- Make biochar.


And 8-12 common bricks can support two cookpots over one cooking hole
allowing two meals to be cooked with the same amount of fuel and time it
takes to cook one meal.  The time to boil is only a few minutes longer than
for one pot.
[image: 2 burner drawing.jpg]


In much of Africa, most people know how to make bricks.  We show them how
to make free custom bricks to line the cooking hole.  Here is a video
<https://drive.google.com/file/d/1b2WvePKX_ofnELUWhexqQZR4NyCrXxnH/view?usp=sharing>
.

Kevin McLean
Sun24
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