Rocket cook stove plans

[matt walker]

Cool Hpmer, I'd absolutely love to hear from others who have used this set. I honestly think it's the best wood fired cooking set up ever, but it's probably hard to see that without experiencing it. Anyway, it is a 4" hole up there, some of the videos show an older 30 gallon barrel with a free hand hole in the top. That one may have been a bit smaller, but close to 4" anyway. Honestly, it is very rare that I used much more than a sliver of that opening, so it might be worth while experimenting with a smaller port there. I do think at some point though the system will actually be pulling in there more than exhausting, so there's probably a minimum size that works well.

As for the Weber, I do cut a matching hole in the bottom. I don't know that it's exactly 4", but again, it's close to that size. I do use a ceramic pizza stone for a diffuser, and it does a great job of eliminating hot spots. If you look inside a Weber you'll see that the tabs which hold the grate are actually straps that run down the inside of the bowl. The pizza stone rest on the straps, below the grate tabs, and they space it from the sides about 1/3" or so. That allows the smoke and heat to rise up the sides into the dome. I did try clay pavers, and ceramic briquets as diffusers. Both work well, but it was easy to get a real hot spot if there was a clear shot from the bottom to the food. It's not necessary to buy a pizza stone right away, you could experiment with different diffusers and find something else that works. Also, all the Webers came from the dump due to broken legs, or vents or some other ailment that doesn't matter in this application.

Let me know if you try it please! I'd love to hear how it works for you. Oh, just re read your post and realized you are going for a no barrel cooker. Keep us posted, I'd love to see what you come up with.

[hpmer]

Well, the plan is to acquire a barrel, but I'm going to try it without first. I thought the barrel opening was much smaller than system size which helped with the ash and potential excess heat, but it seems like you're dumping most of the gases into the grill though I guess the baffle helps to moderate that. Quite a clever design, actually.

The new stove I'm building is a 4 incher so I'll try it and see. That's a bit smaller than I'd prefer but I'm constrained by the materials I'm using since I'm reusing parts from old projects. I still suspect it's going to throw too much heat and that I'll end up adopting your version. I'm considering it a prototype to try a few things out like casting secondary air ports and a trip wire in the burn tunnel roof. I'll take what I learn and build a more permanent version later.

Looks like you are cooking right on the pizza stone. Is it a normal thickness or do you double it up to help handle the direct heat?

[matt walker]

That outside system is an 8" riser, so the port in the barrel is 1/2 system size. Not sure how that will scale down, but there it is. Like I said, I typically am running with the baffle almost all the way closed to run the Weber at around 275°F. If I open up that full 4" hole, when the firebox is running hot it will exceed my little thermometer's limit of 550°F in the Weber easily.

I am not cooking right on the pizza stone diffuser, it's about 4"-6" below the grill grate, and I cook on the grate. I did an early video where I was cooking right on the pizza stone, but that was more like a griddle configuration. Single pizza stone in my Weber for the diffuser.

[hpmer]

Ok, great. And thanks for the info.

I'm building the stove this weekend and hope to get to the grill part over the next week or two. A 4 incher has so much less power than your 8 incher so it will be interesting to see how it functions.