What Type of Cooker?

Credit: Janette Watson

 

Quite apart from the situation of the cooker – fore-and-aft or athwartships – discussed above, another factor in selecting a cooker is what type of fuel it will use. With the ubiquity of gas being what it is, this might seem a rather irrelevant issue, but in fact long-distance voyagers would do well to consider the matter carefully before deciding on what fuel to use and thus which cooker to choose.

Liquid Petroleum Gas (LPG) is undoubtedly the most popular choice. It’s convenient and readily available, often inexpensive and of generally consistent quality.

There are, however some disadvantages. LPG is heavier than air and more than a few boats have had catastrophic explosions because of this. LPG explosions on boats are rare, especially when you consider the number of boats tied up in marinas around the world, but they do happen. To put it in perspective: none of my friends or acquaintance has been involved with petrol fires on boats and I only knew one couple lost at sea. On the other hand, I know three people who have been involved in gas explosions on boats, two of which killed other people on board. And only last week (June 2022), I spoke to the owner of a nearby boat, who had an explosion which blew out the port side of the cockpit, damaged most of his bulkheads, damaged the port side windows and tore apart the hull to deck joint. He happened to be in the cockpit and he reckons that might have saved his life. Solenoids and gas ‘sniffers’ will help to minimise the problem as will careful maintenance of all pipes and joints. While LPG is certainly readily available, the fittings on the bottles, which enable you to pipe it to the cooker, vary from country to country and are rarely compatible. This means that instead of swopping bottles, you generally have to arrange to have them filled. Usually, this is straightforward, but it’s more awkward as you venture further and further off the beaten track. The LPG itself is often inexpensive, but getting it filled can be a different issue and as you are not generally permitted to take gas cylinders on public transport, you may need to use a taxi, which adds significantly to the cost of the fuel. Most gas cylinders are made from mild steel (although aluminium ones are readily available in North America and becoming more popular elsewhere), and over the years these will rust and corrode. Because the cylinders live in a self-draining locker isolated from the rest of the boat, if your cylinder develops a small hole, its contents will empty over the side of the boat without your noticing. Lack of cooking fuel will spoil an otherwise pleasant passage. A final drawback of LPG is that the cylinders are very bulky for the cooking hours they represent.

When I first started voyaging, in 1975, the majority of boats still cooked on paraffin/kerosene. In most places it was a lot easier to buy than LPG, and this alone would have been sufficient reason for choosing it. A paraffin burner needs pre-heating with alcohol; this is not difficult, but if done carelessly, the burner does not heat up sufficiently to vaporise the paraffin, and results in a great gout of oily flame, which is both disconcerting and dirty. A few experiences with inadequately pre-heated burners, will put most people off paraffin cookers. As their popularity decreases, it becomes increasingly difficult and expensive to locate spares – a burner rarely lasts more than two years and most people need to replace a jet or a needle (used to keep the jets clean) a couple of times a year. And by expensive, I mean expensive: the present cost (June 2022) of a new burner in New Zealand, is $349! That works out at about a dollar a day for the burners. A new needle is $13 and it’s not unknown for people to break one when fitting it! Many of the problems that people experience with paraffin cookers – frequently blocked jets, smoky flames, etc, are caused by dirty fuel and no paraffin should be put into the cooker’s tank without first being filtered through fine gauze.  I used to make a routine of unscrewing the jets once a week and cleaning them by hand with the appropriate pricker.  This meant that it was very rare for me to need to clean the jet during cooking.

The Taylor's cookers are still being made in England.  However, as the market for them is very limited, they aren't cheap and small-income voyagers would do well to find one second hand, if they want to cook on kerosene/paraffin: there are still a good number around.  They have the best fiddles and pan clamps I have ever come across and also look very attractive.  The top plate has inserts that act as flame tamers, something which all manufacturers could do to copy.  This is made of cast-iron and over the years sheds amall, but irritating amounts of rust. I had the foundry in Lunenburg Nova Scotia, use the one on my cooker as a pattern, together with the hot plates, and cast a new one in bronze for me.  It was worth every cent! 

For someone who is happy with a single burner, it's possible to get very cheap pressure paraffin cookers (and parts) from India via the Internet, or in normal shops in places like Fiji.  These have no control apart from pumping up for more pressure/heat or depressurising for a lower flame.  There is also a 'roarer' burner, which is so agricultural that the jet clogs up much less readily than the normal one.  An inventive and creative person could probably make a mounting, fiddles, etc and use these to make an acceptable stove. 

Paraffin does have its virtues. Although you may need to look a bit longer to find it, two 20 litre (5 gall) containers, would keep most enthusiastic cooks supplied for 5 or 6 months (depending how often she brews up) and indeed, a year’s supply does not need a huge amount of space. It can be stowed anywhere on the boat and the fuel containers can be easily topped up where fuel is available, where doing the same to an LPG cylinder is more of an issue. Where paraffin is difficult to obtain in local stores, a quantity can often be obtained from a local airfield where it’s used both in jet aeroplanes and helicopters. I used to think your cooker would think it had died and gone to heaven if you feed it Jet A1: I read recently that it damages the burner, although I never found that myself, but we only used it occasionally.  However, if it's cheap enough, it's probably worth the risk. The fuel is safer than gas, and can be used for other purposes such as illumination, cleaning paintbrushes and – in emergency – running the (diesel) engine.

The most attractive fuel for voyaging cooks must be diesel, because most boats carry a considerable amount aboard for the engine. Diesel ranges have been available for a considerable number of years, but have never been generally popular. Because they take ten minutes or so to reach cooking heat, they are inconvenient for boiling the kettle for a quick cup of tea, and they give off a lot of surplus heat, which makes them unappealing in the Tropics. They’re also very susceptible to downdraughts. (Ideally, they should have a dedicated air-intake to alleviate this problem.) They are, however, a delightful way of cooking in colder places where their dry heat keeps the boat warm and pleasant. They’re not difficult to light, once one has the knack, and provide the cook with a ‘free’ and efficient oven. Generally they have room for three pans, which allows the more creative cook to spread her wings more easily. They’re certainly worth considering.  But of course, once again, we are relying on fossil fuels.

Another, new type of diesel cooker is made by Wallis in Finland and consists of a ceramic hob, which is heated from below by diesel, burning in a forced draught from a small fan. They require electricity for the initial start-up and for the fan, but the amount is relatively small and considering how much electricity the modern boat requires, would hardly be noticed by many people. They’re very simple to use, but are controlled by a microprocessor, and the two people that I’ve met who were using one regularly, were having problems. They’re easy to clean and use, and it would be nice to think that the manufacturers could get the problems sorted. They might be the way forward for many boats.

I used to be very scathing of meths (alcohol) cookers, but recent experiences have forced me to change my mind. Not only is it, potentially, an environmentally friendly fuel, it’s fairly clean and easy to use. Most meths cookers are slow, in comparison with the opposition, but for Fantail I bought a Maxie cooker, made in Australia. Neither I, nor anyone else I’ve spoken to, has quite worked out how it works, but what you do is to preheat the burner by dribbling in a little meths, as with a paraffin cooker, and then when the flame is almost out, turn the burner back on. The jet sounds as though the fuel is under pressure, but it isn’t. It’s still a bit slower than both gas or paraffin, but quite acceptable. Unfortunately, the cooker is no longer made, but you might be able to source a second-hand one. The major drawback is that the burners corrode over time, which seeing that you can’t get spares, is a significant drawback of seeking out a second-hand one.  A new cooker working on a similar principle is now available: the Spiri alcohol cooker.  They have only been around a short while and I know nothing about them.  They are very reasonably priced - at least in Europe - but are made of powder-coated steel.  While my stove-enamalled Optimus cooker lasted for years, powder coating is a lot softer and I wonder how they would stand up to daily wear and tear.  You would also have to make a fiddle rail for them.

That being the case, when I came to build FanShi, I decided to try an Origo cooker.  These have a tank filled with some absorbent wool-type material, which soaks up the meths and prevents it from spilling.  From my experience, it's worth topping these up once a day before I start cooking my main meal.  I am quite happy with it, now, but it took some time to get it running at its most efficient.  The received wisdom is that you water the meths/alcohol down by 20%, because the design of the burner cannot completely consume 100% alcohol and it ends up producing a quite astonishingly sooty flame.  I tried this for quite some time, but as someone who dearly loves to cook, I found that the fact that the flame wasn’t hot was very frustrating. I couldn't make successful flat breads on it, and it didn’t get sufficiently hot for the Perfect Ovenless Loaf. Nor did it simmer very successfuly: as you turn the flame down, a plate slides across underneath the burner, reducing the size of the flame. This means that it ends up at one side of the pan, but is still at full strength in this tiny area.  However, with a flame tamer, the problem goes away.  My brain isn't of the sharpest and it took me quite some time to do the obvious: ie split the difference and only water the alcohol down by 10%.  I have now been doing this for several months.  The pans still get a little bit grimy, but no longer have flakes of soot falling off them!  A bit of Cif soon sorts them out.  I have a 150 mm/6 in frying pan that I use for tempering spices, and this is perfect for flatbreads, which I can now cook successfully.  I haven't tried the Perfect Ovenless Loaf, because I now make my bread directly in a saucepan, used as a Dutch oven on top of the flame tamer.  So overall, I'd have to say I'm pretty happy with the Origo.  It is a compromise, but not a bad one.  The cooker is also, essentially, 'plug and play'.  Unfortunately, the bad news is that Dometic was apparently bought out for its other assets and the Origo is no longer made, although there are still ads for it all over the Internet.  The good news is that there are alternatives that look pretty good:  one is made for, and sold by the German Compass chandler; the other one I have only seen for sale in Oz.  This Bonetti cooker works like the Origo and looks nicely made, but again, has no fiddle.  I also read very recently, a suggestion that you dilute the meths by only 10%, but I'm afraid I can't remember where and give the link.  But it would appear I'm not the only one experimenting!

I still hanker after my Taylor’s cooker with its wonderful cast-iron hotplate, but have had to concede that the cost of running one is really too much.

Finally, there is Compressed Natural Gas (CNG). This has its advocates, but the high pressure at which the cylinders are filled, to my mind completely outweigh the putative advantages of its being lighter than air. In addition, it’s not readily available in most countries, which also makes it an unattractive proposition.

Well, perhaps not finally.  There are still some die-hards who cook on a wood-fired stove.  And all of us, I suspect, who are lucky enough to have a wood burner on board, cook on it occasionally.

 

Do We Need an Oven?

I had hardly ever cooked before I started voyaging, so wasn’t at all disconcerted at finding myself in a galley that had no oven (and only one burner). However, for those cooks contemplating moving from a kitchen in a house, to a galley on a boat, the lack of an oven is often the final straw in putting them off the whole idea of voyaging. More than a few people have been very disappointed when they find that they do have an oven, to discover that it uses far more fuel than can be justified. It’s certainly worth working out how much LPG your oven requires, before planning your voyaging menus around it. You can do this easily, if you buy an accurate spring balance, such as fishermen use. Simply weigh the cylinder before and after using the oven and then calculate how much LPG you’ve consumed. If you haven’t done much cooking with your boat’s oven, you might want to get used to it, before setting off. A lot of them are quite quirky and not easy to control.

It has to be said, too, that most people a-voyaging, do so in a warm climate. Ovens are a slow form of cooking and a lot of the heat ends up in the boat, making it unpleasantly hot. In a small boat, the oven takes up a lot of room, even more so if it’s in a gimballed cooker, which space could be better used for stowage. Indeed, it’s not uncommon to see the once-beloved oven used to store boxes of food, when the disenchanted cook has realised how much LPG it demands and how hot and bothered it makes her while she’s cooking.

The object of the next few paragraphs is to tell you how to live happily, and well fed, without using an oven.

For a few years, I had a diesel-fired range, which meant that there was always an oven available. And very nice it was, too. On returning to paraffin, I missed the oven at first, but soon came to enjoy seeing what I could produce with the pressure cooker and frying pan, which turns out to be most of the things that you can make in an oven. I certainly wouldn’t sacrifice space for an oven in a small galley, and would put one into the luxury category. I had a Taylor’s cooker with an oven for a while, but neither of my last two boats has had one. I find that I very rarely miss it. I had a little electric oven available, when I was building FanShi, but soon came to discover that the frying pan was more effective for flans, pizza or ‛roast’ vegetables, as was the case compared with using the stove top versus the Taylor oven. Of course, if you are cooking for more than two people, a frying pan would end up being too limited.

In addition, bread can be made in a frying pan ‘oven’; delicious, light-textured cakes can be cooked in the pressure cooker, scones can be made in a frying pan, ‘baked’ potatoes can be pressure cooked in a fraction of the time, with the skins dried out and crisped up in a frying pan on a low heat; hotpots can be cooked on top of the stove, as can scalloped potatoes, lasagne and a whole host of other dishes that are usually put in the oven. Admittedly, you won’t enjoy the lovely, crisp, chewy texture of browned foods; on the other hand, you won’t have to struggle with trying to get the burnt-on food off the oven tins (and you could always buy one of those chef’s blow-torches for browning food). Of course, you can’t make meringues, or soufflés and biscuits (cookies) or croissants are impractical, but for most voyagers, this is unlikely to be an overwhelming problem. Like so many things with cruising, it’s a case of making a virtue out of necessity; of thinking positive. Wouldn’t you prefer to cook your favourite meals more quickly? To keep the boat cooler? To use less fuel? Isn’t it better to have dishes that are easy to clean with no soaking? Living without an oven doesn’t need to be a challenge, it’s simply another route to the same destination.

In the recipe section of this blog, I generally assume that you don’t have an oven and for those recipes where an oven is the easier alternative, I usually suggest how to cook the dish on top of the cooker.