Fireless Cooking

[Shin]

I received a crockpot as a housewarming gift.

Good thing a I received oven mitts too! It gets plenty hot on the outside. I am testing it out with a beef stew recipe tonight my mother gave me. The tomato sauce added to it makes it a fine recipe.

Has anyone ever heard of fireless cookers?

I've seen some old illustrations of them, they are fine looking things.

I am wondering if I couldn't convert this crockpot into something like them.

If it would use a lot less electricity in an insulated box that would be splendid.

I like the idea of using as little as possible. Now with the fireless cookers they would take the pots and lower them into insulated boxes, and close the boxes -- the heat trapped inside would keep the food cooking for quite a long time, plenty long enough.

A crockpot in an insulated box wouldn't be much different to my mind, save you could keep the temperature from ever going too low.

Well perhaps it's unnecessarily complicated but I am enjoying thinking about the different ways it could be done.

[Therese]

No, Shin, I've never heard of fireless cookers.  And I don't even understand how they work.  God bless you!

[Shin]

Fireless cookers are basically insulated boxes. You take the pot off the stove, and put it inside the box, close it, and leave it in there to slow cook for hours.

I am wondering if something similar to it could be done with a crock pot, so far some folks've chimed in with warnings rather than encouragement ho ho. I will take all under advisement.

Here, this is what an old one looked like:

[Therese]

Thanks, Shin, for the picture and explanation.  I guess you'd have to find something very insulated, if you wanted to make a fireless cooker out of it.  If you can insulate a crockpot, then I guess you could use it as a fireless cooker.  But what could you insulate the crockpot with I wonder.

[whiterockdove]

 You won't get too much in the way of warnings from me,  I tend to be rather cavalier with experiments like what you are trying. Get the pot up to temperature then wrap maybe towels in a cooler? Careful, don't spill it on yourself. If you attach it to an extension cord, you could leave it in the cooler and just plug it on every so often to bring it back up to temperature.


 I have cooked primarily with cast iron for years which is another way to save on cooking fuel, be it electricity, gas, or whatever.
The pans stay hot for a long time so I am in the habit of turning off my flame and letting the pan finish the cooking or periodically heating it back up for a moment then turning it off again for 20 mins. It works very well as a slow cooker.  I got my first cast iron pan 25 years ago and i have three that i use for almost everything.  i have a terrific dutch oven that i can put coals on top and underneath. it only takes a few briquets to heat up the iron and it is just like a little oven. Good off grid cooking! 

[Shin]

My mother's been trying to give me this huge cast iron pot of hers, that she says is too heavy!

We too are fans of cast iron cooking!

I think the thing she's trying to give me may be a dutch oven now that I consider it!

I have some house insulation for the attic that is basically aluminum foil I might try for it, got to look up and see how much heat the stuff can tolerate. Basically I want to build a little box, stuff it with insulation, and have a spot in the middle of it to lower the crock pot in.. you know, you're right whiterockdove.. a cooler could work well!

Cast iron might be a bit heavy, but it lasts forever if you take care of it! I like cast iron and procelain/stoneware, like the interior of the crockpot. Nonstick.. that stuff I can't stand because it never lasts for me, it always starts peeling off.

Glass now, I don't like glass. Not because it isn't great to see what you're cooking, but because I've had glass explode on me after it wore out. Nothing like flying shards of molten glass everywhere to convince a fellow not to like pyrex and all its varieties.

I opened up a wall oven once, and it must've been too hot, and the cool air rushing in too much for the glass baking dish, it exploded!

[whiterockdove]

Oooooh.yikes!  I, too, had a Pyrex dish explode in front of me. Not a big fan of non-stick. There is a technique to render cast iron virtually non-stick, and a way of maintaining that state. 

[susanna]

Shin:  The crock pot liners work well, easy cleanup.  My brother always said wood and newspaper were good insulators, and also styrofoam of course, save those packing peanuts!

[Shin]

Thank you Susanna, I am glad to receive some encouragement for this idea.

If there's one thing I'm not short on its packing peanuts. I have an abundance of cardboard boxes and packaging. The recycling bin for cardboard and junk mail is a very small one, they only take so much once ever two weeks!