Rocket Stove Casserole

After a good month or more of dry weather, the past few days have been very warm and sunny. Just right for a bit of garden cooking. I have been wanting to make a Rocket Stove for ages and yesterday was an ideal day. My supplies of waste wood around the garden were dry and a good supply of old bricks was all I needed. The web is awash with images and principles of rocket stoves, so I won't expand here,  but basically it was a matter of building a brick 'chimney' with a opening at the base into which wood is fed. The fire draws air though this hole and supposedly burns very efficiently.

Using an old wok I cooked a pork in cider casserole and the stove worked surprisingly well, considering I had never made one or seen one in action before. Keeping it constantly fed meant I had to make quick dashes to the kitchen to prepare the food. Once the bricks had warmed up it seemed to generate quite a reasonable amount of heat and the casserole bubbled away nicely, though I did cover the wok with foil to ensure the meat did cook properly. The design could be made more efficient by sealing in the gaps between the bricks and creating more of a space for ash to accumulate.