J.A. Roby Marmiton Cookstove Questions

[Kenbutsu]

Has anyone used this model (or something similar) as their primary cookstove?

J.A. Roby Marmiton EPA Wood Burning Cookstove at Obadiah's

J.A. Roby Marmiton Wood Burning Cookstove and more cook stoves at Obadiah's. Call us with your questions, we look forward to assisting you.

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I have very limited experience cooking on a wood stove, but we're trying to pick out a stove that could reliably be used as a primary cookstove for a family of 6. Is 2.4 cu. ft. a good enough oven size? Is this a reliable brand, and are replacement parts easy to find?

If anyone has feedback on their experience with this stove, it would be greatly appreciated, thanks.

 

[EbS-P]

Can’t speak for wood cooking. Have not read anything bad about JA Roby. Can’t recall any posts about their cookstoves. As a family of now 7 I can probably speak to the oven size.

Looks like the limiting dimension for most cooking would be the height. But I think at 12” you could get a big turkey in there fine. How evenly it cooks would be another matter. All the rack positions I could get two levels pretty easy.
So over all I think could get by with a 2.4 cu ft oven. Other than holidays I don’t ever run out of space unless we are trying to cook lots of cakes at once. It will be noticeably smaller than any standard oven. Biggest issue I see is trying to boil enough water too cook 2# of pasta in a single pot. Never done it. Could be fast?? I will let someone else chime in.

1.7 cu ft secondary combustion firebox seems big enough. Same size as my Jotul. 6-8 hour burn times (but I’m not cooking)

Cooking lots of food fast I have found there is nothing better than a giant wok and really high output propane burner. Recently I just got a 24” kamado grill. If going totally off grid I could see marking my own charcoal and using that a lot. Not light not cheap but certainly could cook anything I wanted during the summer outdoors.

 

[begreen]

The Marmiton is an interesting new EPA certified stove but I don't recall anyone reporting ownership yet. I would call the folks at Obidiah for a chat about this stove as compared to other options. It may be a great heater, but questions about ease of maintenance, evenness of cooking (especially in the oven), etc. are also very important if you are going to be relying on it for a daily cooker.

What is the plan for summer cooking?

J.A. Roby Marmiton Wood Cook Stove at Obadiah's

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[SpaceBus]

I own and regularly use wood burning cookstove, but not a J.A. Roby. I think in PA you will only get a solid 4-6 months a year of use out of it. We get 8-9 months of regular use out of our cookstove, but it's a bit cooler here in the shoulder seasons.

 

[Kenbutsu]

Thank you all for the replies.

EbS-P, I can see it being tricky at holidays, but for the most part it sounds like we can get by just fine with this size oven.

begreen, do you have a brand or model that you recommend for beginners, or that several people have reported using on this forum? As a new user, it might be better to start with a stove that people here have lots of experience with. For summer cooking, we have an electric oven.

SpaceBus, is the limited use because it's simply too hot (uncomfortable home temp) to operate? In the shoulder seasons, do you find you're able to extend your cookstove usage by cooking very early, or later at night?

 

[SpaceBus]

Thank you all for the replies.

EbS-P, I can see it being tricky at holidays, but for the most part it sounds like we can get by just fine with this size oven.

begreen, do you have a brand or model that you recommend for beginners, or that several people have reported using on this forum? As a new user, it might be better to start with a stove that people here have lots of experience with. For summer cooking, we have an electric oven.

SpaceBus, is the limited use because it's simply too hot (uncomfortable home temp) to operate? In the shoulder seasons, do you find you're able to extend your cookstove usage by cooking very early, or later at night?

That is exactly what I do in the shoulder season, but cookstoves in general won't put the same amount of heat into the house no matter how high the stated combustion efficiency is. Both of my wood burning stoves are rated at the same output, but the cookstove has a larger firebox and lower combustion efficiency. The cookstove also has a lot of convective surfaces compared to the pure radiant heat offered by my free standing stove. All this is to say a cookstove offers a much "softer" heat compared to a freestanding stove, which is good because you have to stand next to it. Most of the heat is lost to the oven and cooktop, with a bit escaping into the room and up the flue. It's a cool foggy day today, so I could probably light the stove if I wanted to, but I'm ready for a break from burning. Our cookstove is tied into our domestic hot water, which helps reduce the electric bill significantly when burning.

What are your criteria for the cook stove? When I chose the Tim Sistem North it was mainly about the clearances and DHW coil, but at the time it was also offered with a glass cook top which also helped make up my mind. I would buy this stove again, but there are others that I liked more but needed more clearance to combustibles. With proper shielding my North can be installed almost flush. I'm also a big fan of the Elmira Fireview, Heco stoves, the Hearthstone Deva 100, and Esse stoves. It's hard to find a huge oven on a wood burning cookstove, and many stoves with large ovens also call for a large house.

Perhaps you could include a floor plan of where you are thinking to install the stoves. Some details about the rest of the house, like floor plan, average temperature, insulation, etc. would also be useful.

For what it's worth, I loathe using my electric stove compared to my wood burning stove. The wood cooker is simply a joy to use and somehow harder to burn stuff despite higher average surface temperature. The oven is especially nice and I rarely, if ever, burn anything. Last fall I forgot about a pumpkin pie that was finishing off as the fire died down, and even though the oven was above 400f for several hours, with the slowly declining temperature and sealed nature (no water loss when the door is closed) the pie came out perfect. People say there is a steep learning curve to cooking with wood, but I found the opposite to be true. I've also worked quite a bit as a grill/line cook, so I'm used to a massive, always hot cooking surface.

 

[begreen]

begreen, do you have a brand or model that you recommend for beginners, or that several people have reported using on this forum? As a new user, it might be better to start with a stove that people here have lots of experience with. For summer cooking, we have an electric oven.

There are some basic factors that have to be considered. For me, good draft control, even oven-cooking temp, and ease of maintenance are important factors, but I have never used a modern cook stove. Instead, I learned on a turn of the century cast iron hulk. It didn't hold a big fire so it had to be fed every 2-3 hrs, but the oven, once up to temperature, was wonderful. Modern stoves now have secondary burn and efficiencies that were not available in old stoves. The JA Roby stove specs are impressive and it may be worthy of heating a 1200 sq ft area with an overnight burn, but that is TBD.

Not many of us have owned several different cookstoves that we can make comparisons with. Spacebus has the Tim Sistem stove that he is happy with. A HW jacket was important to him but it may not be for you. @coaly has a Kitchen Queen (400?) cookstove, he wanted HW heating capacity too. Kitchen Queen also makes the Grand Comfort with secondary burn. The Hearthstone Deva has received good reports and the Esse Ironheart has some happy owners too.

I would definitely call Obidiah. They test and sell many cookstove varieties.

 

[SpaceBus]

I bought my stove from Obadiah, they offer great customer service! There was a time they were posting videos on various stove tests. Keep in mind they are selling a product and "overnight fire" is very subjective. My cookstove will hold an overnight fire, but only loaded to the gills with the thickest and densest hardwoods I can get. And even then there's just enough coals to get an easy light. Otherwise I'm loading it every 4-8 hours if I need heat or extended cooking times.

 

[Kenbutsu]

Thank you both for all the info and questions I should look into. This is my in-laws house, and they designed it to eventually have both a wood stove for general heating and a cookstove. The house is large (3-4k sq. ft?) , and I will need to ask them about the insulation and other questions when I see them Sunday. There's a lot of flexibility with clearances for the cookstove.

The main criteria for the cookstove would be to reliably cook using only fuel from the property. begreen's list of factors looks important, and several more may fall into the category of "I'll discover it's a criteria as I learn how to cook". The cookstove does not need to heat the house for long periods because the woodstove would be going. I expect a decent learning curve and some burnt meals.

 

[begreen]

Yes, I had a few of those too. Cooking on the cooktop of the stove is a dream. There is almost infinite temperature control depending on which side of the cooktop the pan is placed.

Can we assume there will be a primary heating system in the house? Insurance companies and banks tend to frown on wood-only heat. It's also good to have a backup in case one is away from home or sick. In PA a mini-split heatpump system would also provide AC and heat when the outside temps are too warm for a fire.

 

[begreen]

You might like to share this website with them. It has a lot of good articles about wood stove cooking, lore, and history.

Wood Cookstove Cooking

This site has a wealth of information on cooking in a wood cookstove, old and new cookstoves, recipes, etc. It's easy to get lost here for a few hours. Great stuff. https://woodcookstovecooking.blogspot.com/

www.hearth.com

 

[coaly]

Thank you both for all the info and questions I should look into. This is my in-laws house, and they designed it to eventually have both a wood stove for general heating and a cookstove. The house is large (3-4k sq. ft?) , and I will need to ask them about the insulation and other questions when I see them Sunday. There's a lot of flexibility with clearances for the cookstove.

The main criteria for the cookstove would be to reliably cook using only fuel from the property. begreen's list of factors looks important, and several more may fall into the category of "I'll discover it's a criteria as I learn how to cook". The cookstove does not need to heat the house for long periods because the woodstove would be going. I expect a decent learning curve and some burnt meals.

I expected burned meals as well. Never happened. A wood oven runs about 300-350 all winter without turning it on. You simply close the circulation flap and the heat circulates around oven bringing the temp up. Shutting it off holds the temp or drops slowly depending on fire.

The reason food doesn’t burn easily is the oven has a door seal and does not use air circulation like a conventional oven. Any food with moisture including meats allows the steam to stay in the oven preventing drying and burning. It is difficult to brown the top of a casserole in a wood oven. Meats are much more moist and tender. We have a propane fired Garland commercial double oven and prefer the wood oven.

Stove top cooking is done by moving pots and pans to the exact heat you want. To boil or a hot pan to seat, you remove the eye for direct contact with heat on bottom of pan or kettle. This is high, and cooks faster than gas. A wok also sets over the opening very well. You must stay with the food when cooking this way to keep it moving. If oil smokes, remove from open lid and replace cover to continue on stove top. You don’t try to control stove top temp, you move pans to cooler areas away from the firebox side.

The only thing ever burned was a tray of cookies when we first got it. My wife was clearing room on counter and Garland range top to set trays to cool. As she was taking them out, she ran out of room on counter. She sat the tray on coolest side of stove top over oven and quickly made room. The few seconds the tray sat on stove top blackened the bottom of cookies instantly.

Ovens are vented with a very small opening into flue to prevent building up air pressure when heating while closed tight. So you will slightly smell what’s cooking in the oven outside. When opening oven door keep face and body back from the steam that rolls out toward you. While the oven door is open basting or turning things, the moisture condenses on the open door cooling and drips on the floor. The air inside holds that much moisture from the food compared to conventional ovens where airflow around food at sides is critical. No so with wood. You can also cook at higher temps if needed. Our Kitchen Queen oven goes to 1000*f but I’ve only had it to 800. You decrease cooking time for a pizza at higher temps if making quite a few.

Check out the Kitchen Queen Grand Comfort. For a utilitarian stove they can’t be beat.

 

[Kenbutsu]

begreen, the house does have a geothermal heating system. It's very well insulated and was designed to be energy efficient. They've lived in it for some years but haven't installed the wood stoves yet. Thank you for the link to the blog! I do intend to lose several hours on that...

coaly, I'll look into the Kitchen Queen. Thanks for the recommendation.

I was wondering, do people keep the cookstove fire going all day long, if you intend to cook multiple meals on it throughout the day? Or do you start a fire at each meal? Is it a long time from when you begin the fire to when the oven or stove top is ready to start cooking food? My FIL and I were discussing the firebox size. He thought it would be good to have a large firebox so we didn't have to reload it as many times during the day. I thought a smaller one would be better because I saw some comments here about how people's stoves were running much hotter than they expected, and I was hoping a smaller firebox stove could be used farther into the spring and earlier in the fall each year.

 

[begreen]

A cookstove is not instant. It takes time to get up to temperature. Keep the wood cookstove going all day long if intending to use it for breakfast through dinner meals. It doesn't need a hot fire constantly going as long as there is a decent coal bed to refresh the fire 15-30 minutes ahead of time or an hour if the oven will be used.

 

[coaly]

It is our primary heat source. We also have a second chimney with a coal stove. Some winters we heat only with wood, others we light the coal stove which burns constant and low and only light the wood for meals or when colder.

We save propane using wood anytime. It only takes about 10 minutes to light a fire and have a 300*f stack temp to start cooking. Even less when using a summer grate which raises fire just below the top surface. If only kindling is used, open bypass directly into chimney, light and remove lid for cooking over open eye right away. Close bypass for heat and flames to rise straight up. When done, replace lid when removing pan or kettle and open bypass to allow heat directly up chimney to prevent heating the entire stove.

Oven temperature takes time. You can’t turn the oven on before the firebox and chimney is up to temperature. The Kitchen Queen stoves have a counter clockwise rotation using the fire sideways UNDER the oven first, up the right side, and across top to get out. Most others rise up and across the top, down the right side and across bottom to get to chimney. This allows cooling and much more creosote and a wet tar formation under oven. That was the main reason we went with the Queen. The new ones also have the oven clean out on the front. Something you need to consider if installed against a rear wall.

If you turn the oven circulation on before chimney is up to temp, the cooling of exhaust gases circulating around oven giving up their heat to oven walls decreases chimney temperature and slows fire. The chimney is the engine that runs any stove, so a cookstove needs a good draft (hot in flue above 600*f internal = 300*f on pipe surface thermometer to circulate around oven to prevent chimney temp drop. You open more air using oven and learn to shut it off before reaching desired temperature since it continues to climb. Like I mentioned, it won’t burn food, it just gets done quicker.

The Queen will heat up to 3000 sf with oven door cracked overnight as well. You don’t turn oven on doing this, they circulate around oven partially all the time to maintain oven temp.

If heating water is a concern, the Queen has the largest hot water capacity by far than others. These are designed for an Amish family to heat the home and supply all the domestic hot water.

 

[SpaceBus]

I load my cookstove every 3-6 hours as needed. I don't keep a fire in it unless I need the heat or need to cook. If I need a lot of heat I just light the freestanding stove.