Menke Projects

I use a pair of these thermos bottles to keep a supply of hot water next to my coffee making apparatus.  (A quart jar and a paper filter.) When using my outdoor charcoal making stove as described in the previous blog, I always boil water for these bottles.  Since the interior flask is stainless steel, a trick is to pour boiling water into the bottle, and then put the slightly cooled water back into the pot and wait for it to reach the boiling point again.  (This pre-heats the stainless steel.)  After filling the bottle, install the cap, and pull a heavy wool sock over the entire bottle to improve the insulation quality.  Sometimes, I wrap both bottles with a piece of wool fabric from an old Pendleton wool shirt ($145 new), and the water stays hot for a long time. The Stanley Thermos was invented in 1913.  The patent on this bottle from 1913 shows the insulation as charcoal:  "If desired, a finely divided substance may be used which will not only not give off gas to the vacuo

Wikipedia definition:  A top-lit updraft gasifier (also known as a TLUD ) is a micro- kiln used to produce charcoal, especially biochar, and heat for cooking. ... A TLUD gasifier takes it further from a rocket stove in more efficient way of smoke-free, highly efficient combustion of the fuel.  My Rocket Stove (not a TLUD) is made of a concrete mixture of sand/crushed glass/perlite/and charcoal fines mixed with Portland Cement.  It works very well for simmering a pot of beans.  (I have since painted it black with latex paint.)  The major drawback, in my opinion, is that it burns the wood to ash, and does not make charcoal. This Blog Post will show the Charcoal Making Stove that has evolved on my patio over the last dozen years.  In the beginning, I constructed very small stoves from bean and coffee cans.  (TinCanium). and even purchased a Stainless Steel Campstove designed by Tom Reed. This was a very good fan assisted stove that I used until it finally burnt out, as shown in