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Sunday, September 12, 2010

Waiting for the coffee

The worst part about cooking on a woodstove is waiting for the morning coffee.

Okay, it's no secret that I'm cheap, frugal if you feel polite about it. The last time I bought propane for the stove was about 13 months ago. Don't expect to buy any this year. Maybe I won't ever buy any again. The only things left that use propane is the stove and the clothes dryer. I can live without a dryer. Between a good clothesline and a drying rack by the woodstove, it's workable.

The propane stove might be missed. Still debating whether or not to keep a couple propane burners. You see, it's the darn perked coffee I've come to love so much. Put it on the propane burner, the water heats up and the coffee is perked. Easy. Fast.

Then there's the woodstove. During winter proper, it's nice. I keep a huge kettle of hot water on the stove at all times. It helps humidify the house and there's hot water available for warm drinks at all times. This time of year, the woodstove is only lit on really cool mornings, or when I want to take the dampness out of the house.

So I lite the stove and I wait. All that cold cast iron has to heat up. The big kettle of water seems to take forever. The very tiny hint of a caffeine headache begins. My body knows I usually have a hot steaming cup of organic, fair trade, home roasted, spring water brewed coffee by now.

My lovely wife tends to sleep in those mornings, waiting for coffee alarm. She's smarter than me.

-Sixbears

6 comments:

  1. You can get a drip machine for like ten bucks.

    Just sayin'.

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  2. I had some second cousins who lived on a farm in the back woods of Missouri and didn't get electricity till I was in my 20s. I don't know if they have running water, even now, since they had such a good spring on their land. I stayed with them a few times, growing up. Learned how to milk a cow, cook on a wood stove, and more. I think, though, that they had a stovetop percolator. That made it easier on me, anyway.

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  3. Indeed I could para-cynic. Do you have any idea how many amps a drip machine draws? Sure, it's for a short period of time, but they don't fit in with my totally off-grid quest. Ten bucks is ten bucks. Also, they get the coffee hot enough. Perked coffee stays hot all day in my air pot. Drip starts out about 30 degrees cooler.

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  4. Gas, yes I said gas. I need to get me a gas camp stove. It is just utilitarian to have one. I like wood and coals myself, but that is not always practical.

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  5. Well, ten bucks won't get you much propane, a drip pot doesn't cut into your winter heat, and you need to want a cuppa reaaaaaaaaal bad to light a woodstove in July.

    Think of it as redundancy.

    Or prepping.

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  6. Okay para-cynic. Drip might do the job in the summer, when I have more solar power to spare anyway. (Unless I have a campfire going anyway . . .)

    ReplyDelete