Actually Cooking Without Gas

[cejesq]

OK, Alma's cookin' but now I need to understand her dynamics. I'd like to invite replies about the performance of the Chambers oven (mine's a C-90) as well as recipes.

Miss Alma's oven (heated to 350) falls off to 280 after one hour, 220 after 2 hours and 160 after 3 hours. I used a remote read thermometer so door opening had no effect. Has anyone else tried to plot out temp loss? Is this fairly standard?

Here's what I learned about the Thermowell: It makes GREAT dried apples in less than 24 hours on just the pilot heat. Peel/core and slice a Granny Smith. Sprinkle slices with lemon juice and a bit of sugar then spread them on a paper towel on a rack in the Thermowell (I used my Thermo-Baker). Prop the lid a bit with a piece of folded aluminium foil to allow some air flow up and out. I turn 'em after about 12 hours. My daughter is now drying her own apple slices every weekend.

[Todd W. White]

I've never used a remote thermometer to measure it, but that seems about right.

Do you have the cookbook that gives all of the cooking/time charts for different dishes for both the oven and the Thermowell?

[cejesq]

Thanks, Todd.

Yeah, I finally broke down and picked one up from Sammy on eBay the other day. I expect it will be here next week. In the mean time, I'm just screwin' around with the oven. This thing bakes great. The heat is incredibly even, and the internal temp hardly fluctuates at all. I had been cooking on a flakey Hartwick apartment oven that would go 30 degrees either side of the mark during a 1 hour period. This is such a fine piece of equipment. I've even managed to calibrate the thermostat to within 3 degrees of the set temp.... that's just nuts.

I'm really anxious to experiment with retained heat. From what I can tell right now. I've got 2-3 hours of effective cooking heat after bringing her to 350 without re-firing. I'm really curious about the research the Chambers' folks did in their kitchens on cooking/baking techniques, especially in the Thermowell. Do you know of any books (other than the recipe books) that have been written about it? Are there still any folks around who worked in the Chambers test kitchens? The whole subject would make a wonderful subject for a documentary.

-CJ