Do you use the Thermowell?

Well, my first try didn't get a single response, so I'm trying again by rephrasing the question. I'm really hoping for your opinions, since there are so many obviously happy Chambers owners on this site.

Do you value the Thermowell on your stoves, or do you ever wish for a fourth burner?

Do you find them awkward to load or unload? I'm trying to imagine a big pot of hot soup being lifted out of a Thermowell. In my mind it seems like it might be a bit difficult.

Stoves without a thermowell have a 4th burner that has a higher BTU output (6 gas points, instead of the daisy burner's 4 points). Would this be a useful thing? I like to do a lot of canning, which is why I'm looking at these stoves in the first place, so I wonder if a hotter burner might not be a good thing?

Frankly I like the idea of the Thermowell, and am intrigued by them. I think I would prefer a stove with this feature, but have seen a nice 4 burner stove, too, and I need to decide by tomorrow on this particular stove. Yep, it's an ebay item, and I happen to be traveling to that part of the country in 2 days, so it woud be convenient for me.

The bottom line, though, is will I be missing out if I choose a stove without a deep well? I can always wait for another stove to come along. I'm not in a rush, I'd just like to bring a Chambers home in the next year or so.

Please help out a sincerely interested prospective Chambers owner. I have really enjoyed reading this group's comments and look froward to your opinions. Thanks.

Personally, I think that a CHAMBERS without a Thermowell is like a baseball without players - hard to imagine why there would be a need for one without it!

To me, the Thermowell is one of the most versatile and handy features CHAMBERS ever developed.

I could go on and on about it, but won't for the sake of time.

I have seen a few without the Thermowell, and, to me, they seem naked and severely limited.

Thanks for the push back in the right direction, Todd! I let that stove go (it was tough).

You said you could go on and on with the Thermowells's praises, and I'm sure I'm not the only Chambers novice that's interested in hearing. If you do have some time, I would really like to hear more about the them from yourself or anyone else. Who knows how long it will be before I get my own stove up and running!?

How are they to unload when full of hot food? How do you regulate the temp for the thermobaker function? Can you use other pots besides the originals and the Mirro aftermarket-types? How about adapting recipes - anyone good at this?

I'm in the process of getting a copy of your version of the Idle Hour Cookbook, but real world experience from users would be most useful.

I would be interested in the answers to all these questions also since I have yet to delve into the world of the Chambers thermowell.
Ann

Okay, I'm ready to blab.

Thermowells, like Chambers themselves, are great. They make life a little more interesting and fun. AND, they save time and gas. I could just shut up here.

Nah.

Fer instance: with the set of three 2qt. pots: take one of the pots, put in one cup of rice and two cups of water. Drop it in the thermowell and fire the gas full for 15 minutes. Shut off the gas and in one hour you will have perfectly cooked rice, and if you had to run out of the house and forgot about it and came back two hours later, the rice is still perfect AND warm AND not burnt to a crisp as it would be if you had simply had it in a pot on a top burner.

Same deal with pies (I bake lots of them in the thermowell and oven), and practically any other single item, not to mention multiple items and more complicated recipies. Just peruse the cookbook and you will see the possibilities. It take a while to wrap one's head around this method, but it is FUN and it is interesting. Conventional cooking: okay. Microwave cooking: boring. Chambers cooking... Truly satisfying.

They're beautiful, well made, fun, economical, last forever and do a great job. Throw a pie in the thing, go on a 4 hour date and invite him/her over for dessert: you will be married in 5 seconds flat. Just buy the d**m thing!

Joe

I'm trying, Joe (to buy one, that is).

I just need to find one that I think I can manage and that's at least somewhat nearby (within 10-15 hour drive, or so). I'm looking, despite the fact that a Chambers will NEVER fit in my kitchen without a significant overhaul. I don't even have a gas hookup at the moment, which is why I'm focusing on a C, much as I love the looks of a highback B. It would have to be LP, and that sounds tough with a B.

Maybe I'll have to buy a new house, just to have a place to use it! I'm smitten.

Thanks for the help, Joe.

OK, I have to add my 2? here as well. I think the Thermowell is one of the best features of this range. I use it often. In fact, just cooked a wonderful corned beef meal in there last night. And I had to laugh when my hubby came home and asked when I was going to start dinner. "Just check the Thermowell, it's done".
It's great for the meal-in-a-pot type things (pot roast, etc.). As for baking, it's terrific for a small family - don't have to heat the whole oven for a few baked potatoes, for instance. I've done casserole type dishes too (mac-n-cheese, scalloped potatoes).
The house stays nice and cool, uses a small amount of gas, food stays moist and wonderful, I could blab on and on!
As to the question of removing the pots, as long as your lid is on tight with the clamps, the pots lift out quite easily and safely, even when full.
May the more knowledable correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought that extra burner was an add on to the Thermowell, and could be removed or added if an extra burner was needed? However, I can't see the need for a fourth burner. Just use the well for one or two or three of the planned dishes...
Hope this isn't too long!
Gwen

Hey Chipperhiker (sorry, don't have your real name),
I was looking through my paperwork for another reply and came upon an oven canning chart. It has the steps and instructions for canning in the oven with the heat turned off. Since you like to can a lot, thought you might be interested.
Gwen

Hello, and thanks for the offer. I would be very interested in canning info. My email is [email protected] if it's easier. I hope that doesn't get censored out - don't know the rules here.

As for my name, it's both "Chipper" and Jennifer. Either works just fine. For some reason, when you start hiking thousands of miles at a time, other hikers start to give you new names (usually when you do something strange, like when I broke 2 teeth), so I was rechristened Chipper a few years ago. When I'm not dreaming about getting a Chambers up and running in my house, I dream about hiking more long-distance trails. Odd, I know...

The Cookbook gives you a LOT of ideas about how to use the Thermowell to cook delicious, nutritious, home-made meals without having to heat the whole oven or go to a lot of trouble. The "C" series is especially nice, because you can use the ThermoBaker in it - LOVE it!

I think that the Thermowell is great for small families, especially.

You don't have to resort to frozen dinners for one to three folks - just make up a small dinner for yourself, you and your spouse, or whatever in the Thermowell! MUCH better for you, and MUCh better tasting!

Some people have asked about the aluminum pots - as far as I have been able to research, the scare about aluminum causing Alzheimer's, etc., was unfounded.

I do NOT, however, like to use aluminum pots of any kind with foods that are acidic, such as tomatoe-based dishes. I MUCH prefer stainless steel for this.

That said, I am working with a fellow CHAMBERS owner on a source for a stainless steel replacement for the large, 7-quart Thermowell kettle. The ones I am looking at have the same kind of lid, but sans clamps. I'm working on a source for the clamps, and, if successful, I might have found a nearly ready-made unit that is easily adapted to for Thermowell use. I'll let ya'll know...

As for the Oven Canning Chart, I have newly scanned and carefully cleaned up ones available. Anyone who needs one, whether "B" or "C" owners, may order one. I'm trying to get all of the orders I have out tomorrow (Mom's cancer is advancing, so I'm pretty buried right now), but the Canning Guides are already printed and ready to be mailed...

So a thermobaker doesn't work in a B? I was going to (at some point) look back through the old "chats" about baking in the thermowell and see how to do it without a thermobaker. Joe, any suggestions on baking in the thermowell of a B?
Ann
ps Todd, do I get commission on the sale of those canning charts?

Well, the Thermobaker was sold for the "C". So far, I can find nothing CHAMBERS published that says it can be used in a "B". i would be interested to see if anyone has experience with one in a "B".

Commission? What's a commission? [img]wink.gif[/img]

Oh, yes, ThermoBaking in a B, while perhaps not officially sanctioned, is quite possible.

I'll take my B over a C anyday, but my most prized Chambers possession is a Themobaker, acquired from a rescued C earlier this past spring.

Sure, for three years I had my Chambers. And a great wife, a wonderful kid, a great job, a big old house. Everyone thought I was the luckiest guy on Earth. But they didn't know my deepest, darkest secret: for those three long years, I felt misserable, incomplete, a virtual nobody: I was ThermoBakerless.

Of course I had heard of them! That was the problem: my Idlehour cookbook had tantalizing descriptions and all these mouthwatering recipies, but photos of the ThermoBaker? Nosiree. I was going quite absolutely mad.

Then I discovered a photo of one on either TOAC or the Chambers Lovers website. It was as if the Holy Grail had appeared in a vision! I could finally see and know what it was I was looking for! You will not be surprised to know that I took it as a sign when, just a few weeks after that, a Chamber's owner friend mentioned he'd seen a Chambers in the basement of a house about to be demolished. It was a dog of a C, but when the storage compartment door was opened, there, in all it's splendid magnificence, was what my life had been missing: The Holy Grail of Chambers accessories, a ThemoBaker!

Since then I've flushed my anti-depressants and walk down the aisles of the supermarket with my head held high. To bake a pie in the ThermoWell on a ThermoBaker is one of my greatest pleasures, although it does take a bit longer with the gas turned on to get the desired results: a result of the B having a "flapper" exhaust valve that I suppose loses more heat than the model C ThermoWell, which lacks said valve.

It is very late and I am nuts to be spending so much time on this so good night!

Joe

Joe;
Now that your life is complete with your thermobaker, do you still have your great wife, a wonderful kid, a great job, a big old house? Hopefully your quest for fulfillment was short enough that they didn't give you up for totally over the deep end!
Ann

Thermowell--one of the best inventions ever!!!
What can't you do in it?? I have the B and don't have the thermobaker. But that's ok for me.
I do cook the Chambers way, "with the gas off".
It was wierd at 1st and hubby and I tried pot roast for our first Thermowell meal.Boy were we watching the timer, thinking no way could it me ready!! Gosh, it was so good, juicy, tender and tasty!! We do porkchops, roasts, stews, etc... in the large pot. We brown the meat on the stovetop in the same pot, put in the TW for xx minutes, add veggies for xx minutes turn the gas off and it continues to cook. You can adapt any recipe or come up with your own.


Be sure to order the "Idle Hour Cookbook". You'll get a kick out of reading it and the era it was written.

Also, what could be safer & more economical than cooking with the gas off. [img]smile.gif[/img]

Berlyn

You know, someone was selling a perfectly good C61 the other day on eBay - they even advertised it as being in excellent physical and working order. I e-mailed and asked what was wrong with it that would make them get rid of it. The reply was that they had remodeled their kitchen and replaced with a stainless steel "thing."

When I asked how they felt they were adjusting to cooking on an ordinary stove, they didn't seem to get what I was asking. Several times I tried to get an answer as to how, after all these years of cooking with the gas turned OFF, they thought they would EVER be happy with an ordinary stove.

I really think they thought their CHAMBERS was an "ordinary stove", and it wasn't until it was too late to out it back in that they realized what they'd been missing (I gave them the website address).

I think this happens a lot - people don't realize what a WONDERFUL invention they have: it's just "an old stove", so they use it like an ordinary stoive, or, worse yet, they chunk it in favor of something verrrrry inferior...and think they won!

No, friends, they LOST!

Gosh! The enthusiasm around here is infectious!

It makes it all the harder that I must still both find and restore my future stove, as well as somehow get in integrated with my house before I'll ever be able to USE it! Oy.

-Chipper

Chipperhiker:

Hey, so much for not getting a response, eh?

Ann: re: your question about my wonderful wife, kid, etc. Still got the most important stuff (wife and kid), although my wife thinks I am pretty nuts regarding Chambers.

Hmmm, I should express her viewpoint more clearly: 1 Chambers in the garage: goofey. 2 chambers in the garage: strange, but as long as her car fits in, okay. 3 chambers in the garage: time to have a serious talk.

I will soon learn what she thinks about the 4th. We may be extending the "Day of the Dead" celebration.

Joe

Well, Joe, I only meant that the way I phrased my first subject line must not have caught anyone's attention. i asked the same thing, but called it "High BTU burner vs. Thermowell.". It still has zero responses! I guess it's all in the subject line, huh?

By the way - why DO you have 4 stoves in the garage? Are you using them for parts to restore your first stove, or are you planning to restore all four?

It took me a half hour to get through security to leave a simple post.

Now I am attacked by avatars and instant gremlins.

All I wanted to say was:

My Chambers runs with four stove top burners. It works great. Mine doesn't have the well. The replacement five petal daisy burner kicks out serious BTU's. Granted, I have never used a Thermowell; I look forward to attending a demo of it's use.

Where's the next convention? Did I miss the first?

Gas off, and out.

Egg.

A convention - what a great idea!! You know we'd all just have to load up our stoves and cart them to Las Vegas (or wherever it is) just to show them off.
Maybe we could do a parts swap at the same time!
Well, I'm off to pump iron in preparation of loading the beast for the 1st Annual Greatest Stove On Earth Convention.
annnnt

Great stuff, folks! This is some of the most hilarious chat!

Gas off and out, indeed. Welcome to the clan, Eggbeater. Appreciate your travails and hope you continue to contribute. Regarding that mega burner: any idea how many BTU's Chambers rates it at. And what year and model designation?

Chambers Convention: so impractical, so implausable, so BRILLIANT! Imagine the press! Count me in on the organizing committee!

You do all know that Chicago claims title as the Convention Capital of the World, right? I will be happy to host the first one: ain't tottin' my Model B Highback milkglass salt and pepper shelves accross the country, unless I absolutely have to. I could never stand the stress. Actually, the first one would have to be in Shelbyville, Indiana. Any of you folks from there?

Chipperhiker, in my garage I've got 2 C's, (high and low), one copper wall oven with counter top unit, and one BZ Highback. It all started with my B, of course. After restoring it and using it for three years, I became nuts about the dang things.

Got the first C just because I couldn't stand that it was gonna get burried in a house demolition. Found the wall unit/countertop sitting on the curb. (You all wouldn't have just let it sit there, would you?) Got the second C cause I needed parts for the first C which a friend asked me to restore, and I have absolutely no excuse in the world for recently acquiring the BZ. Yes, I intend to restore all of them. My marriage depends on it. Also, it is very satisfying to resurrect these things into the beauties they were intended to be.

Another evening wasted away in Chambersville.

Joe

Awesome!

Until yesterday I had never used my thermowell. Then some friends said they would drop by late afternoon. I already had some beans in the pressure cooker, so thought I'd try Joe's rice recipe. At 4pm I put rice (1C) and water (2C) in my 1/3 pot and lit the thermowell from above with my bbq clicker (don't have any long fireplace matches yet - but they are on the list). At 4:10 I smelled a slight burning smell coming from the stove, but thought it must just be some dust burning off since the thermowell hadn't been lit in who knows how many years. I didn't think much of it so went outside to get my oven door pin from my truck as I had been searching all over town for the missing piece - to no avail. My friends arrived at that moment and we got distracted looking at things outside. As we approached the house at 4:20 there was definite smell of burning. I rushed into the kitchen where my husband had all the windows open, but the thermowell was still on. I turned it off and my friends wanted to look at the rice to see if it was burning or something else in the thermowell was burning. I said "NO! IT'S COOKING WITH THE GAS TURNED OFF!!" We went off for a hike and got back about 5:30. When I opened the lid of the thermowell all seemed well, nothing scorched, nothing burned. Same when I took the lid off the pot - light, fluffy rice and no sign of anything burned. I thought it must be the bottom inch of rice is charred and stuck to the bottom. But NO, light fluffy rice through and through.
I don't know what was burning, maybe old crud in the gas line? My husband said it smelled like burning oven cleaner, but I didn't use oven cleaner in the thermowell. It was in really pristine condition - no gunk, no chips, no rust - I just barely had to wipe it out.
I guess I'll light up the thermowell again today and see if whatever it was has burned off. And I'll be searching the fridge and cupboards for things to cook with the gas turned off - what fun!
Ann

Chipperhiker: I'm not sure if this is true, but I heard that the Chambers designers were working on a campers version. I'm still hoping to find the prototype. Source said that it "fits in a backback" and weighs "only 200lbs."

Joe: Re: Thermowell replacement burner...
I have no clues on BTU output. Factory plate doesn't even acknowledge it. All had the Thermowell... even if they didn't.

annnt, (& others)
try this Pot roast recipe:

3-4lb boneless roast,
veggies-potatoes,carrots & onions
your seasoning for roast (salt,pepper,garlic, etc..)

Brown your seasoned roast with app. 3tbls of oil, on the cook top in the thermowell 7 qt pot.
Add 1 cup of water and put in thermowell for 10-15 minutes with gas ON. Add veggies and cook with gas ON for another 10 minutes. Turn gas OFF and go have fun for 2-3 hours. Your roast will be juicy, tender and tasty with little effort.
It's no easy and no babysitting the oven!!

Berlyn

Berlyn:

Call me nuts, but I've mortgaged my left kneecap and got my 4 lb. organic rump roast bought. Am so excited to try it out this week!

Joe

Hey, Joe,
Take the Rump back and swap it for a Chuck Roast. You will be much happier! More fat means more flavor.
Regards, Sam

Joe,
[img]graemlins/wonder.gif[/img] Curiosity gets me once more!!
Being from South Texas with lots of ranches and farms. What the heck is "organic" beef?? How much is it a pound??

Berlyn

Yes, I'd prefer chuck over a rump (I hope the "naughty language" police don't barge in here), 'cause chuck is what my Grandma used. But, the Idle Hour cookbook says you can use either. And my wife has requested lower fat options for meals. So, I'll let ya know how it turns out.

And regarding organic, no hormones, no animal protein feed, no antibiotics, etc. You pay extra for less, I guess ;-)

I spent $5 per lb. for a 2.5 lb roast.

Joe

Regarding using a thermobaker in a B model. I have a BZ model and use the thermobaker all the time. It works great. I've baked pies, cornbread,stews, soups you name it. I just love it. Comes in handy with 2 kids and a hubby all on different schedules.