Any way you look at (and we all need to), burning wood creates a lot of air pollution and contributes to deforestation. I love my outdoor wood-burning oven as much as anybody loves theirs, but every time I see the smoke it produces, not only do I feel a little sense of guilt, but I also wonder about fuel alternatives.
Perhaps hemp is one of the answers. I don't know how many BTU's it puts out, and I don't know how much air pollution it produces, but I do know that it's well past the time we started to look beyond firing our ovens with wood.
There is a company in England that sells Rastafire Logs, and that's no joke.
"All the Hemp is grown by UK farmers (in their attics). So light up, sit back and enjoy a relaxing cosy real fire, whilst waiting for the neighbours to call round the Gendarmes. Rastafire burns well on its own or mixed in with other wood briquettes."
And don't worry, the hemp used for fuel and fiber is quite different than the weed that's smoked, so we won't have to be concerned with corrupting our youth.
Is there anybody out there who has had some experience burning fuel other than wood in a bakeoven?
6 comments:
Oh Haha! I am not going to tell! What a great idea - Hemp! By the way, about doors, the boys took the metal shell off a dead microwave oven, bent the sides around and it fit perfectly to our new Dry Stack Oven. They have only fired it once and are trying to burn the paint off, which does not seem healthy to me but we have not cooked with the door up there yet. Will let you know what happens.
Wood fires out of town are not a pollution problem as far as I know and does not affect the ozone like coal fires.
We live in a forest and figure that we have our polution covered with all the trees we have.
Regards, Le Loup.
Well, Le Loup, it must be great to live in a forest. Do you want to tell us what country you're from?
Probably the wood smoke you generate is just a tiny amount in the total scheme of things. However, with a billion people cooking with wood and each generating a tiny amount of smoke, the cumulative global impact is enormous. I'm about to publish a post that talks about a company that makes very efficient wood stoves that really do contribute to a cleaner environment.
Stu
Burning the paint off a door in a wood-fired oven is not a good idea. Your oven is for food preparation, not for the incineration of toxic substances.
Stu
I have seen the video on those stoves, excellent.
"Well, Le Loup, it must be great to live in a forest. Do you want to tell us what country you're from?"
I was born in England, but I have lived in Australia now for over 40 years.
We do not see the pollution from wood fires in the country, but I totally agree that it can be a problem in the city.
Regards, Le Loup.
I don't have a wood stove or oven but have cooked plenty over campfires and charcoal grills. I would imagine that us humans have a natural inclination towards the flavor of breads from a wood oven versus an oven fired by some other fuel. Don't you? In other words I don't think the wood fire baked pizza I ate at Carrabbas Italian Grill would have tasted as good baked by coal, hemp, or recycled panty hose cubes.
My advice is to personally not feel guilty about a little smoke. Don't let the joy be taken from you by a few big city progressivs who've never built a fire in their life. Enjoy your life.
I like Solomon's advice - Ecclesiastes 8:14,15 says "There is something else meaningless that occurs on earth: righteous men who get what the wicked deserve, and wicked men who get what the righteous deserve. This too, I say, is meaningless. So I commend the enjoyment of life, because nothing is better for a man under the sun than to eat and drink and be glad. Then joy will accompany him in his work all the days of the life God has given him under the sun."
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