Heat Rings

DSBradley

Member
I understand the need for a heat ring using a wood stove for cooking. What I don't understand is why they are still being used in the design of newer iron. Is there another purpose in their design that I don't know about? Are they used just to make the newer iron look older? As you can tell, I'm a guy that needs to see funtion in the design. Thanks :confused:
 
Lodge has been using a grove instead of a ring for a long time. I think the rings stuck around mostly for ascetics. I never related to the word heat as it made more sense to be a smoke ring to keep the smoke from leaking up around the CI.

They may have held onto the design to allow a little room for warpage.

Hilditch
 
I can see heat ring being correct in the sense that, if you're managing the fire in a wood stove via intake and flue dampers, you'd want other sources of air ingress minimized, sealed off so the fuel isn't burning uncontrolled, being unnecessarily wasted. I'd also think that if the exhaust flue was functioning properly, smoke would tend to go up it rather than out of open stove eyes. Odorless skillets and pots depended upon that natural direction of airflow.
 
Doug, nothing personal but my 4 hole wood stove does not agree with you. When I remove an eye it is normally over the firebox for increased heat on a vessel and the exhaust goes out that hole instead of up the flue, not ingress. I get to watch the flue exhaust. If any fresh air makes it in the opening it is carried across the top of the oven to the flue, not down to the base of the fire based on the direction of the air flow.

Depending on the strength of the flue draw I have witnessed smoke seeping out around the eyes mostly near the beginning and end of a fire when the flue is cooler and not drawing as well as when it is hot. Opening an eye has the same effect on the fire as running a wide open flue damper, sucking more air in from the bottom of the fire box to make the fire burn faster.

My skillets with smoke rings help contain the smoke inside the stove so it goes to the flue.

Hilditch
 
I see both sides of this debate and I agree that the ring helps to seal the heat and the smoke in the firebox. I've also seen both versions referred to the ring on the bottom of the pan like this heat/smoke. My question is that after the 1940s, wood burning ranges went out of style and use yet the manufacturing of pans and kettles with these rings continued. Why? With electric and gas as the main cooking mediums, rings make no sense what so ever.
 
Thanks, I must have read it and stored it somewhere in my head for things not to forget. When I find that place I might be knowledgeable.
 
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