[Rhodes22-list] cooking

Roger Pihlaja cen09402@centurytel.net
Tue, 5 Nov 2002 07:13:55 -0500


Enclosed below are the text & links to supporting annotated pictures of my
article on installing a built-in thermos for hot water in the R-22 galley.
Based upon a couple of seasons of cruising use, this built-in thermos is
absolutely the right answer for providing hot water while underway.  I will
have something like this in my galley from now on, even if I get a very big
boat.

For what it's worth, the 5 lb LPG cylinder on board Dynamic Equilibrium
holds enough propane for cooking about 2 weeks of meals between refills.  I
prefer cooking with gas vs. electricity or alcohol.  But, that's just a
matter of personal taste.  The enclosed links are annotated pictures of the
galley & LPG cylinder storage on board Dynamic Equilbium:

http://www.rhodes22.org/rhodes/pics/Galley-3.jpg
http://www.rhodes22.org/rhodes/pics/Galley-4.jpg
http://www.rhodes22.org/rhodes/pics/Propane-1.jpg

Previous posts have provided other documentation re the the details of my
LPG-fired stove setup.  I've been sailing with this galley setup since 1988
with zero safety or reliability issues.  Cooking with fire on board a boat
demands a certain amount of attention to detail in the installation &
operating procedures.  But, get it right & the results are very civilized.
Dynamic Equilibrium's galley enables the boat to be very independant of
marinas for periods of 1 - 2 weeks at a time.

We also use ceramic flower pots inverted over the burners for heat.  You
must ventilate the cabin while the stove is lit.  But, once the ceramic
flower pot is hot, you can turn the stove off, close up the cabin, & the
ceramic will radiate heat to warm the cabin for quite a while.

While underway, unless motoring in gentle conditions, the pitching & rolling
make any sort of cooking almost impossible.  You would need a stove that was
gimbled fore/aft as well as port/starboard + cookware with tight fitting
lids that was somehow secured to the stove.  Even then, you'd have to be
very careful to leave lots of freeboard when filling your pots or they'd
slop over.  Cooking while underway is just not very realistic on a 22' LOA
sailboat.  The short LOA & relatively low inertia tend to make the motion
too quick & jerky in 3-D to enable anything to stay on a stove.

However, at anchor or at a dock, it has to be very rough to not be able to
cook.  After all, don't you choose your overnight anchorage with weather
protection in mind?  Aren't harbor sites choosen with the same criteria?  At
anchor or at a dock, the motion of the boat is much more constrained than at
sea.  Power boat & PWC wakes are not big enough to cause me a problem in my
galley.

Actually, I much prefer cooking aboard with Dynamic Equilibrium's built-in 2
burner LPG-fired stove, stainless steel cookware, sink, 15 gallon water
supply, ice box, utensils, & countertop working space vs. cooking on my
backpacking stove ashore.    I have cookware sized to fit my particular
model 2-burner stove with tight fitting lids & I'm careful not to fill the
pots too full.  We have a griddle, sized to fit one burner, with room left
over for another pot on the 2nd burner.  But, we only use it for things like
pancakes or grilled ham & cheese sandwiches that don't generate much greese
that could run off the griddle & catch fire.  Anything greasy like bacon,
hamburger, or sausage gets cooked up in a frying pan with sides & a tight
fitting lid.

We mostly beach camp because we just prefer the much greater overall living
space of camping ashore to living aboard.  I can prepare pretty good meals
in either venue.  If I'm going to Bar-B-Que, then I usually build a wood
campfire ashore.

However, building a campfire ashore wouldn't be very practical for those of
you that like to stay in marinas.  On other boats, I've cooked using both
the LPG-fired Magma grill & the LPG-fired Force 10 grill.  Either works
pretty well.  I prefer the Force 10 over the Magma because of the higher
quality of construction & better fit/finish, rectangular vs. round cooking
surface, attached lid, & stainless steel construction.  At first, I thought
the fire in an LPG-fired grill out in the cockpit would tend to get blown
out in any sort of wind.  But, both the Magma & Force-10 seemed to pretty
reliable in that respect.  Both the Magma & Force-10 are good machines.
They just don't particularly suit the way we use our boat & I would rather
use the space they would occupy for other gear.

We only plan our meals extensively when we're going on one of our wilderness
cruises.  If we're only going to overnight on board the boat someplace, I
just throw some groceries in the ice box with little more planning than you
would give to making dinner & breakfast at home.

Roger Pihlaja
S/V Dynamic Equilibrium

____________________________________________________________________________
______
Hot Drinking Water While Underway
http://www.rhodes22.org/rhodes/pics/hotwater_1.jpg
http://www.rhodes22.org/rhodes/pics/hotwater_2.jpg
Hot drinking water while underway is truely a luxury on board a small boat.
On Dynamic Equilibrium, I solved this problem with a 2 quart pump thermos.
Before we get underway in the morning, we boil two quarts of hot water on
the stove & fill up the thermos.  The pump thermos keeps the water hot for
up to 8 hours.  Having 2 quarts of hot water available for dispensing like
this means any member of the crew can make themself a cup of hot tea,
coffee, cup-a-soup, etc without any risk of firing up the stove at sea.
The above enclosed links will bring up the "Interiors" page on the photo
web site with a couple of pictures of the installation in my galley.

The particular pump thermos I used was an EKCO model 117602401, century
black/brushed stainless steel.  It turns out the base of this particular
pump thermos fits a Beckson model DP61-W,  6 inch diameter, pry-out
deck plate almost perfectly.  I said "almost perfectly".  Actually, you
need to purchase two of these Beckson deck plates.  Use a saber saw to
cut out the center of one of the pry-out plates to exactly fit the base
of the pump thermos.  The deck plate is made of ABS plastic.  Don't cut
too fast or you'll melt the plastic with the saw blade & your cut will
"weld" itself back together behind the blade!  After cutting, I used a
small sanding drum mounted in a Dremel Multi-Tool & hand sanding to
finish off the ID of the pry-out plate.

The deck plate has to be mounted into the countertop.  Use the deck plate
itself as a template to scribe the hole to be cut into the countertop.
Cover the bottom of your saber saw with masking tape to prevent scratching
the countertop laminate.  I sealed the edges of the hole with epoxy to
prevent any water damage to the plywood underlay & also prevent the
countertop laminate from curling up at the edge of the hole.  The deck
plate is mounted with six #8 x 3/4" pan head stainless steel wood screws.
I also sealed underneath the deck plate flange with white silicone RTV
sealant to prevent any water from getting under the deck plate.

The 1st picture shows the pump thermos mounted into the galley countertop.
The mounting is very secure, even when the thermos is full of hot water.
Dynamic Equilibrium does not have a stock galley arrangement, so your pump
thermos will probably have to be located slightly differently than mine.
However, I'm sure all Rhodes 22's have a place where such a pump thermos
could be mounted.  In my mounting location, the base of the pump thermos
sits on top of the ice box when it's installed in the countertop.

The 2nd picture shows the pump thermos removed with the modified pry-out
plate still attached to the base of the thermos.  The 2nd picture also
shows the use of the 2nd pry-out plate to fill in the hole to get your
counter space back when the pump thermos isn't installed.

We've sailed with this pump thermos for a couple of seasons now.
We really like it.  It works so well that GBI ought to consider making
it a factory option.  Of course, Stan would probably do something really
classy like mold the mount for the pump thermos right into the countertop
& make the pry-out filler plate a cutting board...

Roger Pihlaja
S/V Dynamic Equilbrium



----- Original Message -----
From: "Rik Sandberg" <racerrik@rea-alp.com>
To: "The Rhodes 22 mail list" <rhodes22-list@rhodes22.org>
Sent: Tuesday, November 05, 2002 12:02 AM
Subject: Re: [Rhodes22-list] cooking


> Yee haw, coffee's on boys!!!!
>
> That little Honda will run a darn long time on a quart of gas, about 4 hrs
> IIRC. Pretty economical really. If I was going out for a week at that
rate,
> I'd need about a quart of gas for the O/B and another quart or 2 (we drink
> a ton of coffee) for the genset. Let's see, if my math is right, that's 1
> gallon jug with a quart to spare. Seems about right.
>
> This fall at Ky Lake I used up just about 1 gallon of gas all week and
that
> counts the quart and a half I put in the scooter. Didn't have the genset
> with though, or I could have really been a gas hog.
>
> Now we all we have to do is test out that step mount.
>
> Rik
>
>
> At 08:36 PM 11/4/2002 -0800, you wrote:
> >Because inquiring minds want to know!  I have a
> >simulator in 6 hours but couldn't sleep and had to try
> >something.  Hooked the Honda up to my Braun 10 cup
> >coffee maker.  Started at 10:14 and had 10 cups of
> >steaming hot water at 10:22.  That would be 30 10/cup
> >pots without refueling. The coffee pot was almost as
> >tall as the generator and the Honda weighs exactly
> >half of what a group 27 battery does. Tomorrow
> >afternoon I'll try the blender.  Margaritas anyone?
> >
> >Brad Haslett
> >
> >__________________________________________________
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>
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