Building a rocket stove cob oven solves problems by providing an efficient and sustainable outdoor cooking solution. It reduces fuel consumption, promotes self-sufficiency, and minimizes environmental impact. The combination of rocket stove technology and cob oven design offers a versatile and cost-effective way to cook delicious meals while addressing energy and ecological challenges.
We do recommend reading the information below first.
We designed and built our oven late 2015 and into early 2016. Over the following years we have used this oven many times and can say with confidence that it has performed better than we had imagined.
Having received many questions from people about the style and function of this design, we have decided to draw up the plans and building instructions for the food enthusiasts and the camp-cooks alike.
This page is dedicated to making available the plans that closely follow our build, so employing these plans on your own oven will make your build far more likely to be a success, both in design and functionality.
The benefits of a rocket-stove oven design
There are several benefits to this design type.
- Efficiency in wood use. The oven these plans are drawn from is extremely efficient and can cook a large amount of food with a bucket of wood.
- Fast to reach cooking temps. The oven performs better the older it is and the more use it gets.
- This oven is simple to understand and operate.
- This oven operates when the grid is down. If there was one reason only for you to build this or a similar oven, this would be it.
Wood efficiency is important.
Some people will like the oven for its ability to cook a lot in a single run and what’s not to like about that. The big question to ask here is ‘how much wood does it take to do the job?’ because having an oven that can operate without any grid connection is good but if it needs a truck-load of firewood to cook a meal…what’s the point? Might as well use propane.
The image above is the amount of wood used to cook the food in the image below.
Why build a larger oven.
It takes almost as much wood to heat a smaller oven. Having the large volume in the oven allows you to cook several items at once and can give you a weeks’ worth of cold meat in one cooking session. This is how we use ours.
You can cook a small meal (or very large) in this oven, but you cannot cook a large meal in a small oven.
How hot can the oven get?
The oven will reach 230C (445F) with dry hardwood. This temperature can be held indefinitely once the oven walls absorb enough heat. This is usually after 30-45 minutes (approx) from lighting. 190C (375F) is reached in 15 minutes but as the walls have not soaked much heat into them there is no real temperature buffer to help with temp stability. The longer you have the fire lit the more stable the temps.
Why use an oven build plan?
You don’t need to at all, unless you want a great result straight away without any prototyping. We have removed the guess work for you.
What do you get in the plans?
We supply detailed instructions on how we built the oven you see on this website. We have images that highlight important aspects of the build, and dimensioned drawings for the oven layout. The critical ratios with explanations that make this ovens heat flow effective are also included.
Are the plans worth the cost?
The cost of the plans is $5 and we consider this a very reasonable price. We know the time, work and research that went into this design and believe the cost for you to adjust your own mistakes design could be multiples of the price we ask.
The button at the top will take you to the checkout page where you will be able to complete your purchase and download the PDF plans for this oven. Once you have the plans, you can complete the build as you see fit.
It is a great project that all the family can be involved in, and the enjoyment from using it will last a lifetime. We are very very confident that this is a project you will never regret building and using.
