How Do You Cook Onboard?

[Dedzaboy]

We had a Wallas diesel cooker and stove, took it out and replaced it with a propane model! The Wallas stove took a while to heat up, if you turned it off you couldn't restart it until after it had gone through a cool-down cycle for ten minutes (fancy a coffee? Oh, sorry, I can't begin to boil the kettle again for ten minutes...), also the entire ceramic stove top heated up when turned on rather than individual rings which gave off a lot of residual heat, perfect for the tropics.
Sadly it wasn't particularly reliable either - too many circuit boards and soenoids and pumps for my liking - keep it simple and squirt propane through a nozzle, I can fix that when it goes wrong!

[Astrid]

My galley has a Dickinson Atlantic diesel stove, although I confess I don't use it much except for bread making. Most of my actual meal prep is done with a counter top electric grill and a microwave. Once in a while, when I have guests on board and need to prepare a more complicated meal than I usually eat, I will fire up the Atlantic. When out on the water on a day trip or an extended voyage, though, I tend to make meals out of tinned, precooked meats and the like--fry bread and toppings, sandwiches, tortillas etc. coffee from an electric coffee pot.

[bobfnbw]

Haven't had a chance to cook aboard yet, just sandwiches and cold stuff.
Boat came with a new 2 burner with oven propane force 10 stove. But it didn't work.
found that the solenoid was bad. So I decided to upgrade to a propane sniffing one. Found that wire to be bad, with no fuse and corrosion all thru. (boat is a 1983 so it is to be expected...) Also found that while inside the boat the propane hose was in good shape, where it exited to the propane locker, it was not. And of course you can't just splice it out. Also no one ever grommeted the opening so there is chafe... after a few hundred bucks later, with new fiberglass tanks, new sniffer, new hose and regulator ect, I now find that I have to rip out the galley to replace said hose. ENOUGH I think.

So it got me thinking. What is the best way to cook aboard? Safety is primary concern, then efficiency, ease of use, ease to resupply fuel, heat and moisture load.

So I now have a better idea. NO propane inside the boat. I will remove the stove /oven.
I will replace it with 2 induction cook tops. at 1800 watts full on, they can be run one at a time via the inverter. They are more efficient than propane. They don't explode. They add very little heat to the boat.
A microwave convection oven will be used quite a bit. The convection part will make it much like a regular oven, browning meat chicken fish. And the locking door is a plus.
A bread machine will be used every few days. I have had one for years and it works well. Just make sure the yeast is good.
And finally a propane grill on the aft deck. My 2 20 lb tanks will last a long time that way. No propane in the boat, and the space I gained from removing the oven will give me more storage space for pots pans etc.
Good pans that are magnetic are a must, and I have porcelain coated iron pans.
A pressure cooker. Blender. a microwave rice cooker. Electric coffee pot with thermos. Coffee roaster. Coffee grinder.
At sea, meals will be reheated that were vacuum sealed prior to sailing. Soups and stews in vacuum bottles.

How am I going to power this stuff you ask. Mostly with a a/c generator, 2400 or 3000 watt via a shore power plug. A 3000 watt victron inverter charger and 600 amp hours of TPPL batteries from odyessy. 500 watts of solar panels. A KISS wind generator. And while the gen set is running, its charging my batteries, heating water for a shower, and cooling the sleeping areas a bit. Not expected to run for more than 2-3 hours. then shut down for the night. They are relatively quiet, and drink a lot less fuel than my Perkins.

The induction cooktop I have at home now and it works fantastic. I have a restaurant stove in my house now with 6 burners that puts out incredible amounts of heat when cooking, and with the induction cooktop, its minimal. touching it is not a problem. The pan gets hot but little else. It goes from warm to hot to full at a touch of a button.
When I redo my kitchen at home this is what I would get only a much large one at 220v drawing 50 amps tops. Not for boats!

Bob

[hellosailor]

600 AH battery bank is about 7200 watt-hours, and if you 50% cycle them it is 3600 WH capacity. Using only one of your induction burners, 900W for 20 minutes, you'd burn some 300 WH or nearly 10% of your battery power in one shot. A bit more with inverter overhead, especially as inverters have higher losses when you don't run them at maimum power.

It should work, but unless you are running that cooktop on shore power I'd guess your genset and genset fuel jugs are going to be your best friend, especially since other folks don't want to listen to a genset on the next boat. If it runs the batteries down even more...welll...you may just be trading one set of known issues (an old poor propane installation) for another.

So, the propane needs a new line run. And in typical boat fashion, everything is in the way, and probably fastened down with proprietary blind fasteners that you can't access.

There's something to be said for a plain PBJ, no cooking, no fuel required.<G>

[wolfenzee]

At the moment I am doing a total fit of the interior of my galley. I will keep the two burner propane cook top I have been useing, install a Dickinson Bering cookstove/oven (I just can't seem to locate a 5" deck iron), mount a Dickinson "Sea-Bque" in the cockpit and one other problem I have is that I have a "Sea-Swing" stove designed to run on propane bottles but cannot find anything to fit it (most bottles have male threads, this stove has male threads), I am installing double sinks and an icebox (the lid of which is 2"x16"x23" cutting board), I will be dramatically increasing my pots, pan, glass, plate & utensil storage as well as makeing things easier to get to and increasing counter space by 12sq feet, mostly cobalt blue tile with brick read grout.

[bobfnbw]

Hellosailor, your numbers are straight but your conclusions off.
I would not need to run a induction burner at full for 20 min. Even using pressure cookers, my guess is half amount of juice. And with the genset going during that time, I figure it wouldn't matter.
As for noise, true they make some, but since I don't like to anchor near others, its not a issue for them, more a annoyance to me. And since I have to charge with something, I would rather it be a honda genset than the perkins.
But I will grant you that I might be trading one set of problems for another. Which is why I can always change it back if I so choose. But my guess is it will work out ok.
I just don't like the idea of propane in my boat.

And I am a big fan of PBJ. Nothing wrong with it, just like some variety.

[mesquaukee]

We love good food and good food requires cooking facilities. Ten years ago when we rebuilt the interior of our boat we put in a Force 10 oven with 2 burners and a 2nd 2 burner stove top. With the 2 seperate cooktops we can have a big pot going on one cooktop and a pan or pot on the other. We also put in a superinsulated 8 cu ft fridge and 4 cu ft freezer.
All that crowded the rest of the interior but it does encourage the production of good cooking. We have gone as long as 4 months without resuppling.

[Cheechako]

you need multiple choice! BBQGrill, 2 burners, microwave, pressure cooker (+), Look for lights on shore!

[mesquaukee]

Forgot to mention the gas grill, the charcoal barbecue and the fish smoker.
Nothing better than sitting on the poop deck smoking baracuda and having a beer

[Commodore Joe]

Coffee in the AM is very important to most sailors. I use a gas single burner for that and a double for cooking. easy to stow and use.

[SeattleBaba]

CSY Man - need a butler/crew?:

"Since we are part-timers and sail once every 1 or 2 months, we tend to splurge and have vacuum packed filet mignons, double-smoked real German bacon from the European deli, organic brown fresh farm eggs, good reserva wine, gourmet coffe with cognac for after dinner drinks and so on."

Jud's bachelor (25th anniversary next month) rule:

"If it takes longer than 10 minutes to prepare, eat and clean up after, you might as well go out!"

Protein bars, Dominoes Pizza and the waterfront restaurant at the top of the ramp!

Boats are really fun toys - have fun!

[cosmosmariner]

Originally Posted by Cheechako

you need multiple choice!

We have opted to keep our Watkins 25 rather than moving up to a larger boat, which requires some thought.

We use a 2 burner Origo non pressurized alcohol stove with a collapsible Coleman camp oven. We cook anything from Chicken Piccatta with pasta to German Sour Broten with sweet and sour red cabbage and potato pancakes. We have a thin cast iron griddle (well seasoned and it doesn't rust) that covers both burners for pancakes and English muffins.

We bake everything from cookies to Italian bread in the collapsible oven. No we don't do 14 lb turkey but squabs and quale are on the menu.

Our party size Magma propane grill sees all the usual BBQ stuff plus home made pizza (4 minutes for a 9") and bread using a 9" x 9" terra cotta tile from Lowe's as an oven stone and a wide pancake turner as a peel.

Our 2 qt pressure cooker saves fuel and cooking time.

Had a microwave but space consideration eliminated it eventually.

We also have a collapsible solar oven that we set up on the foredeck at anchor or dock. Heats to 350 degrees. You can cook a stuffed chicken in it and brown the skin. Salmon Quiche does very well as well as Bahamian mac and cheese, stew, pork roast, veggies, baked potato etc.

We also have an Engel MT35 portable freezer that lives in the cockpit. We freeze some food, carry a lot of dehydrated food, some canned meats, butter and cheese, and we buy fresh when we can.

We cruise for several months at a time and plan meals ashore as part of our entertainment line item in the budget.

[sarafina]

Most of my galley cooking has been done on an old 2 burner alcohol stove and a small smokey joe grill bolted to the transom. I always keep a basic stock of staples and then bring aboard a cooler, or two with the perishables for the weekend trips. Once I got my galley set up how I liked I found I could easily prepare meals that impressed everyone without too much bother. Sometimes I use a bake packer to bake with, and I have made corn bread and muffins and biscuits that are really good!

[wolfenzee]

My galley has been completely gutted, removed all the way down to the hull. I hope to have it up and going by winter, when I move back on.

[GordMay]

Sara:
Is this what you mean by a Bake Packer, and how does it actually perform (compared to the sales propaganda literature)?
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