For Maximum Efficiency use a Power Ring

Maximum Rocket Stove Efficiency: Use a Power Ring

 Do you want to maximize efficiency of your EcoZoom rocket stove? Use a Power Ring

EcoZoom supply a Power Ring for use with our stoves.

Power Ring?

We hear a lot of different names for the circular metal ring that wraps around the outside of cookware: Pot skirt, windshield, stove booster, cooking ring, awesomely weird shiny metal circle with knobs…OK, that last one was made up, but you get the point. Everyone has a different name for the Power Ring, but not everyone knows how to properly use it or what it is designed to do.

The almighty Power Ring fastened around a pot prior to using on an EcoZoom stove

Most stove users are used to the windscreen concept of using some sort of material to break the wind from extinguishing the flame source of a stove. This concept makes a lot of sense, except for when you look closer to the design of the rocket stove. The source of heat or fire within a rocket stove is within the lower portion of the combustion chamber of the stove. Placing the Power Ring on top of the cast iron top of the stove doesn’t do much as a windscreen because it isn’t protecting the source of the stove fire.

So how do you use a Power Ring and what does it do?

The pot skirt is meant to be fastened around the base of any pot or pan that it can be secured to prior to placing the cookware on the stove. It should be tightened to fit around the bottom of a pot or pan by squeezing the ring until it is tight and the secured by twisting the screws on the side of the power ring. You will know that the pot skirt has been place properly when you can hold a pot or pan in the air and have the Power Ring attached to your cookware without sliding off.

Once you start your EcoZoom stove, simply place the pot or pan on the stove with the pot skirt and cook away. By securely fastening the Power Ring to your cookware it will increase the cooking efficiency of your stove by 20% by forcing heat and gases to not just heat the bottom of the stove but distribute heat up the sides of the pot or pan. The ring also acts to insulate the pot, if you insulate your body with clothes then why not your cooking pot?

The Power Ring air gap corresponds with detailed research carried out in the 80s by Dr Sam Baldwin (see ref below), for a 4kW fire like the Zoom Versa and Dura.

Sometimes the Power Ring won’t fit a pan with handle or excessively large or small pot, but it should fit around most cookware. So go give it a try, wrap that Power Ring on tightly to your cookware and benefit from the increased efficiency you will enjoy from an already super-efficient EcoZoom rocket stove.

Note. The Ecozoom Power ring is made from stainless steel. It won't get rusty.

For further reading check this blog from low tech magazine

1. http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2014/07/cooking-pot-insulation-key-to-sustainable-cooking.html

2. Dr Sam Baldwin: Biomass Stove: Engineering, design, development and dissemination  (1987)