Ceramic Kettles on Fire

 
Ceramic Kettles on Fire

                                 

Many of you, outdoor tealovers, have been asking if you can use my ceramic kettles over an open fire, particularly on the raw, back to the cave familiar bone fire. (Bone fire, like that English expression since the first time I heard it). Not wanting to dive into long explaining emails and messages, my answer is usually a bit shady. In short, I answer something like:

“Yes/well maybe, but you should be careful, please use common sense”

But as this is not saying much and you want to try it anyway, here are my thoughts on using ceramic kettles to heat tea water on the open fire. I hope it will give you all that you need to avoid disasters or some unwanted surprises.


Heating water on an open fire has its depth and beauty and we all know, or at least have some idea how cool that can be. So I will not talk about all the “good stuff” and benefits of that raw energy in our tea experience. But what are the risks and challenges? What to avoid and do I really want to go there with ceramic in the first place?



Let’s split the theme in half. First, take a look from the clay/kettle point of view and then I will also do a few points to be aware of from a “tea point of view”. Here I also want to remind you that I am talking about my ceramic kettles made of flame-proof clay. If you are not sure what clay is your pot made of, then rather don't go there at all. Most of the clays out there are not suitable for boiling at all, pots will crack and be lost forever.


So you have my ceramic kettle, made of flame-proof clay and you want to use it over a bonfire? Well then...

For the kettle sake

-use it rather on burning embers, leftovers of the fire rather than on strong long flames. Rather no flames or very low flames, the strong heat of the burning pillow is what you are looking for.

-use an iron tripod or hunger so you can regulate how high your pot is from the heat. You can create a tripod from stones if necessary

-use not smoking, clean fire. Wood full of resin or wet pieces rather be avoided. Hardwood is a better choice

-even without the smoking wood, the bottom will get carbon deposits. Your pot will get dirty, be ready for that. Not all those marks will be washable.

-never let empty or close to empty pot on the fire

-let the pot cool down a bit before refilling with new cold water

-clay is porous, smoke and flame gases will get in the clay and so will be noticeable even in your future tea sessions. For that reason, I recommend dedicating one kettle of these flame sessions and having other kettle(s) for your more refined teas and sessions

And now, for the sake of the tea..

Having an open fire at the tea session is magical but a real bonfire is not ideal, for several reasons the clean charcoal is a better choice. First of all, re-read the last point above. You can literally taste the fire/smoke in your cup. And if you are using a porous clay kettle, the smoke will get in the clay and through the clay. But if you decided to go for it anyway:
- you might want to choose a tea that can handle a bit of smoky flavor (dark shou puerh, or strong red would be my first choice),

-take with you the fitting teaware. Not fancy Yixing or porous pots which you use for your finest teas.

-if you are preparing in a ceremonial way, pay attention to the whole tea setting before you start. It is difficult to feed the fire, without smoking on your guests and pour gracefully while overboiling water is spilling into the burning hot ash. Sit there and try a few times before inviting guests over.


I love heating the water on an open fire and I honestly feel that I don't do it often enough. I have one pot dedicated for that occasion, the one you see in the first picture. There is unmistakable magic in it. But if I want the occasion to be about tea, and offer the best for my guests, then I choose even for outside charcoal or gas stove. Making a small bone fire later if the mood is there.

Charcoal fire serie, episode #4

This is another contribution to long lasting discussion on using charcoal fire as traditional source of heat for boiling tea water. Main points were probably already said in my old articles on this blog, but there are few new things I would like to share. For those who haven't had a chance to read the original texts, you can follow these links:

Part #1
Part #2
Part #3

I would like to start with a suggestion. I would like recommend to anyone who is using charcoal fire, or is thinking about going to this direction, read Issue 43, August 2015 of Global Tea Hut magazine. Main topic of the August issue was Fire, "The Teacher of Tea" There are many things to think about, to try, many interesting information and teachings. Of course, I would also strongly recommend to go and subscribe. It is really nice to have such magazine in hands every month. For many reasons. The community of supporters is growing and the magazine is growing with it. If you have not subscribe yet, or you missed some older issues, than you can read past issues online and for free (with some small and intelligible delay).

The Magazine traveled a big journey since I recieved it for the first time...

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Another thing, which can make whole experience much easier for you, charcoal devotee are any informations where to source good, high quality charcoal. I have not colected any long list yet, good charcoal is not easy to find these days. ( I welcome any tips for all reading this blog in the comments section !!!). But at least, I can share two sources of good charcoal right now:

- If the Big Apple is not across an ocean, you might want to try original Japanese Binchotan charcoal from Korin. It is not cheap but the quality is really high, they have different grades and styles and if you don't have to pay an expensive shipping, then it is definitely worth to try.

This how Binchotan Aramaru looks at our porch. It is much heavier and more dense then any charcoal I had before...

- And now good news for us, European. There is good quality accessible charcoal around! Thanks to good friend, I get a chance to try this new charcoal and fall in love instantly. Made in Austria, I can almost call it local (...local supermarket as the second option is much less local ) It si family business making charcoal in tradition way. They are even applicants to become UNESCO heritage with their way of burning charcoal. Here iscool video about the procces .

Austrian and the left, Japanesse on the right...

I am not going to give you a long talk about it, but compare to all other stuff I could buy around, this wins in all requiements. Cleaner, smokeless (if dry!), nicer, last longer. The only "flaw" is that it is not so easy to light up compared to softwood charcoal from supermarket. It needs more attention, but I get use to it and I am never going back. If you are interested here are their products
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Last thing I would like to share today is my shift in the whole "how to light up" question. Last year I started experimenting with charcoal lighters. Our kitchen electric glass stove does not like do this dirty work so much...And later I actually found out that, when you use the right charcoal lighter in the right way, it works even better. Of course, we are not going to use any heavy-chemical lighters for our tea fire. But still, when using charcoal lighter, do it outside - charcoal, before it is on fire, smokes. Sometimes a lot (remember: cleaner lighter and drier charcoal means less smoke!)


You can see three different charcoal lighters here. The middle man is the worst one, wood chips mixed with a lot of paraffin. It works but does not light so well and smoke is heavier. The right side one would be my second choice (even that looks really cool), and the left one is my favorite. Very fine mixture of wood chips, paper and a bit of paraffin.

Here you can see few pictures from yesterday fire party. I use my stopwatch to see how much time I actually usually need...

After two-three minutes I start to carefully load charcoal around the fire...

...filling the whole basket. Pay attention to how you compose the pile, think about the fire...

...a couple of minutes it seems that I put out the fire, but after another minute smoke starts to show...

After ten more minutes fire is visible and smoke is almost down. It is better to wait few more minutes before you move it inside...

Whole lighting up took me around 16min, but I was attending it just for few minutes on the start. I have not tried to light up the Binchotan this way yet. And as it is much harder-dense charcoal, it can be problem. I will try and share later on...

Happy fire fellow charcoal lovers!

Thank you for the reading!

Stoves, Braziers for heating water

Some of my more aged readers (or patient, or persistent ones) may recall my previous entries on this topic. In post cut in two, I was already sharing my premature experiences on this field, I was trying to encourage tea folks to go ahead, to experiment with charcoal and water. You can find those posts here (part I) and here (part II). After another year and half of playing with fire, I am not sure if I am really qualified to play a wise man here. Nevertheless, there are some new findings to point out. I arranged those in three chapters, stoves-kettles-charcoal, and I will be glad if you find there something interesting. I am not going to talk again here about how great it is, when you use charcoal fire for heating water for your tea. You already know it, right?

Stoves

Well, here is something new what we can be proud of. And it is this:

Iron cast basket, bottom up...

What is it? Iron cast basket, which works as kind of grate in our ceramic stoves. Idea of this was born in Mirka's head after few cracked baskets in our stoves and many tests with different clays, shapes and designs. We wanted something, what would be easy to use even for beginners, without permanent worries, if the stove will survive another fire or not. Iron cast basket looked as a simple solution. How it is often in life, idea is one thing and reality another and it took us over a year to receive first pieces of iron cast to start with. After Mirka has made design of the basket, we search for iron cast company to make it for us. From thirty contacted just three were able to make the shape and details we asked for. And after some more discussion we start to cooperate with small iron cast factory and first prototype reach us last fall. I started to test it and I found out that there are changes, which have to be made. More holes, thinner walls, to lower the shape. Iron cast mold had to be rebuild...

Finally, after the New Year, Mirka was making first ceramic stoves with iron cast baskets. First, some testing pieces for me and our friends. Now it is growing, new shapes, clays, surfaces. Inspired by tea community, she is using her creativity to make functional stoves, which will be adornment of your tea session and yet, are not too distinct, screaming from behind your tea table.

Eventhought most rules of usage are the same as with whole ceramic ones, I still would like to mention them again:

- as iron cast is thermal shock resistant, you can more freely start fire directly in the stove. Using wood chips, playing scoutboy, or using gas spray gun is not problem anymore. Just don't forget to use common sense. Starting fire indoors this way is for example not good idea. Also, if you use wood or charcoal from bone fire to light up charcoal inside such stove, you will need later on to clean holes in the basket from ash. Some kind of iron chopstick works here.

-be aware, that iron cast keeps heat for very long time. It is good thing when you are boiling water, you will find that even hour after your tea session, it can be still hot. So don't leave it without supervision. Do not pour water over iron cast to cool it down, it might crack!

-Mirka's stoves are suitable for all kind of kettles. Tetsubins, glass, silver or ceramic kettles, all will work on such stove. Just when the bottom of the kettle is really flat and wide, the heating of water can be slow. If you are not sure, let us know sizes of your kettle and we will check if it would work.

Kettles

There is no such revolution in kettles as there is in stoves. No miracle clay around, which would handle every fire, every wild treatment. It is ceramic and as such it have to be approached. All rules basically fall in the "using common sense" category and I don't want to scare you. But I think it is better to write them down. So basic rules are as follows:

- My ceramic kettles are meant to be used on charcoal stoves. I am giving full guarantee for my ceramic kettles, if used over charcoal fire. If you use it on gas or electric stove then you are on your own. Sometime it works even on gas/electric but there are some bad experiences. Recently, I am using several kettles for my everyday tea on our electric stove (the one with glass on the top) with steel diffuser. It works, no more cracked kettles! But it is still too soon to tell with certainty so just please be aware, it is more risky.

-Do not refill hot kettle with cold water. Especially when the kettle is empty, wait at least ten minutes. If you don't have two, three kettles to heat them after each other, then it is better to refill kettle when there is still about 1/3 of hot water

-Do not let empty kettle on the stove. It will crack.

-Do not forget the boiling kettle on hot stove. When it is full, it will slosh out, either on iron basket or ceramic stove. Both pieces are hot and can crack under thermal shock attack. If the kettle is almost empty, it can boil out and you already know what will happen to empty kettle on fire.

-Find some soft, warm material to put your boiling kettle on. Do not put it directly from fire on cold, wet surface

As you can see on pictures above and bellow, there are some new designs. Especially those top ceramic handles are very comfortable to use. When for smaller kettles, up to 750ml, I still make side handle kettles for bigger one I recommet top ceramic handle.

Charcoal


I have tried many different charcoals over the years. Mainly focusing on how easy and comfortable each charcoal is. After visiting Taiwan and seeing and trying some charcoal there I am aware of big differences between charcoal there and here. Hardwood fareast charcoal is much more dense, last longer and burn with higher temperatures. But I still prefer to use local products, looking for the best ones, then to import it from far, far away.


There is one rule, which I already said in my first post, but now I see it as crucial. More dry charcoal is better then not so dry. It sounds and it is logical. But it really can make big difference. Dry charcoal means less smoke/smell (or not at all), it is easier to light up and gives more heat.


Also mentioned before: If you have time, wash your charcoal. It will give you also opportunity to sort it out. Especially if you use some cheaper, mixed charcoal, usually the bag will contain some, let say "unwanted" items. Three bark, dust and fragments, pieces, which too big, and very smoky un-carbonized pieces of wood. All that you can sort and clean, wash with shower. Then dry, dry, dry!!!

If you have any  stoves, kettles, charcoal related questions,  feel free to ask in comment section bellow or via email.

With burning charcoal around or without, enjoy every sip of your everyday live.














Thank you for reading!

Heating water on charcoal- part two: Stoves and Kettles

Promised for ages, here it is: The post about stoves and kettles for boiling water for our tea. Since The Part one I was using and testing different stoves with different kettles. We were trying new clays, shapes and glazes and we had some succesful combinations as well as failures. The first part of this story was focused on charcoal itself and on how to use it. But as I have few new findnings about things which I have already spoken of there, I will start with those.

So some quick notes first:

- Even if you are not washing your charcoal, make sure it is dry enough. I find out that even opened bag of charcoal may absorb some air moisture. The charcoal will work but with much more smoke and smell, especially during lighting. So, if you would like to have smokeless time - dry your charcoal and keep it closed in dry place.

- If you are making tea outside, the heating water will, most likely, take more time. Especially cold, windy day (which can call for nice outdoor tea session) can be tricky. Moving air is cooling the stove, kettle and moves the heat all directions. It may seems to be marginal but lets try it and you will see. The putting the stove on sheltered place and using more of well lighted coal can fix that.

- Another combination which can slow your heating down is too big kettle or with wide bottom on small stove. Some stoves work with wide range of kettles, from big tetsubins to small glass boilling teapots. But usually there is certain size of the kettle which works best. Shortly: If you close the top of the stove with the kettle, there will be no draft and the fire will be inefficiant.

Stoves
 
 There are many stoves or heaters around the world. I have experinces mainly with our own and I am going to talk about those. Our stoves are, basically, of two kinds. I call them "with the sieve grate" and the second one "with the flat grate" Those with sieves are Mirka's original invention and I am glad to admid that those works, in most cases, better. On other hand the stand or flat grate system allows shapes, which are not easy to make with sieve. To understand more, please take a look at picutres.

In first case there is kind of sieve, which works both as grate and as a place where the kettle sits. Great thing about this kind of stoves is that you can use charcoal of almost all sizes and shapes. You can put there big pieces (as far as they can fit there) as well as fragments from the bottom of your bag. Just if you are using your stove for more then one and half hour, still feeding it with new charcoal, you will need to clean holes in the sieve. I use old chopstick and it works just fine.

The flat grate is made as a stand and sit on the bottom of the stove. Or there is just grate which sit, thanks to shape of the stove, on walls of the stove. I like this style, but the burning of the charcoal is more tricky. You have to have rather bigger pieces of the charcoal and you need pay more attention how you set it up. Those simly needs more care.

To make sieves and grates more thermal shock resistant, Mirka mixes her own mixture of clay, silica, grog and sawdust. The main body of the stoves are usually made of clays manufactured for cooking. When you go through my pictures you can see several clays, with few glazes or slips which works for low temperature. We actually fire our stoves to two different temperatures. To thermal shock safe, but more fragile 850°C and to 1250°C in woodkiln. Those from 1250°C are much harder, but it is more risky for cracking with charcoal fire. So far, it did not happen with the clay we use now.

Kettles

With kettles, there are many choices out there. And thruth is that for quality of your tea water is the kettle even more important then the stove. Your kettle can be made from silver, stainless steel, iron testsubin, ceramic, glass. Every material will impact the water its own way. All can be in different qualities, sizes, designes and, of course, price ranges. My experiences are limited to few testsubins, glass and many (mostly my own) ceramic kettles.

Glass is hard, clear, cold - they say that it leaves water how it is. Glass boiling teapots are pretty cheap and practical. I like to watch boiling water in glass with live fire under it. I think, it is good starting point, when you learn how to work with charcoal and stove. When there is not much going on it terms of improoving water it does not make it poorer either (as some stainless electric kettles do).

Iron kettles - Tetsubins, are incredible things. I am not an expert on those so just few words here. Good tetsubin ad to water some iron and makes water more live. If you had a chance to drink tea made with water from good iron cast teapot you know. Unfortunately there are many inferior as well as really bad ones. Even good testubin can get rusty and you will get more iron then you may like. I have very nice testsubin (spoussedly fifty years old), which isquite rusty inside. I dont use it on daily basies, which could help to clean it. The water taste nice, but for most teas is too irony. People ask me just for the water and nobody wants to drink tea.

Especially if your water is poor for minerals then good tetsubin can make you happy. But as good tetsubin is real  investment, in both money and what we expect from it, dont buy it in rush. Make sure you know what are you looking for, make some research first. One of MarchalN's posts can be helpful too.

Ceramic kettles are, as you can expect, my love. Again, there are many kinds and origins out there. When we put aside the size and dezigne what counts is material and firing. If your kettle is glazed, then it is closer to glass teapot. Unglazed clay impact water and the lower firing tempretaure usually means more porous clay and the stronger impact. I saw Jappanese teapots (boffura), which were fired so low that that water leaks through and whole body was covered by small drops of water. The water taste from lime (calcite) and clay. If your tea water is too soft (poor in calcium, Ca(HCO3)2) then it can be what you need. You can find kettles, which go from this porouse, underfired clay to hard and waterproof stoneware. For now, I use manufactured clay, which is sold for cooking ware. It works when we fire it around 1230°C and most teapots do not leak. The clay makes water more rounded, with nice mouthfeel. It is clean and live.

With ceramic kettles or boiling teapots, there is always issue of cracking over the fire and thermal shocks. For our kettles we give some qurantie, all kettles are tested, but basic rules have to be kept.

-our quranties aplly, when our kettles are used on charcoal fire, not gas or electric. Some of them will works even on gas or electric burners and for very long time (I use mine) But, if I had some of them cracked then it was on electric and ges fire - never on charcoal. .

-don't put empty or almost empty kettle on the fire

-never pour cold water in to hot, empty kettle

-do not put hot kettle on very cold place (floor, stone table), fabric or wooden pad is good choice

-ceramic is generally fragile. So please, do use common sence when using them.

As I have already said, boiling water over the charcoal fire takes my tea experience on new level. And it is not "just" about taste of the water. It is about paying atention to what is going on your tea table. Live energy of fire. It is about being in The Rhythm during your tea time.

For those who are interested, here you can see our available stoves and kettles.

Thank you for the reading!

Ceramic Tea Kettles- in process

I still owe you, my patience readers, next episode of this story. I working on that, gathering new experiences from both creating kettles and stoves as well as using them. I hope to share my findings soon. In meantime, please take a look at four kettles which are drying in our studio right now. All pots still need some polishing before moving to bisque kiln. Pictures from inside studio are not perfect but rather authentic.

Four custom ordered kettles for four customers.

  First one shoudl hold more than one litre. Second requirement was tall, ceramic hadle. My friend, who ordered this one, feels that it is more comfortable this way. As challenging was to create openning wide enough for small hishaku (size of that opening after firing should be, at least, 9cm) and with spout in right position to pour right, without pouring over the rim.

Second one is also around one litre and with tall, ceramic handle. This one will serve for more Japanese way. It will share the stove (which you can see on the bottom of this page) with ceramic kettle, kama-style. I look forward how the kettle will finally sit and work with that Mirka's stove.

Third kettle is with classical back handle and should holds something around 800ml. The customer who ordered this one asked me especialy for back handle. The drawback of such handles for kettles is that those can get pretty hot. One have to be watchful and for a) always put the handle out from the fire to shadow side of the stove and for b) if the handle get hot, then use piece of fabric when brewing. And that is what my customer is going for- the kettle which will train ones awarness.

And finally fourth kettle is going to be even smaller, around 600ml and with rattan hendle. Compare to back handle is rattan very comfortable. I am always a bit afraid how long such handle will last, especially on kettle where one has to count with steam. But my customer, who have ordered it, is right- rattan is quite easy to replace. The broken ceramic handle is bigger problem.

I am not sure if all of them are going to survive the firing. Then I will test them all. And before sending them to my supporters I will be glad to share some pictures here. If you are interested, please stay tune.

And as I have promised, at the end, new Mirka's stove...

Thank you for the reading!