The Morning Tulsa daily world. [volume] (Tulsa, Okla.) 1919-1927, 1920-07-11
The Waste Of Gas in Cooking

Most of the cooking stoves and ranges in
use are constructed for high pressure gas,
that is, gas furnished at pressure Of from
four to eight ounces. Such stoves and ranges
are not only inefficient, but they are waste
full in the extreme. A properly constructed
cooking stove or range will require only about
one-third Of the gas the high pressure ranges
require and will actually cook better.
In the high pressure ranges ordinarily the
tops and caps are solid No one should use
such a stove. All modern and efficient gas
stoves and ranges have nothing but open or
grid tops.
In the high pressure ranges the burners are
placed all the way from two to four and
half inches below the position of the vessel
to be heated. In order to heat the vessel the
gas flames must reach it, which means that
they must be from two and a half to five
inches long. Nothing but high pressure gas
will produce such a flame, and in cold weather
there will be no more high pressure gas, and
shortly, as the supply further decreases, there
will be little, if any, high pressure gas, even
in the summer.
But even if gas were plentiful, such use
of it would be wasteful. Practically all the
heat in gas flame is in the tip of the flame.
Test that for yourself. Take gas flame
three inches long, hold splinter of wood in
the middle of it and see how long it takes to
set the wood afire. Then hold splinter of
wood in the tip of the flame and see how
quickly it is lighted. The heat is in the tip
of the flame, and gas flame an inch and a
half long, if the gas burner is so placed that
the tip of the flame touches the vessel to be
heated, will give you practically as much heat
as flame four or five inches long, and you
will use much less gas. Your cooking vessel
should be not more than an inch or an inch
and quarter above your burner. If the space
is more than that in your stove, then arrange
to lower your vessel or raise your burners.
In May this year at the meeting of the
Natural Gas Association of America, held in
Buffalo, N. Y, the United States Bureau of
Mines made a demonstration as to the eff
cheney of stoves and ranges for cooking pur-
poses 1t used three different stoves at once
The first was an ordinary coal or wood burn
ing stove equipped to burn natural gas in the
old wasteful way, the burner being placed
near the bottom of the fire box about five
inches from the lids The second stove had an
open top, but the burners were three and a
half inches below the cooking utensil The
third was an ordinary No. 447 Eclipse range
with burners placed about an inch below the
cooking vessel.
All three of the stoves were connected with
the Same gas pipe, meter was placed at each
stove and gas was fed to each at two and
HAIL OuHCeS pIeSSuIt. AN EXPERIMENT. III DOll-
ing potatoes was conducted simultaneously on
each stove. 1t required 30 feet of gas to boil
the potatoes on the first stove, 16 feet on the
second, and only 6 feet on the third. The diff
ference between 80 feet of gas 16 feet of gas,
and feet of gas, respectively, all to accom-
plish the same result, is worth the consdera-
tion Of any gas user
Miss Olga Elifrtz, of the United States
Bureau of Mines, and formerly of the Home
Economics Department of the Ohio State Uni
versty, made demonstration in Oklahoma
City on January 26. BY bringing the position
of the cooking vessel very close to the burner
she fried an egg with two-tenths of one ounce
gas pressure, and she testified that she could
easily cook an entire meal with one-half ounce
pressure When the pressure is low so that
the flame barely appears above the top of the
burner she puts shingle nails in three or four
slots in the burner and places the vessel upon
them, thus lowering the vessel to where the
tips of the flames would touch it.