Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 175, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 July 1919 — GAS BILLS ARE REDUCED WHEN TRICKS DF COOKING RANGE ARE KNOWN TO HOUSEWIFE [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

GAS BILLS ARE REDUCED WHEN TRICKS DF COOKING RANGE ARE KNOWN TO HOUSEWIFE

(Prepared by the United States Department of Agriculture.) Are you acquainted with your gas range? If you are not, it will pay you well to take time to learn more about it. Many experiments are being tried on gas ranges in the experimental kitchen of the office of home economics, United States department of agriculture, and interesting results are being obtained. You will find it worth while to try some of the same experiments with your stove; others will probably suggest themselves, and your acquaintance with the stove w’ill increase accordingly. How much gas do you use when you are getting the Sunday dinner? You can find out by reading the gas meter before the cooking starts and after the cooking is done. If you do not remember just how to read It, ask the gas man to explain it to you when he comes around the next time. The habit of reading the meter once a week andjeomparing amounts used will help to keep gas saving in mind and make 1 it possible to calculate your gas bill. In the preparation of that dinner count the ways by which you could save gas. If you are one of the many who light the gas before the teakettle is filled and who forget to turn off the heat the minute the pie is baked, you will find those are good times to begin to save. If you test the heat given by various kinds of flames, you will find that the short, stiff, clear, blue flame brings best results. It is a waste of time and gas to use the high, smoking, yellow flame, which results when too much air is mixed with the gas and which you can prevent by partially closing the air shutter. Never turn the flame so high that it is brought up close to the kettle and flares around it, for this wastes gas, makes the flame less hot and blackens the kettle. Try the Simmerer. Many gas stoves have at least four kinds of burners— including a giant burner and a simmerer and a large part of gas economy consists in knowing which one to use, and when. If you consider the little simmerer burner on your range a mere ornament and of no real use you are underrating, its value. It uses from onefifth to one-sixth as much gas as the other top burners and will keep a kettle boiling after it has been brought to the boil on one of the other top burners. The giant burner uses from three to six cubic feet an hour more than the other top burners, so it should be used only when absolutely necessary. As soon as a kettle boils, see how far you can turn the gas down and still keep it boiling. The experimental kitchen has found that it will continue to boil with the burner turned down from one-half to one-third. Also, if that pan or kettle is large bottomed, the gas will be better utilized than if it is smaller than the burner. Keep the Burners Clean. The easiest way to keep burners clean, of course, is by the ounce-of-prevention method. Never allowing boiling over is the best way of keeping the burners clean, but if the accident should happen the burners can be removed easily and scrubbed in soap and water. A wire will assist in cleaning the holes if they still remain clogged. Removable Oven In Gas Saving. The range oven requires much more gas an hour than one top burner does, so it must be used carefully if the gas bill is to be reduced. If you do much baking in small Quantities you can save gas with a small removable oven to be used on the top of the stove. Tests showed a great difference when one-egg cakes were baked for one hour at the same temperatures in the small and range ovens. In rhe small oven the cake requires seven cubic feet of gas while in the range oven it required twelve cubic feet, u difference in cost, when figured at $1

for 1,000 cubic feet, of one-half cent for the one cake. The time required to heat the oven before baking begins also varies greatly in the two kinds. The small oven will come up to 500 degrees F. in five minutes while the range oven requires twenty to thirty. Therefore, if the oven is to be used for only a short time the small oven would be a great advantage. The small oven, nevertheless, has Its disadvantages. A cake so big that its edges are rather close to the sides of the oven will not be well baked, because the heat at the sides will be much greater than in the center. Dishes requiring an even temperature, a very high or a very low temperature for a certain length of time, are not successfully baked in the small oven unless close attention is paid to the regulation of the heat. This is true because the temperature of the oven is variable. Its sides are thin and the bottom does not well retard the passage of heat. For the breakfast muffins or the baking powder biscuits for dinner, however, the small oven is excellent. If one dish of the meal should re-‘ quire the range oven, plan to bake as much of the remainder of the dinner as possible, for in that way the heat will not be wasted. For instance, if the main dish of the meal is to be a big casserole of tomato, cheese and rice, it would be wise to choose baked potatoes rather . than boiled, and a baked dessert In preference to a pudding made in the double boiler. If oven room permits, muffins or biscuits would add greatly to the meal and would require little extra fuel.

Removable Oven Saves Gas With Dishes Requiring Short-Time Baking.