Cookswell Energy Saving Jikos and Charcoal Ovens: 2012

The best, the original, high quality charcoal oven.

~Cook more for less with a Cookswell!~
Bake, roast, toast, steam, if you can can think of it, you can cook it in a Cookswell Jiko. The original convection charcoal oven. Domestic sizes from 12-35,000ksh and heavy duty commercial ovens from 54-80,000ksh. The best investment a chef could make!

A farm dinner, perfectly cooked pork chops and rosemary garlic potatoes, Makonge Farm Eldoret. The medium 3 levels (35,000ksh)

An awesome pizza photo from http://www.riftvalleyadventures.com/

Are you a baker? Bake to your heart's delight without worrying if the electricity will suddenly go off!!


Fast chocolate cake in 21min!

Mom's special banana bread! A tiny amount of charcoal goes a long way!

Perfect commercial energy saving business sized ovens. A large 70,000ksh oven at Miwani Farm, Kisumu. Maureen makes more than 400 loaves of bread everyday using less than half a sack of charcoal!

And at Jons Bakery Meru

The biggest and the smallest oven jikos. (12,000ksh and 80,000ksh respectively)

See all our other products at www.cookswell.co.ke

Sold all over the World as well - as far away as Northern Norway

Make and use maize cob charcoal

Four very good reasons why to make your own charcoal from dry maize cobs.

1. They are FREE!! (minimal processing required and are widely available as a farm waste product)

2. Maize cob charcoal is very easy to make and leaves few charcoal fines. (no need for expensive briquetting)

3. They are easy to light and burn very hot with little ash and are perfect for cooking a quick meal.

4. Using maize cob charcoal means ZERO reliance on tree's and forests, fossil fuels like LPG gas or unreliable and expensive electricity supplies for your cooking fuel needs. And with a Cookswell Jiko you can bake, boil, roast and toast all of your favorite foods


All you need is a Cookswell kiln, a few spare hours and some free maize cobs.

Which almost all maize farmers in Kenya are very happy to get off their hands. Maize cobs are used in a few areas for silage for zero grazing cows, some people use them to cook with but they are so smoky most people burn them in the fields as waste.

Loading the dry maize cobs in the kiln

After 5-6 hours you are done, just seal the kiln, let it cool for a few hours and voila!

Your lump maize cob charcoal is ready to use!

Blending maize cob and tree branch charcoal at a 1:3 ratio is a great combination for fast lighting and long cooking!

Maize cob charcoal burns HOT and cleanly!

You can also add on a wood oil trap to collect the pyroligneous acid (Wood Vinegar) to use for anti-termite on farm use. (Read more about that here http://kenyacharcoal.blogspot.com/2016/05/how-to-make-your-own-wood-vinegar-with.html)

Some of the the first things the Cookswell R&D lab cooked up when we discovered how simple and cheap it is to make ''amaizing'', maize cob charcoal.....or.....mkalamagunzi choma!!

The 18,000ksh 4 burner Cookswell BBQ jiko.

A kilo robo choma of some nice mbavu chaps cooked in 35mins!

Never pay for charcoal again!

Maize cob charcoal blended with branch charcoal. Fast lighting and long burning..easy to make and easy to use with the same great taste!

All of this was cooked on 3 re-charges of charcoal (about 4 handfuls)....and was essentially free charcoal (waste maize cobs) (the 25,000ksh small 3 level charcoal oven.)

Karibu to the Lower Kabete Woodfuel Resource Center in Nairobi
cookswelljikos@gmail.com

Cookswell energy saving jikos held a day long woodfuel security demonstration at the Soysambu Conservancy on the 29th of September 2012 with the Chair-ladies from some women's groups of the 13 Communities that live next to the Conservancy. The Ceremony was led by Mr.Kinyanjui from the Cookswell Jikos and Graced by Lord and Lady Delamere. Among the hosts was the Managing Director of Delamere Estate, the CEO of Soysambu Conservancy and the Community Education and Awareness Officer.

observing the flaring off process of charcoal making.

a 4,500ksh double jiko, a 4,000ksh space heater and a 15,000ksh charcoal oven

The mini-biashara Double jiko with an in-built food warmer and ash-trays.

The turn up was great, forty women were present, the objective of the day was to demonstrate high quality energy saving jikos and the use of improved barrel kilns to carbonize selectively pruned and harvested Acacia twigs and branches for sustainable woodfuel security.

a variety of tree seeds were on sale for only 100ksh a packet

A consignment of jiko's is now at the Research Center at the Soysambu Conservancy retailing at our same low factory price!

Mama Leah, the first customer! she also got a free african olive and pencil ceder tree seedling as a bonus!

Cookswell Jikos around Kenya Sept 2012

Students at the Karen Blixen Hospitality School in the Mara North Conservancy learning about using energy saving charcoal bbq's and ovens.

Roasted leg of lamb and pommes boulangere.

Delicious hearty whole-meal bread made by the students, ready to come out of the energy saving charcoal oven at Karen Blixen hospitality school... In the afternoon we are expecting chocolate chip cookies and orange flavoured shortbread to die for!!!!

Kind Regards Chef-teacher Freddie

In stock now at 5,000ksh, 7,000ksh and 9,000ksh respectively.

Use firewood, charcoal or briquettes!

The perfect weekend camping jiko - the 3 level oven with hot water

Or if you are up in the hill's, use a mini oven oven (5,000ksh)

The Cookswell Branch Charcoal Method. How to make charcoal without cutting down trees!

Grow and make your own charcoal to cook wonderful food on high quality jikos at minimal cost with maximum returns!

With the new ''seed-to-ash'' biomass energy kiln and tree seed kit, you can easily grow your own money! Of course in the form of:

Timber
Posts
Charcoal and firewood from the branches
Live Fences
Bio-Medicine (species specific)

A whole tree is far too valuable to just be turned into charcoal alone. We will always need trees for timber, to cook with and for their keystone ecosystem services - the least we can do when we use the trees we have grown, is to do so to their maximum value.

The following 3 steps is a brief guide to a simple field tested and market proven method of 100% self-reliance on an easy to grow fuel source; branch charcoal.

Step One 1: Plant and Grow Trees!!! - Our rule of thumb is that you will regret planting one less tree than one more tree 20 years from now. So grow more trees! :)

If you are unable to dig holes or get plastic bag seedlings, try out our NEW no-till broadcast seeding biochar seedballs (more info here http://www.seedballskenya.com/home/4592985892)

Step 2: Make the charcoal! With a Cookswell woodfuel independence kit (6,500ksh - small kiln, tree seeds http://cookswell.co.ke/our-products/category/kilns ) all you have to do is implement a rotational management forestry plan. You can easily prune your trees for branches and then carbonize them in your mini-kiln. The carbonization process to fill this mini-kiln takes 8 hours (appx. 7-9kgs). It also makes charcoal that is perfectly sized for an energy saving jiko.

Sealing off the kiln to cool

The large charcoal making kiln below produces appx. 30kgs of charcoal per 8hours from 100kgs of wood/maize cobs/coconuts etc.

You can also trap the smoke and make wood vinegar and wood tar for on farm termite proofing!

SEE HERE FOR HOW TO MAKE YOUR OWN WOOD VINEGAR http://kenyacharcoal.blogspot.co.ke/2016/05/how-to-make-your-own-wood-vinegar-with.html

You can also use your kiln to make your own Biochar as well from all sorts of woody biomass feedstocks.

Step 3: Buy a Cookswell Jiko and cook great food! Below are a few pictures of just some of our wonderful high quality jikos that are perfect for home or commercial use.

Portable catering at its best!

Impress you customers with our specialty animal shaped BBQs

A large oven at a bakery (70,00ksh)

Two medium ovens (left one is the safari model) a mini oven and a space heater

About Cookswell Jikos

Cookswell Jikos is a small but growing family owned Kenyan business. We provide our customers with professional charcoal and wood fueled stoves, portable convection ovens, BBQ's, smokers, space heaters and charcoal making kilns.

Roast, bake, steam, or smoke your food in our efficient, easy to use cookers. Our products are handcrafted in Kenya by professionally trained Kenyan artisans.

The designs continue to improve with over 18 years with constant consumer feedback.

We proudly include a free packet of acacia tree seeds with every stove and oven purchased to further the goal of making charcoal a sustainable energy source. We also sell a wide variety of indigenous tree seeds and seedlings with our partner, The Woodlands 2000 Trust http://www.woodlands2000trust.org/ for planting around Kenya.

Cookswell Jikos promotes the sustainable production, management and processing of wood fuels as one of the many renewable energy resources for East Africa’s cooking needs.

We also make innovative, simple to use portable, mobile kilns to make your own free charcoal at home from branches, twigs, maize cobs, coconut husks and other woody biomass.

Order your new stove or oven and have it delivered to any major town in Kenya. We also have a network of local transport providers for delivery around East Africa and beyond.

Save money, Save energy and Eat Well with Cookswell!

Cookswell Energy Saving Jikos and Charcoal Ovens