by Tyler Estrada
Summer is here and we all know what that means. Getting together with friends and family for cooking, eating, games, and general family fun. Everyone loves it, but what about those of us that don�t want to use a standard grill? Some of us want to use an outdoor fireplace for our cooking, and we need good outdoor fireplace designs.
There�s nothing better than cooking on an open flame and an outdoor fireplace is the epitome of this. Unless you like roasting steaks over a jet engine, but the way you spend your summer is entirely up to you. Outdoor fireplace designs are slightly different from their contemporary counterparts. They can be gas or woodburning and have many different accessories.
The national distrust of the contemplative temperament arises less from an innate Philistinism than from a suspicion of anything that cannot be counted, stuffed, framed or mounted over the fireplace in the den.
—Lewis H. Lapham (b. 1935)
Most of these fireplaces are made of stone. Stone outdoor fireplaces are very durable, and weather resistant. This ensures that they stay in one piece, and don�t get pummeled into dust during a storm. The design however doesn�t have to be contemporary. Everything from domes, boxes, arch type designs, and even curved models dot the landscape.
Some people may think this is weird but it�s a nice change of pace to see a fireplace with smooth edges. The truly devoted outdoor cooker in us will typically have a counter right next to the fireplace so he or she can prepare the food as they see fit. Yes there are women that enjoy cooking meat over an open flame just as much as men. Though the argument of what type is best for cooking is still going on.
With contemporary wood burning fireplaces you can get a more smoked taste, for obvious reasons. With gas you get more efficient cooking, and also another distinct taste. Although the methods are different you can�t argue with the power of the fireplace to draw people together. The best part is it doesn�t have to be for cooking.
At length, by mid-afternoon, after we had had two or three rainbows over the sea, the showers ceased, and the heavens gradually cleared up, though the wind still blowed as hard and the breakers ran as high as before. Keeping on, we soon after came to a charity-house, which we looked into to see how the shipwrecked mariners might fare. Far away in some desolate hollow by the seaside, just within the bank, stands a lonely building on piles driven into the sand, with a slight nail put through the staple, which a freezing man can bend, with some straw, perchance, on the floor on which he may lie, or which he may burn in the fireplace to keep him alive. Perhaps this hut has never been required to shelter a shipwrecked man, and the benevolent person who promised to inspect it annually, to see that the straw and matches are here, and that the boards will keep off the wind, has grown remiss and thinks that storms and shipwrecks are over; and this very night a perishing crew may pry open its door with their numbed fingers and leave half their number dead here by morning. When I thought what must be the condition of the families which alone would ever occupy or had occupied them, what must have been the tragedy of the winter evenings spent by human beings around their hearths, these houses, though they were meant for human dwellings, did not look cheerful to me. They appeared but a stage to the grave. The gulls flew around and screamed over them; the roar of the ocean in storms, and the lapse of its waves in calms, alone resounds through them, all dark and empty within, year in, year out, except, perchance, on one memorable night. Houses of entertainment for shipwrecked men! What kind of sailor’s homes were they?
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
Most outdoor fireplace designs marketed are for actual fireplaces to provide warmth and light. As people move to more open home designs they need a fireplace to provide illumination. What I mean by open home designs is essentially a perimeter wall to make sure nobody gets in, and bedrooms to protect from the rain. That�s it, the counters for the kitchen, are protected by awnings, and the bathroom is it�s on room, but for the most part the house is open to nature, with a grass floor.
This is something that more people are experimenting with, and they need an outdoor fireplace. Regardless of how or where we live the fireplace isn�t going to go away anytime soon. It provides a gathering point in the house, a tranquil spot to read, or take a nap. Just make sure to keep your chair away from the fire.
In closing outdoor fireplace designs are becoming more and more creative, and appealing. Many people like the idea of cooking outdoors and prefer to do it. It�s not just limited to summer time cooking, and many will build outside patios to cover the fire in order to cook in other weather conditions. Happy cooking, and remember to always use common sense and practice safe operating procedures around your fireplace.