I'd like to get a steamer and/or a kettle for our Hearthstone Heritage stove. First, to put a little bit of humidity in the air (I've read a bunch here and see some people debate the beneficial results from this). Second, to possibly make a cup of tea or hot chocolate on the coldest nights straight from the stove.
1) Do I need a soapstone steamer since my stove is soapstone? Or can I use other materials like cast iron with no problems?
2) If not a soapstone steamer, do I need to use a trivet?
3) With soapstone steamers, I imagine it's not a big deal if it runs dry, that's just more soapstone mass for the stove to heat. Is the same true with cast iron or stainless steamers or do you need to make sure they're always full?
4) Do you wait until the steamer and kettle are cool before adding water? If you run your stove all the time, how does this work? Or is it OK to put water straight from our tap into a hot steamer or kettle? That won't crack anything?
5) Does anyone know where to buy soapstone steamers? I see Hearthstone makes (made?) one. I can't find them anywhere online. Lehman's still lists them but it says "Temporarily Unavailable". Yikes they're pricey.
6) Can you point me to steamers and kettles people like?
7) What else should I know I'm too stupid to ask?
I'm going to disagree a little bit with some of the conventional wisdom here about steamers. No, you definitely can't boil or even simmer water in a pot on a soapstone stove. But whether it's worth using a steamer for a little extra humidity depends on the layout of the house and stove room and what your expectations are.
It won't put so much moisture into the air that you'll think you just got off a plane in Miami. But if you have, as I do, normal height ceilings (no cathedral), no wide open stairway going up just opposite the stove, etc.,you can ease the dryness of winter air just a bit in the area around the stove. I know this for sure because when I forget to refill the steamer, the fur of the cats lounging around the stove let me know by giving me, and the cats, a little electric shock when I pet them. Refill the steamer and an hour later, no shocks. Since I like my cats' fur and I don't like electric shocks, I continue to use a steamer, which puts 1 to 2 gallons a day of water into the air.
There's something sort of dissonant to me about the silence and simplicity of a wood stove being paired with a modern electric appliance like a humidifier or a blower. (Although if I really needed one or the other, I suppose I'd get one reluctantly.)
I use a handsome red enameled cast iron steamer with a lattice top. It gets pretty grotty after a while with whatever the minerals and etc. are that are in the tap water, but your mileage may vary with the qualities of your tap water. Although I almost never even touch it during the heating season, it does somehow magically leave some marks on the soapstone surface, but those disappear with a little gentle scrubbing with fine steel wool.
I've had no problem refilling it when it runs dry. It just never gets all that hot. I can see a bit of steam coming out of it when I've got the stove temp up over 500 if I crouch down and look hard at the right angle to the light, but it definitely doesn't bubble.
If you like the idea of having a steamer on the stove, just get one you like the looks of and it'll be fine. If you'd rather not be bothered remembering to refill it -- and you don't have cats! -- you'll be fine without it. If you need serious humidifying of your indoor air, get a humidifier.
