The paper addresses the studies of a wood gas stove in meeting cooking energy requirement using biomass gasification. The stove works on natural draft mode. The thermal efficiency of the stove was recorded at about 26.5% and it can be started, operated and stopped with very low emissions. It can use a wide variety of biomass fuels. The produced wood gas bums with a blue flame like liquid petroleum gas with a flame temperature of 736 degrees C. The design criteria, safety measures and operating procedure of wood gas stoves are presented in this paper. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.