Solar oven/ cooking

Jim

I really had not put much thought in using something like this to cook with. Sounds like something we guys that camp off the grid should look into...

I imagine you will be tracking the right sun angle for maximum heat. Probably be cooking with thermo-gun meter handy haha... I would think you would have too much heat....

I got an old SAT DISH here I line the inside with foil and it works great melting snow on my side walk haha...

Seems like you could make a pretty solar stove good rather easy...



I know all of us carry a small magnifying glass to be able to start a fire when we need one. Got a compass with a mirror lid just for doing that haha...

Roy Ken

Roy

The basis design is simple and there are a number of ways to do it. I had intended on making one but finding one new so inexpensively was too good to pass up.

the difference between a solar oven and a solar cooker is that the oven is black inside to absorb the heat. A cooker reflects the light onto a black vessel that cooks the food inside. I took the oven out for a second test at 3 pm and after a half hour it was holding 225 without the reflectors. I didn't remove the lid when I brought it in and a half hour later it is still 125F inside.

The difference between the magnifying glass concept and the dish is the dish focuses the light from below like a stove would.

Here is a page of plans for solar cookers. I used a wash basin and black pot to heat water in the tenting days, it was nice washing up or doing dishes with hot water.

plans

well I decided to give the Sport a try today. It's partially cloudy and I had to use the reflectors to get it to maintain 200-250F so I didn't want to put anything expensive in there in case the clouds got worse. I found a box of Jiffy cornbread mix and made muffins instead. I left them in for a few hours and they pricked cleanly with a skewer. I think I could have taken them out sooner but that's the nice thing about the lower temp oven is that it wont burn things if you go a bit long.

So today we had sun so I put a rack of ribs and a few taters in the oven at 9:45 in the morning and left them in there until we lost the sun to the shadows at 4 pm. They looked burnt and I was worried they were dried out but I shouldn't have. They were as moist and dissolve in your mouth tender as i could have hoped for.