(passive) solar cooking - wow

[BelgianMadCow]

I was looking for ways to become self-reliant, and was thinking about basic needs ie a roof, heat, food, drinkable water and the like.

So I went googling for cooking using solar energy - thinking about some kind of photovoltaic system powering an electric plate.

BUT it seems you can have a solar cooker (or even better, MAKE one) that works directly on the sunlight :-)

yeah, I know, probably many here knew about that ;-)

I found http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_cooker to be a nice start, http://solarcooking.org/ to be a good start for either building one (eg http://solarcooking.org/plans/funnel.htm I just HAVE to try that one) or procuring one (the pioneer solar oven is <http://www.sunoven.com/|SunOven>, made in the USA for 289 $...which I find a bit much tbh.

regards
bmc

and ps: you can also use this thing to pasteurize water (kill germs) in the event you only have access to water with questionable quality. And the food supposedly has a great taste as well. It's not fast-food though ;-)

[marybourg]

1. We made a (cardboard & newspaper) box cooker 22 years ago.

It (still) works wonderfully well. I especially love to make a Bundt cake in it; mmm moist and tender. Franks & beans are great too!. For most of the country, it's a summertime thing only, of course.

[Warpy]

2. I have a Sun Oven

which took the place of a cardboard box and foil arrangement I had for dyepots, and the difference is wonderful. The Sun Oven is very well thought out, minus the pop rivets on the reflectors that had me chasing said reflectors across the yard when a mild breeze sprang up. I wrote them a tart note and replaced them with machine screws and nuts. The Sun Oven is well insulated, the plexi cover fits snugly, and the thermometer allows you to watch the temperature, usually 350-380 here in the desert southwest. It does a good job in cool weather or hot weather and is the only way I get homemade bread in the summertime.

I agree it's pretty pricey and that you can build your own more cheaply, but I really don't have that kind of ambition any more. In order to get the temperature up high enough to do bread, you really need to insulate the box and that's the tricky part. While I'd use polystyrene on the outside, I wouldn't want it in with the food. Yucky poo. Wood is a fair insulator, but repeated exposure to baking temperatures will damage it while causing plywood to exude nasty fumes. Still, even an uninsulated box can achieve temperatures that will do roasts and casseroles, if not brown a loaf of bread.

Timing solar cooking is also a bit different, as most things take longer.

However, solar cooking is da bomb in the summertime, allowing you to do all the baked stuff you want without heating up the kitchen or making your gas/electric bill budge. I recommend it highly.