Have a Solar Cookout!
We can bake, fry, steam, our favorite dish right in our own backyard. Solar cooking is completely carbon and cost neutral, running on light rays that reach the earth from the sun.
Nutrients that would be destroyed by intensive heating over gas are retained in food when it is cooked on a solar cooker leaving it more nutritious when it reaches our plate.
Successful Solar cookers have been used in India since as early as the 18th century. Years back, my family bought a solar cooker. I remember, as kids we were so excited, when we ate food cooked or warmed up in the Solar Cooker!
How It Works…
(Excerpt from an article by Ed Eaton)
Sunlight is concentrated in a cooking area by using mirrors or any
reflective surface. Consider a car parked in the sun with all the
windows up. The sunlight is absorbed as heat by the car’s interior.
The rolled up windows help keep the heat and hot air within the car.
In solar oven heat is captured inside an enclosed area and is absorbed
by the food and pots or pans. This is called the greenhouse effect
and applies to cars, solar cookers and planets. In solar ovens, temperatures as high as 425 F can be achieved.
How to make a Solar Cooker
(from: http://www.allfreecrafts.com)
This can be a great project for kids! We are planning to make over the weekend.
Supplies:
· Two cardboard boxes, with the inner box being at least 15 inch x 15 inch (38 cm x 38 cm), but bigger is better. The outer box should be larger all around, but it doesn’t matter how much bigger, as long as there is a half inch (1.5cm) or more of an airspace between the two boxes. The distance between the two boxes does not have to be equal all the way around. Also, remember that it’s easy to adjust the size of a cardboard box by cutting and gluing it.
· One cardboard sheet for the lid. This must be about 2 to 3 inch (4 to 8 cm) larger all the way around than the top of the finished cooker (the outer box).
· One roll of aluminum foil.
· One can of “non-toxic when dry” flat-black spray paint.
· At least 1 cup of white glue
· One Reynolds Oven Bag . Common in major grocery stores in the U.S. or Canada or by mail-order from Solar Cookers International or Amazon. They are rated for 400 °F (204 °C) so they are perfect for solar cooking. They are not UV-resistant; thus they will become more brittle and opaque over time and may need to be replaced periodically. A sheet of glass can also be used, but this is more expensive and fragile, and doesn’t offer that much better cooking except on windy days.
Building the Solar Cooker Base
Instructions:
Fold the top flaps closed on the outer box and set the inner box on top and trace a line around it onto the top of the outer box. Remove the inner box and cut along this line to form a hole in the top of the outer box .
Decide how deep you want your oven to be. Ideally, it should be about 1 inch (2.5 cm) deeper than your largest pot and about 1″ shorter than the outer box so that there will be a space between the bottoms of the two boxes once the cooker is assembled.
Using a knife, slit the corners of the inner box down to that height. Fold each side down forming extended flaps. Folding is smoother if you first draw a firm line from the end of one cut to the other where the folds go.
Glue aluminum foil to the inside of both boxes and also to the inside of the remaining top flaps of the outer box. Don’t bother being neat on the outer box, since it will never be seen, nor will it experience any wear. The inner box will be visible even after assembly, so if it matters to you, you might want to take more time here. Glue the top flaps closed on the outer box. Place some wads of crumpled newspaper into the outer box so that when you set the inner box down inside the hole in the outer box, the flaps on the inner box just touch the top of the outer box .Glue these flaps onto the top of the outer box. Trim the excess flap length to be even with the perimeter of the outer box.
Finally, to make the drip pan, cut a piece of cardboard, the same size as the bottom of the interior of the oven and apply foil to one side. Paint this foiled side black and allow it to dry. Put this in the oven so that it rests on the bottom of the inner box (black side up), and place your pots on it when cooking. The base is now finished.
Building the Solar Cooker Lid
Take the large sheet of cardboard and lay it on top of the base. Trace its outline and then cut and fold down the edges to form a lip of about 3″ (7.5cm). Fold the corner flaps around and glue to the side lid flaps.). Orient the corrugations so that they go from left to right as you face the oven so that later the prop may be inserted into the corrugations . One trick you can use to make the lid fit well is to lay the pencil or pen against the side of the box when marking. Don’t glue this lid to the box; you’ll need to remove it to move pots in and out of the oven.
To make the reflector flap, draw a line on the lid, forming a rectangle the same size as the oven opening. Cut around three sides and fold the resulting flap up forming the reflector. Foil this flap on the inside.
To make a prop bend a 12″ (30cm) piece of hanger wire. This can then be inserted into the corrugations.
Next, turn the lid upside-down and glue the oven bag (or other glazing material) in place. We have had great success using the turkey sized Oven Bag
(19″ x 23 1/2″, 47.5cm x 58.5cm) applied as is, i.e., without opening it up. This makes a double layer of plastic. The two layers tend to separate from each other to form an airspace as the oven cooks.
When using this method, it is important to also glue the bag closed on its open end. This stops water vapor from entering the bag and condensing. Alternately you can cut any size oven bag open to form a flat sheet large enough to cover the oven opening.
Good Sun Cooking Reading
“The Solar Cookery Book”
by Beth and Dan Halacy
Peace Press
“Solar Cooking Naturally”
by Doris Stutzman
HCR Box 305 J
Payson, AZ 85541
