Solar Cooking

[Dover]

I'm considering getting a solar cooker and am doing some research which I thought I'd share.
If you have any knowledge or experience with this method, please share it!





SOLAR OVEN-SOLAR COOKING-COOK WITH THE SUN!
A site about SOLAR ovens, and SOLAR cooking. Yes, you can cook almost any kind of food using the natural, free energy of the SUN!

Solar cooking is one of my passions. I have been a SOLAR COOKING - SOLAR OVEN enthusiast for almost 30 years now. I have learned many things that I can teach you about this wonderful, 'low tech' way of cooking. There is something magical about harnessing the power of our local star, the Sun.

http://www.cookwiththesun.com/

----------------------------------------


Developing an intuitive feel for the dynamics of solar cooking
From Solar CookingJump to: navigation, search

Light fluffy materials are good heat insulatorsHave you ever wondered why you yourself didn't come up with the idea of the solar box cooker? Why didn't it occur to you or me naturally that a double-walled, foiled, cardboard box covered with a sheet of glass could easily reach cooking temperatures? I think I know why.
We don't seem to have an innate grasp of what makes for a good insulating material. I remember that when I bought my brick house in cold Seattle, it made sense to me that the bricks would hold in the warmth during the winter. This turned out to be a completely false assumption.

On a cold day, imagine putting on a vest or shirt made out of tiles (analogous to small bricks). You know that you would feel even colder. We know from our experience of trying to keep our body warm that soft, light, fluffy materials work best. The food in the oven is like our bodies – an insulating material that would make our body cold would also lower the temperature of the food and reduce the cooking capacity of the oven.

Now that we understand that light, fluffy materials are good insulators, then let's see if we can get a sense for how much insulating capacity the various components of a cardboard solar cooker have. People newly introduced to solar box cookers find it unfathomable that such high temperatures could be contained in such a simple box, perhaps made of only a few layers of cardboard. Obviously the cardboard is able to keep the heat from leaking out. One way to access our intuitive sense for this is to imagine that you have to pick up a hot pot handle with your bare hand. That, of course, would be painful. What if you used a piece of paper between your hand and the handle. You would probably be burned just as badly, only an instant later than before. Now imagine using a piece of corrugated cardboard as a potholder. You could be pretty sure that the heat would never reach your hand with enough intensity to burn you. Next imagine you used two pieces of cardboard, then two pieces separated by a few centimeters of air space. You quickly get a feeling for how much insulating effect such a configuration would provide.

We understand now how the cooker holds the heat, but why does so much heat build up inside the cooker in the first place? We've all heard that this is due to the greenhouse effect. While glass has been available for centuries, the idea that you could use it to trap enough heat to actually cook food has occurred only recently. The greenhouse effect causes the heat from sunlight to accumulate inside any closed space with a glazed opening (e.g., a parked car). Why was this missed for so long? I believe it was because part of the greenhouse process is invisible to our human eyes.

There are two principal kinds of light operating in the solar oven: normal visible light and invisible infrared light. When you look into a solar cooker, the visible light inside doesn't seem to be that much brighter or more concentrated than the sunlight striking us as we stand and look in. Our bodies are certainly not getting hot enough to burn, much less cook, so intuition tells us that food in the oven wouldn't cook either. Or intuition is right as far as it goes. The visible light isn't intense enough to do the cooking, but an invisible transformation is taking place...cont'd

http://solarcooking.wikia.com/wiki/Developing_an_intuitive_feel_for_the_dynamics_of_solar_cooking



Solar Cooking Groups/Sites -

http://solarcooking.org/
http://www.solarovens.org/
http://solarcookers.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_cooker



Make your own:
http://solarcooking.org/plans/
http://www.knowledgehound.com/topics/solarcoo.htm
http://www.cookwiththesun.com/solar.htm



HotPot - Self-contained Solar Cooking Pot
The HotPot cooking vessel consists of a dark pot suspended inside a clear pot with a clear lid.

[Phentex]

1. Here's a thread

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=236&topic_id=46241

Have you decided which one you're going to try?

[NashVegas]

2. I Was Just About To Post That Same Link

great minds ...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=236&topic_id=46241

I guess we like our forum moving slow, like our slow food.

[Dover]

4. Great thread, thanks! No I haven't decided yet. I'll probably start out

very simply (handmade), and then when/if I get a feel for it and like it I may invest in a larger
readymade.

[Warpy]

3. I dyed a batch of wool a few years ago

in a plain glass jug in the back yard, no reflectors needed. The jar got hot enough to be uncomfortable to touch. I do live in the high desert, though, a mile closer to the sun, the atmosphere considerably thinner, and thick clouds a cause for celebration. The day was a hot one with not even a hint of a breeze.

I used a cardboard box and tinfoil setup for dyeing until it finally fell apart.

I got a Sun Oven last year so I could do bread in the summer and have found it to work well even with my orange Le Creuset pots. Black pots will help heat absorption, but it's not absolutely vital to have them in a well designed solar oven with reflectors and a clear door. Its major limitation is intolerance for wind, even breezes.

Anything you bake can be done in a Sun Oven along with a lot of things that require simmering, like soups and stews. It's a great thing to have here in the desert in the summer and has kept my kitchen and my temper cool.

[Dover]

5. Warpy, you never cease to surprise me. You've really done so many

different things! You are a font of firsthand knowledge!

I haven't even hoped to bake bread in the solar oven.

So what was the hardest thing to adjust to using a solar vs. traditional oven?
Does it take longer than traditional for something to cook/bake?
And how do you adjust the temp?

[Warpy]

8. There is no temperature adjustment

so you're not going to be able to broil and even baking high temperature things like biscuits is a little iffy. Also, because the seal is a good one, the interior of the oven tends to stay pretty humid. Bread does brown, however.

It takes as long as it takes.

The Sun Oven gets to a reliable 350 even on cool days as long as there is strong sun.

[mtnester]

9. I am seriously considering learning how to card and spin

wool, flax...etc

I have been utterly fascinated for years by big wheel spinning wheels...but FINALLY , a few weeks ago, I ran into a woman during a heritage style event (I go to these all the time..re-enactors, living history, etc and love them) who was using marigolds and cochineal bugs, etc for her dyes. She was willing to spin and talk, and I was in love.

Now, can someone send me about $2,000.00 so I can get an antique, working large wheel spinner, some flax, a loom, and a smaller spinner for the flax? :)

[Warpy]

13. Get a new wheel

http://www.weavingsouthwest.com/supplies/spinning/index.html if you're set on a great wheel.

I prefer the small Louet wheels: simple, indestructible, and require little space.

[mtnester]

14. Oh I know....the great wheels have the romance factor

I was enthralled and in love, as I said. A great wheel is for the demo spinner, to show authenticity during a living history event for example. Don't know if that is my path.

It is a decision I will make this winter. I was hoping to come up with a class or lesson or two, and will be contacting this wonderful lady for that purpose...she and I discussed this at length.

Sigh...I could forsee an addiction coming (which is WHY I stay as far away from the scrap booking section of our local camera store...because I know with every fiber of being I could get sucked in so bad it swallows me...all the pretty papers, etc...and THEN you start thinking about making your own paper....stop stop) :)

[Tab]

6. Where do you get the power source?

By solar you mean it runs on power from the stars at night? I don't get it.

Although I remember stories from my grandmother when she was a child in the tropics.


- Tab
(in cold, rainy, New Hampshire where it's rained every friggin' day for the last 3+ weeks)

[Dover]

7. Solar cooking uses only the sun which is 'captured' by reflective surfaces.

Doesn't work at night.

Send us some of your rain! We need it! Although tropical storm Edouard may provide it soon.

[supernova]

10. Solar = Sun

Our sun.

Stellar = rest of the stars in the night sky.

Solar ovens use our sun for an energy source. So, anytime the sun is out, it's cooking time!

:D

[Tab]

11. It was a joke

I tried to warp it the best I could...

[Dover]

12. You'll be glad to know I assumed you were kidding...

however, decided not to take the chance of laughing WITH you....lest you just might have actually had
a very confused grandmother...and her inherited trait...lol!

[Tab]

15. Sadly, my grandmothers have passed

My bad sense of humor is solely my own. i got the bulk of it from my father, who also has passed.

I have no one to blame but myself, now.

On the bright side, I've been indoctrinating my son with same set of humor, so it will live on.

Future generations beware!!!

and, no,they didn't live in the tropics, but it made the story better. If I had honestly said Long Island, it wouldn't have made as much of an impact.

[Dover]

16. Perhaps not the same impact. But it would have explained a LOT.

lol ;)