SOLAR OVENS
 

Anyone here own a solar oven and if so, how good does it cook?? I live down south in Texas, and will be purchasign a solar oven soon. I know they are fairly easy to build, but I'd like to have something turn-key so I don't have to spend much time getting it up and online.

Any particular company?

Thanks

Re: SOLAR OVENS
 

Renegade_01, you deserve a response on this. I own a Sun Oven that I purchased a couple of years ago. It doesn't see much use because so far it's been just too convenient to fire up the gas range or the electric double wall ovens. But I have used it often enough to learn a thing or two.

It isn't easy to get temperatures up to 350 degrees F in a Sun Oven here in NW Indiana. It takes a cloudless summer day with the sun high overhead. But, when that happens, however infrequently, you can bake a loaf of bread in a Sun Oven. There are plans on the Internet for building a charcoal fueled oven out of insulated cardboard boxes that you invert over a bed of hot charcoal. The bread pan would be placed on a cookie sheet shelf suspended over the hot coals. The edge of the foil lined "oven" would be raised enough to allow oxygen to circulate. I haven't built one yet; but, assuming you had quantities of hot coals, you could probably bake bread much more frequently with such a rudimentary oven than with the expensive Sun Oven.

The Sun Oven has a shelf that is big enough to accomodate a meatloaf pan and a jar for cooking rice. If you want a more complicated meal than that, think 2 or more ovens.

The Sun Oven works quite well for pasteurizing water. Contaminated water and milk can be pasteurized at temperatures well below boiling, saving time and fuel. Water heated to 149 degrees F for a short period of time is free from microbes, including E. coli, Rotaviruses, Giardia and the Hepatitis A virus. At 160 degrees F, milk and foods are pasteurized. These temperatures are well within the capabilities of the Sun Oven. Buy a cheap device known as a WAPI (Water Pasteurization Indicator.)

Most Sun Oven compatible recipees work much like a slow cooker. On a partially cloudy day, internal oven temperatures may peak at 250 degrees F or so. It can take several hours to cook dinner at those temperatures.

If you're not going to be around the house, load your food into the Sun Oven before you leave in the morning, aiming the oven to where the run will be at its peak mid-day. Because the Sun Oven is insulated, as the sun rises in the sky the oven will begin to heat up and cook your food long before the raw food spoils. As the sun falls in the sky, temperatures inside the oven will decline. But, since the oven is insulated, your slow-cooked dinner will still be warm when you come home late afternoon.

I have baked bread, made meat loaf, stewed chicken and vegetables, and prepared rice successfully in my Sun Oven. It is well constructed, with a tempered glass lid, a swinging food shelf that keeps your food level as you aim the box, rubber gaskets to seal the lid, and a temperature guage that registers all the way up to a very optimistic, impossibly high 500 degrees. And, of course, there are the polished metal reflectors that fold conveniently out of the way for storing.

There are other designs (such as parabolic cookers that focus the sun's energy at a single point.) They all seem to have their own special virtues and flaws.

Re: SOLAR OVENS
 

Here is a Global Sun Oven, and this is as cheap as I've seen them. I've only had time to use it once. I used a chicken recipe, with olive oil and bell peppers, and it turned out great. http://www.wisementrading.com/solarcooking.htm

The temperature never got higher than 300 degrees, so I'll have to play with it some more. Part of the problem (I think) is the company I bought it from (not these guys) shipped it DHL, and they broke the glass lid. The supplier didn't replace the unit, just the glass lid, so when I got it, there were chunks of glass everywhere. One got wedged between the sealing gasket and the new glass cover, so I don't know if I have a good seal. Need to check it out further.

Overall, I think it's a good thing to have for SHTF.

Re: SOLAR OVENS
 

That's the oven I own. And their claim of 360 to 400 degrees is pretty optimistic, in my experience. Now, if you live in Arizona or New Mexico or probably even Texas, maybe not. But up North the days are pretty short a good part of the year and, even worse, the sun hangs low in the sky where the amount of solar energy falling on the oven isn't nearly enough to generate high temperatures. I don't know about conditions where you live, Lars Ragnarsson, but I doubt that your trouble generating higher temperatures has anything to do with the replacement lid.

I do agree that it is a great thing to own for TSHTF. In parts of the world where TS has already HTF (like parts of Africa), solar ovens are already revolutionizing the lives of poor housewives who have trouble finding fuel with which to cook.

Re: SOLAR OVENS
 

I'm in the Panhandle of Florida. I tried using it in late summer, when the humidity was high as always that time of year. The instructions say it works best on a cold, dry day with full sun vs. a hot, humid day. But you're probably right - 250 - 300 F is probably all I can expect out if it here, maybe a little more on a perfect day.

Still, it gets hot enough for long enough to boil water, and as you said, it really operates much like a slow cooker. So you are correct when you say don't count on it to cook meat and veggies for you every day, especially if you're in a place where the solar index isn't that high. But the way I look at it is if you've got freeze dried or dehydrated preps, you can at least boil water for those a once in awhile if there's no other fuel source.

Though I bought it for SHTF, I also wanted to take a look at one to see about reverse-engineering it. Some plywood, glass, styrofoam, mirrors, black paint and car door or refigerator gaskets should put you in business....

Re: SOLAR OVENS
 

I have a couple dozen bags of charcoal briquets that I would not want to waste. I'm not like Andy. I live here in suburbia and don't have 6 cords of dry wood in my basement. So even with a (limited) other fuel source, the solar oven would come in handy on the days when it works. And, just for giggles, I'm going to bring my oven up from the basement and see what I can do with it at this time of year. Temperatures have been in the low 40s during the day. Days have gotten pretty short. Heck, it's pitch black around here at 5 PM. So the sun is hanging pretty low in the sky. I'll see if I can cook a meatloaf and veggies on the first clear day that comes along and report back to the group with the results ASAP.

Re: SOLAR OVENS
 

I appreciate all the responses. They have been helpful enough into swaying me to buy one of these. I'm really a do it yourself type, so I may mimick the design at some point, but for now the Sun Oven looks to be a good choice for a turn key system.

I was thinking of coupling it with a fresnel lense. Have yall seen those things? They are pretty intense and if angled just right, you can get the right amount of heat generation.

Re: SOLAR OVENS
 

I have 10 bags (20 pounds each) of lump charcoal for my Big Green Egg.

http://www.biggreenegg.com/

One bag of lump is about eight 4 hour cooks (at 350 degrees). I am looking to get some bags of wheat and a hand mill. Add a little yeast, some water, and you have enough fuel to make bread - lots and lots and lots of fresh bread.

Re: SOLAR OVENS
 

Well, today is a bright, sunny day in NW Indiana. There is a slight cloudy haze in the sky, so the solar oven is fluctuating between 170 and 220 degrees F. I'm cooking chicken stew (wasn't in the mood for meatloaf.) I diced two boneless, skinless chicken breast tenders, some potatoes, onions, and celery -- forgot all about carrots, but it's too late now. Added some water, macaroni noodles, salt and chicken soup starter in a black enamel pan with lid and put it into the oven at 11:15 after pre-heating the oven for maybe 20 minutes. It was 37 degrees outside then.

I checked it after an hour and 15 minutes. When I removed the lid the contents were steaming, the noodles were soft and ready to eat. But the potatoes were still a little too crunchy for my taste. My guess is that it will be fine to eat in about another hour.

So I've proven to my satisfaction that a solar oven can be used to cook dinner in late November, even if the sun is way low in the sky (less than 30 days to the shortest day of the year), so long as I have mostly sunny conditions. All in all, very encouraging.

Re: SOLAR OVENS
 

The thing about solar ovens is you only have to get them up to about 220 degrees anyway to cook food. Almost all food has water in it, so the food will not generally go above 220 degrees even in a warmer oven. The higher temperatures on most frozen food is designed for faster cooking times and special effects like browning.

The great thing about low-temperature cooking is even tho it takes longer you don't have to worry about burning the food. You can leave it in the sun all day and the food will cook and then stay warm but will not burn.

Re: SOLAR OVENS
 

Thanks for the report, Merlin. And good observations, Cassius. Most crock pots don't get to more than 140� F, so if you can sustain @ 180� -200� for 3-4 hours, you should be able to use most crockpot recipes.

I'm off this week. We've been getting high 20s - low 30s at night (lost my peppers this week to the frost), but the days get up to the 60s and 70s. I need to put together something and give my oven another spin.

I found some small, black bread pans awhile back - I might have to look at a bread recipe, too.

Re: SOLAR OVENS
 

I bought my Sun Oven online -- don't remember where. But they also sold the black enamel pans with lids. The Sun Oven is just barely big enough that you can stack two pans on the swinging shelf. The top pan functions as the lid for the bottom. If you want a lid on the top stacked pan, you'll have to turn the lid upside down so that the handle doesn't prevent your closing the oven door, LOL.

Re: SOLAR OVENS
 

Lookee what I found! Not exactly a solar oven, but I think this probably fits within the spirit of this thread.

http://envirofitcookstoves.org/files...ry/S2100_2.jpg
http://envirofitcookstoves.org/files...ry/S4150_1.jpg

I don't know that they are sold in the US; this page seems centered around India. http://envirofitcookstoves.org/products

At least they're made here, in CO. Now ain't that a switch?