Cooking in the city

mattduke · Light Sweet Crude Joined: Oct 28, 2005 Posts: 1161

Can you tell me about solar ovens? Do they work at any latitude? Any tips or other alternatives? Thanks.

RedStateGreen · Posted: Thu Feb 28, 2008 5:06 pm Post subject: Re: Cooking in the city

I love my solar oven. It's sort of like a slow cooker, takes a good part of the day, but it uses no energy other than the sun.

Take a look at:

http://www.solarcooking.org/

This has TONS of great links.

As far as latitude, the sun just isn't as strong the farther north you go, and in the winter. So you have to cook longer or sometimes assist using other means to finish the food up. But I've heard of people cooking at 55N with a solar oven, so if they can do that then anyone can. Laughing

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steam_cannon · Expert Joined: Dec 28, 2006 Posts: 2425 Location: MA

WisJim · Posted: Thu Feb 28, 2008 8:34 pm Post subject: Re: Cooking in the city

We have SunOven brand solar cooker, and a homemade one made from cardboard, glass, and aluminum foil. Both work about the same, but the Sunoven is sturdier and more convenient. We cook coffee cakes, cookies, casseroles, and rice dishes, among other things, in them. The Sunoven has a good seal around the glass door, so things in it stay moister than in a regular oven, so they don't overcook and dry out as quickly if you don't get them out right away. There are some other oven designs that will heat hotter or in less sun. The site that Red mentioned is a good place to start to learn more.

steam_cannon · Expert Joined: Dec 28, 2006 Posts: 2425 Location: MA

steam_cannon · Expert Joined: Dec 28, 2006 Posts: 2425 Location: MA

kpeavey · Expert Joined: Oct 04, 2004 Posts: 1127

In northern locations, a larger collector will do the job, more time can help, but the days can be short up north.

Solar cooking needs only equipment, no fuel needs to be gathered/consumed, making it a particularly useful means of cooking. However, the sun can give way to clouds, or your solar cooker may be too small for the size of the meal you wish to prepare. To keep on cooking when the sun goes down, take a look at

Heat-retention cooking to offer a back up plan for all your dinner party needs.

If you must consume a fuel, rocket stoves offer excellent bang for the bark. For electrical devices, a small slow cooker/crock pot can operate on as little as 100 watts. As with the solar cooker, Heat Retention Cooking can minimize the amount of fuel/energy required.

Nothing worse than having a pot full of dry beans, an empty stomach, and no way to cook the things.

I've found that having multiple redundant systems gives me options when problems arise. I have a stove that operates on city gas, a 2 burner electric stove top ($60 walmart), a 2 burner coleman camp stove run on propane ($40 walmart), a propane bbq grill, an experimental rocket stove, a propane stove/oven in the camper, a single burner that fits on top of a 1# propane tank, electric slow cooker, microwave, toaster oven, a solar box cooker, a pile of firebrick that will one day be an outdoor bbq, and if that all fails, a fire pit in the back yard can be dug in short order for a campfire.

One of my favorite cooking devices was an Electrocution Cooker used back in college in the dorm to cook hot dogs. 2 forks, some electrical tape, and the cord from a broken toaster. Separate the wires in the cord, strip off an inch or two to expose the wire, taping one wire to each fork, stab the forks into each end of the hot dog, put the hot dog on a plate, plug it in, and DON'T TOUCH THE HOT DOG until you unplug it. Cooking time, about a minute.
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mattduke · Light Sweet Crude Joined: Oct 28, 2005 Posts: 1161

Thanks for the great responses everyone.

alokin · Intermediate Crude Joined: Aug 24, 2007 Posts: 700

which of the cookers work best to bake bread?( Sturdy construction no cardboard)

WisJim · Posted: Sun Mar 02, 2008 10:01 pm Post subject: Re: Cooking in the city

We have baked yeast breads in the Sunoven brand cooker, but we only do it if we are around to keep an eye on it, and if it is really sunny and stays sunny. If it clouds up around the time you put the bread pans in the oven, it doesn't bake fast enough and the dough keeps rising, filling the entire oven with a mass of sticky messy dough. I would get a solar oven that was a bit hotter than a Sunoven if I was going to depend on it to make bread regularly. It does work fine, however, for quick rising or baking powder breads or bisquits, cakes, etc.

sittinguy · Heavy Crude Joined: Sep 07, 2007 Posts: 279

GREAT PICS, That is really cool

nocar · Intermediate Crude Joined: Nov 05, 2004 Posts: 665

Mattduke, no, solar ovens do not work at any latitude. They do not work at all in winter at Scandinavian latitudes, above the 54th parallel. In Stockholm, 59th parallel, the sun rises only 9 degrees above the horizon at midday at the winter solstice, and it is usually cloudy. Thus totally impossible from Nov-Feb.

I built a simple solar cooker by cardboard, aluminum foil, and a glass cover. Admittedly, the design was primitive and could be improved, but hardly more than doubled. In a sunny day in June-July, I managed to cook an omelette, and some weird-consistency rice another day. You need a day with dependable sunshine, which is a minority of days here, although they exist. (And such summer days - a rare treat for us - we tend to have better plans than sitting a around the house adjusting a solar cooker) Shading trees are no good either - and remember, the shadow moves.

My solar cooker was pretty good in making hot water though, always a good thing to have in a summer cottage without heating or electricity where I built it - although on sunny summer days, hot water for doing dishes can easily be produced by placing the dishwater tub in the sun. Our baths are taken in the Baltic on such days. - So, most useful when the need was low.

It was also useful for reheating already cooked food. Not bad.

In August, the sun is already lower and the efficiency less. The shadows of the trees are longer too. Hardly any chance of real cooking at my cottage.

Since it was made of cardboard, it could not be left out over night, with dew and constant chances of rain. Bulky and a fragile glass-pane, not that easy to move and find a place indoor for, either. But a sturdier thing that can be left outside all summer, and is easy to fold and store has certain potential.

Luckily, there is always lots of wood around in most places in Scandinavia.

I am a firm believer in solar cooking in dry locations at low latitudes. Plenty of those on Earth. Cool, wet, high latitudes means limited potential.

nocar

madison · Heavy Crude Joined: Mar 12, 2005 Posts: 255

I have a homemade solar cooker that I'm itching to try out this summer. Right now, though, it's usually raining (it is Oregon, of course it's raining, lol).

I am also going to buy a good cast iron charcoal grill and see what I can do with "found" wood - cast off wood from within town. Like pallets, old fences etc that folks just want to dump. It will be an interesting experiment to see if I can cook for free!

I would love, though, to be able to build a cob bread oven, but I don't own land to build one on and the landlord said no way!