Anybody use a solar oven to cook with while camping? I searched the topic but did not find much.
Note: All of my solar oven cooking was done in the summer months of July and August.
I purchased one a few years ago to try out, cooked a few things in it, found it to be more of a pain in the ass than useful.
They have their place where they are very useful or the only thing useful, but I don't do that kind of camping or outdoor activity.
The biggest problem is if you really want max heat out of one, is you have to attend it every hour or so to rotate it for maximum sun exposure, and that all varies for the spring, summer, fall and winter position of the sun.
The best and easiest thing I found to prepare was a cobbler that I started in the morning and left the oven in a sun neutral position, the middle of the daily suns arc so to speak, did not tend it or move the oven and it came out delicious by the evening for our regular meals dessert. Have not tried bread but I'm sure it would cook just as well over lower heat and a long sun arc.
You can use it to cook in a small dutch oven, but you would have to tend it for max temperature, which I have reached over 350 degrees with it.
Just curious if others have one, or have experimented with one......Larry
Cooking with a solar oven
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Cooking with a solar oven
by Redneck Teepee » Fri Nov 14, 2014 8:22 pm
I fear the day that technology will surpass our human interaction, the world will have a generation of idiot's.
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Redneck Teepee - Silver Donating Member
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Re: Cooking with a solar oven
by Catherine+twins » Fri Nov 14, 2014 11:42 pm
Several years ago I was working grave shift, and since I was home every day during daylight hours I did a lot of solar cooking. I have a home-made cookit http://solarcooking.wikia.com/wiki/CooKit and a Global Sun Oven, now bigger and better as the All American Sun Oven http://www.solarcooker-at-cantinawest.c ... _Oven.html. I'm at 35 degrees 53 minutes north (northern New Mexico, USA), 7200 ft above sea level, and did my cooking in October, November, and December. Oh, I do some solar cooking in all seasons, but that three-month period was my most consistent.
With the CookIt, I used a blackened SS bowl in a clear glass (Pyrex) casserole http://www.amazon.com/Pyrex-Bakeware-2- ... ered+pyrex, creating a "greenhouse" cooking container. A similar, much larger vessel is used with the HotPot solar cooker http://www.solarcooker-at-cantinawest.c ... okers.html. I was able to get my rice dishes to boiling in October, but the Cookit is very touchy about breezy weather. It works, but now I use it only occasionally, mainly as a way to keep hot things hot, but not to get them to temp to begin with.
I was able to cook full meals and even bake in the Sun Oven even on Dec 26. My habit was to re-aim the oven one or two times an hour. In our cool, clear air, the oven was usually able to maintain a temperature over 300 F around mid-day with my aiming schedule, which meant I could cook a meal in a couple of hours, including biscuits or cornbread.
The Sun Oven also catches every breeze, but it has more mass and is less likely to sail off and dump a meal. That said, OctNovDec are relatively calm months here. I have had much more trouble with the Sun Oven when camping in the spring (Wind Season) and summer here, the months when we have fire restrictions in all the forests of the southwest and therefore could use the solar ovens! The sun is more directly overhead, but the wind blows more.
Catherine
With the CookIt, I used a blackened SS bowl in a clear glass (Pyrex) casserole http://www.amazon.com/Pyrex-Bakeware-2- ... ered+pyrex, creating a "greenhouse" cooking container. A similar, much larger vessel is used with the HotPot solar cooker http://www.solarcooker-at-cantinawest.c ... okers.html. I was able to get my rice dishes to boiling in October, but the Cookit is very touchy about breezy weather. It works, but now I use it only occasionally, mainly as a way to keep hot things hot, but not to get them to temp to begin with.
I was able to cook full meals and even bake in the Sun Oven even on Dec 26. My habit was to re-aim the oven one or two times an hour. In our cool, clear air, the oven was usually able to maintain a temperature over 300 F around mid-day with my aiming schedule, which meant I could cook a meal in a couple of hours, including biscuits or cornbread.
The Sun Oven also catches every breeze, but it has more mass and is less likely to sail off and dump a meal. That said, OctNovDec are relatively calm months here. I have had much more trouble with the Sun Oven when camping in the spring (Wind Season) and summer here, the months when we have fire restrictions in all the forests of the southwest and therefore could use the solar ovens! The sun is more directly overhead, but the wind blows more.
Catherine
Build Thread Penguino II: viewtopic.php?f=55&t=54919
Build Thread Penguino I: viewtopic.php?t=44431
"Oh, let's just stay here and sing camp songs for a while." 1966, My mom in Isle Royale, MN, in a women's bath house with a momma bear and two cubs outside the door, and three tired kids trapped inside
"Dad! Dad! There's a bear outside!" 1967, Lolo Hot Springs, MT, in a tent-top trailer
"Oh, no, there it goes!!" Nov 10, 2012 as Penguino I blew over in high winds
Build Thread Penguino I: viewtopic.php?t=44431
"Oh, let's just stay here and sing camp songs for a while." 1966, My mom in Isle Royale, MN, in a women's bath house with a momma bear and two cubs outside the door, and three tired kids trapped inside
"Dad! Dad! There's a bear outside!" 1967, Lolo Hot Springs, MT, in a tent-top trailer
"Oh, no, there it goes!!" Nov 10, 2012 as Penguino I blew over in high winds
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Catherine+twins - The 300 Club
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Not really necessary for cooking ... and while cooking over a couple hours , we might move the reflector cooker once or twice (maybe) ... It’s not necessary to have it exact all the time ... Good design helps with this too ... a Reflector type oven is much less subject to angular differences than say a focused lens type of cooker ... We tried a bunch of things , Fresnel lens, glass lenses for cookers ... Those required constant adjustment , but cooked Very Fast ... lots of ways to cook things with solar ... even the solar Pizza box works to some degree...... 