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How To Make Your Own Solar Oven Videos And Instructions:
You
can cook a large percentage of your food using just the power of the
sun (all you need is sunshine). Making your own solar oven is
very, very easy (a child can do it...literally).
On this page we show you exactly how to make your own
working solar oven with stuff you have
lying around your house right now.
The Joy Of Cooking With A Solar Oven:
Cooking with a solar oven is different to conventional cooking in several ways:
# It can take a little longer. Usually you prepare your meal
early in the day or the middle of the day and allow 2-4 hours for it to
cook. But there is good news...
# Food doesn't burn in a solar oven so you can put your food in there
and leave it all day or eat from it when you're ready...put it back in
the sun and it will stay hot for you.
# There is no need to turn or stir food in a solar oven. It will
cook evenly without any turning (so you don't need to watch the food
cook...just put it in there and leave it for a few hours until you're
ready to eat).
# The food tastes better. It's cooked slowly and some people even say that the food is ehanced with the sun's energy.
# Food that takes longer to cook like sweet potatoes or other root
vegetables should be cut into bite sized pieces to cook.
# When you cook food like rice you use as little water as possible to help the temperature get as high as possible.
# If you want to fry an egg you may have to preheat an iron skillet in
your oven then add oil or butter till it's sizzling hot then fry your
egg on the skillet.
# Be aware that you're concentrating and reflecting the suns rays.
It's wise not to look directly into the reflected light and it
helps if you wear sunglasses when you're putting the food into the oven
and taking it out.
# If you're worried about ants forget it. Solar ovens are too hot
for ants and most bugs, birds and insects. They will usually
avoid your oven even when it's full of food.
Watch this video to see how simple cooking with a solar oven really is (1 minute 38 seconds)...
3 Simple Principles For Making A Working Solar Oven:
There
are only 3 things you need to understand to make a solar oven that will
use the power of the sun to cook your food for you.
1. Reflect the sunlight onto your cooking area. You make a
reflector with cardboard covered with alfoil or a windscreen shade,
mirrors...anything that reflects the sunlight will work.
2. Trap the heat inside your cooker using a sheet of clear glass, a
sheet of clear plastic, a large glass cooking pot, a sheet of clear
plastic, a clear plastic oven roasting bag, a clear plastic bag...the
possibilities are endless. See what you have already in your
house.
3. Convert the light to heat with something black. It could
be a black pot you put your food in (with or without a lid), a black
frying pan, coloring the inside of your solar oven black...get creative.
Often using just two of these principles is enough to successfully cook
food in a solar oven and you can often create a solar oven in minutes
using stuff you have in your house now.
For example:
a. Get a large glass cooking pot.
b. Get a smaller cooking pot with a glass top (or not top) that has a black base.
c. Put your uncooked food in the smaller cooking pot. Put the smaller cooking pot inside the larger cooking put.
d. Put them in the sun.
e. Position a car windscreen reflector to reflect as much light as possible onto the pots.
f. Leave it for 1-4 hours and your food will be cooked as long as the sun stays out.
I think it's vital that you understand how simple it really is to build
a solar oven and how you really can get a working oven up and running
right now in just a few minutes.
Don't worry about getting it perfect.
Just get anything out there in the sun now and see for yourself how simple it really is to cook with the sun's power.
Here are some videos showing some home made solar oven designs:
How To Make A Solar Oven From A Pizza Box
This video shows you how to make a solar oven from a simple pizza box (2 minutes)...
Instead
of painting the base of the box black you can use black paper as
they do to create the pizza solar oven in this video (or you could use
a black baking pan in the bottom of the box. In this solar oven
they also use a stick instead of drinking straws
(2 minutes 43 seconds)...
How To Make A Simple Solar Box Oven
Here's a simple solar box oven made with a cardboard box, clear
plastic, electrical tape and alfoil. You are likely to find this
style of solar oven the most practical to use on a regular basis.
This kind of solar oven works better if you:
# Use a glass pot to cook in.
# Put the glass pot on top of a black baking tray of some kind (very important if you want higher temperatures).
# Add some reflectors to increase the sunlight focused into the oven
(windscreen shades or cardboard covered with alfoil work just fine as
reflectors...in fact nearly anything covered with alfoil and pointed so
sunlight will reflect into the oven will work just fine)
# Put the whole box inside a second slightly larger box that has
insulation in the sides (newspaper insulation...any natural
insulation). This will help the oven retain heat and keep cooking
if clouds come over.
(1 minute 14 seconds)...
How To Make A Reflecting Solar Oven From Cardboard Boxes
This video explains how to make a solar oven that uses mainly
reflection to cook. Remember there are many, many different ways of
making a working solar oven and this is just one simple way using
cardboard boxes. You could also combine this reflector system
with other solar oven models (5 minutes 32 seconds)...
Here's another series of 4 videos showing you how to make and use a solar panel cooker Part 1 (57 seconds)...
How To Make And Use A Solar Panel Cooker Part 2 (58 seconds)...
How To Make And Use A Solar Panel Cooker Part 3 (58 seconds)...
How To Make And Use A Solar Panel Cooker Part 4 (58 seconds)...
What plates, bowls etc to use in a panel cooker for head absorption.
Highly recommended video for all solar cooking (4 minutes 54 seconds)...
Keep Your Reflector And Window On Your Solar Oven Clean
If you want to get maximum heat in your solar oven it's important to
keep the reflectors and any clear surface the sunlight is supposed to
pass through clean
(1 minute)...
Home Made Primrose Solar Cooker
This is a very hot solar cooker made mainly with cardboard and aluminium foil (4 minutes 40 seconds)...
Frying Eggs In A Solar Cooker
This type of solar cooker comes in various types and is based around
suspending your frypan (with a glass lid) and getting maximum number of
reflectors focused right on the pan. You can also cook other
kinds of foods too. To fry an egg you need to preheat the pan,
then heat your oil or butter in the pan of the solar cooker till
it's sizzling hot then fry your egg (2 minutes 25 seconds)...
Parabolic Solar Cooker Made From Sattelite Dish
You can make a fantastic parabolic solar cooker from:
# A discarded sattelite dish covered in alfoil.
# An old clothes drying rack (or any kind of wire rack)
# A black saucepan or frypan preferably with a glass lid.
Check out this example (10 seconds)...
FREE Plans And Instructions For Making Your Own Solar Oven
You can find many free plans and instructions for building your own solar oven on this page...
http://solarcooking.org/plans/default.htm
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