Be Veg, Go Green, Save the Planet!

How to make your own solar oven

Inspired by Solar International Cooking's Cookit , the following is the method that I have been using to construct my own solar panel cookers for months. The method to be described here is basically the same as the version supplied by Solar International Cooking, with exception that all the round corners of the original version are now replaced with sharp corners.

Like many other solar panel cookers, this one looks deceptively simple and does not cost a lot of money to build. However, its usefulness and efficiency surprise many. We have already used it to grill sweet potatoes with great success.

Many vegetarian meals involve prolonged cooking of grains and beans at a moderate temperature. Most panel cookers do not need a hugh investment to start with, as opposed to other more efficient but less cost-effective counterparts. I believe panel solar cooking is a way to go for those who want to be vegetarian without taxing the environment.

Solar cooking involves no carbon footprint. Panel cookers can be built inexpensively. You can run multiple panel cookers in parallel without incurring additional costs so that you can serve a large group of people. I believe portable panel cooker is a must-have item during the time of disasters. Even in the absence of any disasters, you can extend the idea of solar cooking using panel cookers to other go-green related applications, such as pasteurizing potting soil and solar distillation.

How to assemble and how to use your own solar oven

Step 1: First of all, get hold of the following materials:

Two rolls of adhesive aluminum tape.

One can of black spray paint. (Ideally, the paint should be non-toxic when dry.)

One high temperature plastic bag. (If you can't find one, just buy a glass container or microwavable box)

One piece of 4 feet x 3 feet cardboard paper. (Note: If you cannot find a sheet of cardboard that is bigger enough to cover 3 feet by 4 f feet, you can join several pieces of cardboard paper together in a way to make up the same area.)

One metal food pot (Note: If foot pot is too expensive for you, you substitute it with a sheet of aluminium foil. We will teach you how to cook without a metal pot in next post.)

One steel or bamboo steamer

Step 2: Cut the cardboard according to the solid line of the following plan. (Note that, instead of having round corners in the plan, as was done in the version from Solar International Cooking, I prefer to have sharp corners.):

Figure 1: Solar Oven Plan

Step 3: Cover one side of the sheet of cardboard with adhesive aluminium tape. Then, you are done. What you end up with shouldn't be overly different from the one shown in the following figure. Like it or not, this lousy thing is called a solar oven:

Figure 2: The thing so-called solar oven.

Step 4. Lay the solar oven flat with the shiny side up. Fold the solar oven from step 3 according to the fold lines shown in Figure 1. Close the front flap with clothes pins left and right. The final sharp should look like the following diagram:

  

Figure 3a. Schematic of the Solar oven.

Figure 3b. Photo of the solar oven that we made from scrap cardboard.

Step 5: Blacken the exterior of the food pot with black paint (See the following figure):

Figure 4: Paint the exterior of your food pot with black paint.

Step 6: Put food stuff into the blacken foot pot (see the following figure):

Figure 5: Put food stuff into the pot.

Step 7: Place a steamer into a high temperature plastic bag or glass container. Technically, the high temperature plastic bag or glass container is equivalent to a greenhouse enclosure. The steamer will be used to support the foot pot from step 6 (see the following figure):

Figure 6: Place the steamer into the bag

Step 8: Place the food pot from step 6 into the bag. The food pot should be well supported by the steamer (see the following diagram):

Figure 7: Place the the pot into the bag in a manner that the pot is supported by the steamer.

Step 9: Make sure the bag is filled with air. Now, close the bag with a string (see the following figure):

Figure 8: Close the bag with a string.

Step 10. Place the bag enclosing the foot pot onto the solar oven for cooking. Make sure the solar oven is in the sunny area:

Figure 9a: Final setup --- schematic

Figure 9b: Final setup --- photo