Cooking Power From The sun
AMERICAN SURVIVAL GUIDE - NOVEMBER 1999
A THOROUGH COOKING TEST OF A TRULY EFFECTIVE SOLAR OVEN
By Byron Lee
It was with great anticipation and some skepticism, that I awaited
the arrival of my Global Sun Oven from Sun Ovens International.
Over the years I have seen many attempts at solar ovens and
cookers. Many of them turned out to be poorly made novelty items
that fell short of being the efficient, durable appliances that
they were advertised as. I wondered if the Sun Oven would be
any different.
The Sun Oven was invented by
Tom Burns of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Burns first invented a solar
hot water heater. He soon realized that the need to cook
food outweighed the need for hot water in a survival situation.
If you could cook food, you could also heat or boil water. As
a result Sun Ovens International opened for business on May
5, 1998.
When the Sun Oven arrived,
and I put it through it's paces, I was pleasantly surprised.
In fact, I was astonished. The Sun Oven was not a toy, but a
practical, well constructed piece of equipment that was surprisingly
easy to use. It quickly generated a tremendous amount of heat,
and effectively cooked food in a timely manner. |
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The Sun Oven was something
that I could keep in my survival kitchen, and use for camping,
natural disasters, and electric or gas disruptions. It would
store indefinitely without having to store fuel, propane,
or batteries. In fact, the Sun Oven works so well that I now
use it for my everyday cooking. My energy bill has gone down,
my house stays cooler, and clean up is much easier. The Sun
Oven will work, and work well anywhere there is sunlight.
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The Global
Sun Oven is about the size of a microwave oven, but only weighs
a few pounds. The cooking chamber is constructed of heat absorbing
metal surrounded by a composite enclosure. A swinging platform
in the cooking chamber holds the food containers, and ensures
that the food will remain level and heat evenly, even when the
oven is placed at an extreme angle. |
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A wooden frame on top of the oven holds the glass oven door,
rubber door seals, and door latch. Food is loaded into the oven
from the top. The four solar panel unfold and fan out from the
wooden frame of the oven. A built in thermometer keeps track
of the oven's temperature. A positive locking leg extension
is extendable from the bottom of the oven to focus the oven
for early morning and late afternoon sunlight. |
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The
Sun Oven was surprisingly simple to set up. In fact, it took
me longer to read the directions than it did to actually set
the oven up. To set up the oven, place it in the sun and unfold
the solar panels. Move the oven so that the shadows on the ground
are even on both the left and right sides of the oven. Food
can now be placed in the oven, or the door can be latched to
allow the oven to preheat. I prefer to preheat the oven. The
oven reached an incredible 300 degrees in only 20 minutes. Food
can be cooked in any kind of container, but dark colored Pyrex
dishes work the best. Dishes can be cooked covered or uncovered.
Cooking time is about 25 percent longer than in a conventional
oven. The oven may need to be moved slightly to face the sun
while cooking. That is pretty much all you need
to know to cook with the Sun Oven. Sunglasses and oven mitts
are the uniform of the day. Food cooked in the Sun Oven does
not burn, and does not absorb the flavor and odor of gas,
propane, charcoal,or wood.
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The first task attempted with
the Sun Oven was the simple heating of food taken out of the
refrigerator. The first dish was roasted duck contained in
an 8 by 12-inch aluminum dish, with a foil lined paper lid.
This is similar to the packaging used for military "T-Pak"
multi-serving entrees. The tray contained about 3 pounds of
food. It only took 30 minutes for the tray to become steaming
hot. The next dish heated was about 1 pound of Bar-B-Que pork.
The pork was placed in an amber colored round Pyrex dish,
without a lid. I found that anything cooked in the Sun Oven
without a lid causes moisture to condense on the inside of
the glass door. The condensation does not affect cooking,
and can be easily wiped off with a paper towel when changing
dishes in the oven..
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The pork was fully heated in 20 minutes. These items were heated
during the brightest part of the day, between noon and 2 p.m
At about 3 p.m., I decided to try my
hand at actual cooking in the Sun Oven. I placed 2 cups of uncooked
white rice, 4 cups of water and 5 sausages in a covered casserole
dish. The food was allowed to cook until the rice had absorbed
all of the water. After an hour in the Sun Oven the rice and
sausage were fully cooked. And another Sun Oven surprise: the
rice was tasty, had good texture, and was not sticky. The Sun
Oven also cooked the rice evenly with nothing sticking to the
sides or bottom of the dish. This made clean up almost enjoyable.
At 4 p.m. there was still
plenty of sunlight, so I decided to do some baking in the
Sun Oven. A package of chocolate cake mix was whipped up while
the Sun Oven was allowed to heat.
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This complete meal was prepared in the Global Sun
Oven in a matter of hours. The cost of cooking fuel was a
big fat zero.
An amber Pyrex baking
dish was sprayed with Pam to keep the cake from sticking. The
cake mix was poured into the dish, and placed uncovered into
the oven when the temperature reached 350 degrees. The cake
took one hour to bake and came out perfect. The outer crust
was firm, and the inside was fluffy and moist. The cake dropped
out of the dish without sticking, and tasted better than cake
baked in a conventional oven.
The next test of the Global Sun
Oven was to bake a meat loaf. Once again the oven was preheated
to 300 degrees. The ingredients were mixed and placed in a Pyrex
baking dish sprayed with Pam. The meat loaf was baked for one
hour in an uncovered, shallow, square shaped dish. A significant
amount of condensation formed on the inside of the glass door.
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The meat loaf came out very good, but was a bit on the dry side.
The next time I will use a covered dish to keep in moisture,
or a longer, deeper dish to reduce the exposed surface area.
Once again, no food stuck to the dish making clean up extremely
quick and easy. An improved meat loaf recipe is included in
this article.
Frying bacon in the Sun Oven
turned out to be more of a challenge. The oven rapidly rose
to temperature, and the pan became very hot. After an hour and
a half, the bacon cooked but failed to crisp. Another drawback
was that the size of the cooking platform only allowed five
slices of bacon to be cooked at a time. The oven definitely
generated enough heat to fry bacon, and with some experimentation
I'm sure this problem will be ovrcome.
Heating MREs - The Sun Oven turned out to be ideal for
heating multiple MRE (Meals, Ready to Eat) entree packets. |
Two entree packets
were placed directly on the cooking platform of the cold Sun
Oven at 5 p.m.. Within 30 minutes, the meals were extremely
hot. In fact, they were much hotter than entree packets that
I have heated with military MRE heaters, or boiled in water.The
cooking platform is large enough that six or more MRE entree
packets can be stacked and efficiently heated. The packaging
of the entree packets is perfect for fully absorbing the focused
sunlight in the Sun Oven. While heating the MREs, a sustained
wind of about 20 mph came up. I was curious to see how the Sun
Oven would hold up in the wind. With the locking screw in place,
the solar panels held up admirably and continued to keep the
sunlight focused and concentrated. The main body of the Sun
Oven also remained stable.
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I had so much fun with my Sun Oven that I contacted the manufacturer
to see if they had a bigger model. I was thinking that a backyard
BBQ size Sun Oven would have some potential for my neighborhood.
What I got back was information on the Villager Sun Oven .
The Villager is a turnkey operation that comes mounted on
a two-wheeled utility trailer, and has propane back up.
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It is a complete bakery on wheels, including a flour bin, utensils,
hot pads, and mixing bowls. To give you an idea of the Villager
Sun Oven's capacity, it comes with 108 bread pans, 20 cake pans,
and six flat pans. The Villager Sun Oven folds up, and can be
towed at freeway speeds.
The ability to make lots of pizza
in the middle of a remote wilderness or desert location, with
almost no overhead, makes for some interesting possibilities.
The Villager can reach temperatures in excess of 500 degrees
Fahrenheit. The Villager Sun Oven is so versatile that it can
bake hundreds of loaves of bread a day, boil hundreds of liters
of water for purification, cook anything in large and small
quantities, and interestingly enough, sterilize medical instruments.
All with no fuel costs, or fuel storage problems. The Villager
Sun Oven would be an invaluable acquisition for any church,
club, or municipal disaster preparedness unit.
The Global Sun
Oven is now an integral part of my preparedness response kit.
It has also become a regular part of my culinary routine. I
cook with it whenever possible to save on fuel costs, keep the
house cooler, and to experiment with new recipes.
A solar cookbook is also available
through the manufacturer. The retail price of the Global Sun
Oven is so reasonable, and will soon be recouped by energy savings.
Who Knows? The Villager Sun Oven is so intriguing that I may
have to save up my money and try my hand at entrepreneurship.
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