(or, how I built a solar oven)
Recently, I had to do a project of my choosing for Permaculture class. My friend Jessica and I decided to build a solar oven out of cardboard and other cheap materials, just to see how much it would cost and what the outcome would be (i.e. could we actually cook anything in it?). This is the how-to guide that we used:
Here are the results. This is a PDF version of our PowerPoint presentation:
The Cardboard Solar Oven Project
And this is a short paper that I wrote about solar cooking in general:
Cooking With Free Solar Energy
In the end, it didn’t bake the bread as we had hoped. Maybe we just didn’t leave it in there long enough, or perhaps it was just too cold outside when we tried. But it did give me hope that a serious effort to build a solar oven — using wood, glass, insulation, and proper reflectors — will succeed. I definitely think that solar ovens have the potential to cook a large portion of the food that we now prepare with fossil fuels (either directly or indirectly).
If you are interested in this topic, be sure to check out the solar cooking wiki linked below. It is packed with information and advice.
The Solar Cooking Archive Wiki
Below is a good article on a Solar Food Dehydrator you can build. Mother Earth News is a great reference if you haven’t found it yet.
https://www.motherearthnews.com/Do-It-Yourself/2006-08-01/Build-a-Solar-Food-Dehydrator.aspx
Thanks Brian!
Wow Ben. It is actually funny to see how many of these things you are trying I did out of boredom 1-2 years ago :)
-K