Solar Power & Energy

These are some of the initial photos and notes from my first attempts at solar cooking…

I’m using a 6 quart cast iron dutch oven camp stove.

I love cast iron because it heats up so easily, heats uniformly, and stays hot for much longer periods of time. I figured using cast iron would help absorb the solar heat from the sun even on partly cloudy days, and since the pot retains heat so well, it seems to help quite a bit on windy days too.

I love cast iron because it heats up so easily, heats uniformly, and stays hot for much longer periods of time. I figured using cast iron would help absorb the solar heat from the sun even on partly cloudly days, and since the pot retains heat so well, it seems to help quite a bit on windy days too.

Wind is actually a large problem for me during these experiments. I’ve been trying different configurations for my reflective material for 2-3 days now, and it’s getting blown around and ripped up because the winds have been about 20-30mph lately.

I finally set up a more sturdy wind break using old pieces of boards as you can see above.

For these initial solar cooking experiments, I’m using a cheap reflective emergency blanket I bought at Walmart for a little over two dollars. It’s nice and shiny, very flexible, and even though it does tear it doesn’t seem to tear nearly as easily as tin foil does.

My first actual… well almost solar cooking experiment can be seen in this last picture. I have a large cereal bowl inside my oven, and that has water in it. The water got too hot to touch within approximately 1 hour around 11am, so I decided to see if it will boil an egg. Beside the bowl of water and egg is half a hamburger on a bun. The hamburger is pretty thick, and it warmed up pretty nicely in just half an hour around noon.

Now that I’ve found a way to get something more steady when it’s windy, I plan to buy another reflective sheet and glue it to the boards. This way it won’t billow out when the wind blows, and I’ll be able to concentrate the solar power from the sun onto my cooking pot more reliably.

So far I consider this solar cooking experiment a great success, and once I have the wind issues fully resolved I look forward to cooking a full meal in this solar setup :)

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