Solar Cooking in Las Vegas

Imagine baking food with no energy costs. Imagine baking in summer months without heating up the kitchen or house. Imagine baking food that tastes better than almost any form of cooking. You’ve imagined a whole new way of cooking...

With Sunshine!

Solar Cooking is Fun and Practical
Bake wonderful bread, cook delicious roasts or cook perfect rice every time. Food cooked with a Sun Oven stays moist, and the additional juices make the food taste better. It is almost impossible to burn food (except cookies) in a Sun Oven.

Cook in Your Back Yard
Food does not have to be watched when cooking, even if you accidentally leave it in the oven hours longer than usual. Food cooks perfectly every time because moisture naturally stays in the food. Your family will think you have discovered a new way to make food taste better than ever before. You will be amazed at how simple and easy cooking in the sun can be. You will smile at the dinner table, knowing you didn’t use a drop of utility energy!

Many Styles of Cookers
There are many styles of solar cookers that you can make which work reasonably well. We find the Global Sun Oven is best because it reaches higher temperatures allowing you to use regular recipes.

Best Pot to Use
Though many types of pots will work with solar cookers, the best is dark, thin and has a lid.

Solar Cooking in the Third World

Benefiting Women and Children
Solar cooking is great for us in Nevada or the USA, but it is becoming essential for survival in third world countries. Women and children benefit the most when cooking with the sun. Wood-fuel used for cooking is fast becoming scarce throughout the world, making it more dangerous for families to obtain, often needing to travel 10-20 miles from their village.

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Solar cookers can be very influential in helping the health of families in sunny parts of the world by reducing the health hazards associated with cooking fire smoke and unsafe drinking water.

2 Billion People Lack Clean Water
Finding clean water in many parts of the world is becoming harder every day. A solar cooker can pasteurize water safely for drinking. Pathogens and harmful bacteria in collected water can be easily killed using sunlight.

Water Purification Indicator
This simple device called a WAPI is made out of inexpensive materials to help the user know when water is safe to drink. By putting this small plastic tube in a jar of untreated water, then putting the jar in a solar cooker, the special soy wax melts when the water is safe to drink, saving costly fuel normally needed to boil water.

Tools to Help Families
A nice solar cooker like the Global Sun Oven would be invaluable to a third world family, but a solar cooker can be made out of simple local materials like cardboard and aluminum foil. Refugees and orphanages throughout the world are relying more upon the free energy of the sun to stay alive.

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Villager Sun Oven

The world’s largest commercial solar cooker will cook 50 loaves of bread at one time, providing hundreds of loaves of bread and other pastries each day for villages that have fuel shortages, or the fuel is intermittent and expensive. 12 to 15 women benefit from good paying jobs in the village bakery using the Villager. It can cook up to 1200 meals a day.

There are 200 of these giant cookers in third world countries helping small villages maintain a bakery. Most Villagers are donated by groups and clubs. One Villager can save 364,000 lbs of wood a year. The Villager and other solar cookers can make a huge difference in forest habitat and the health of nearby villages. You can help sponsor these life-saving solar ovens in many areas around the world.

The Gift of Solar Cooking
You can help spread the word about the gift of solar to your friends, associates, and youth throughout the world.

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Organizations distributing solar cookers to Third World: sunoven.com & solarcookers.org

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You can pick up a Global Sun Oven at Vegas Trailer Supply or order them from the two organizations listed above. Next time we will talk about using the Sun Oven for emergency preparedness. We will also discuss other solar products that will help keep your family safer.

All the best, Mike

A Solar Cooking Discussion - Part Two

Here's a few more thoughts and tips about using the Global Sun Oven.

Pizza
If you like pizza with the cheese just melted then you better turn on the gas oven. The Sun Oven cooking chamber is small so only a small pizza will fit. When cooking pizza the cheese needs to be burning a little (bubbly and getting dark) so that you can be sure the dough in the center of the pie is cooked.

Rice
Ok, how many of us use our oven to cook rice? We use an electric rice cooker or stove top with a high temp burner so the rice cooks in about 20 minutes. It probably takes about an hour or longer in a regular oven. Rice takes about 1 ½ hours to cook in a Sun Oven. Every time the rice is perfect, light and fluffy. I was surprised that not one grain of rice sticks to the pan. Food doesn’t stick to the pan because there is no burner causing hot spots. Often I cook the rice in the afternoon after the bread and main course is done. I aim the oven west towards the sun, set the adjustable leg to the highest level and forget it. I’ve often gone out to fetch the rice three hours later and the rice is always perfect.

Vegetables
Usually less water is needed when cooking vegetables but always use a pan with a lid. The sun will discolor the veggies. Casserole dishes with vegetables are ok but pasta dishes will have softer pasta. To get al-dente you may have to use your stove top because boiling water in a Sun Oven is a gentle boil, not a rolling boil.

Chicken, Beef or Pork Roasts
If you are a meat eater then you will enjoy the taste of your roasts far more than if cooked in an oven or crock-pot. I’m serious about that! The only better tasting method might be BBQ, but one could argue that solar is best because the food is healthier and long cooking times will save a bunch of propane or briquettes.


Larger Turkeys, Hams or Roasts
As you can see, the cooking area in a Sun Oven is relatively small. During the first few years I always kept an eye out for special smaller pans, cookie sheets and muffin pans to fit my cooker. Here’s a way to cook larger roasts like a 20 pound turkey that will not fit on the small leveling cooking shelf.

First, I take out the leveling shelf (it’s easy). Then, I use a Lodge Mfg. 12” indoor Dutch oven. It is important to use the Lodge brand as the cast iron is thicker than foreign import cast iron. I place the indoor Dutch oven (one without legs) in the bottom of the Sun Oven and let the oven preheat. It takes 10 or 15 minutes longer to preheat because there is more metal that absorbs available heat.

I place the larger roast in the pan trying to situate it so that the top doesn’t hit the glass door when it is closed and latched. I make sure to cook during the middle of the day so that I don’t have to tip the oven with the adjustable leg at the back. If the pan is tipped too much you will spill juices all over the place! I’ve had to cut off the top of a ham to make it fit but I just wedged the piece in the side of the pot to cook.

The only problem (no problem) is that the bottom of the Sun Oven is not a cooking surface even though it is metal. So, cooking in this manner will invariably scratch the black paint and it will start to peel away.

When this happens the interior of the Sun Oven looks tacky and it is said that the oven will not get as hot, though I haven’t noticed any real difference.

The reason that you do not want to use a thinner metal pan is because the heat may not transfer to the middle of the pot to cook the food. When food is on the leveling tray then heat surrounds the pot just like in a regular oven. That is why I say only use a thick Lodge brand pot. The thick cast iron transfers heat to the middle of the pan just fine.

Speaking of cast iron, my favorite thing to cook is cornbread. I use a round pan with individual triangles and it always turns out yummy with individual browned pieces. Mix up some cornbread mix, about a half a can of creamed corn, some butter and honey in the batter and mix. Spray the pan with a little cooking spray and its good eatin’ in a few minutes.

Winter cooking
Yes, solar cooking works in winter months, even in sub zero climates as long as you have good sunshine. Because the sun is lower on the horizon the temperatures are not as hot as in the summer. This applies to any solar device as there is less sunshine to use. I’ve cooked a 22lb turkey using the Dutch oven method for Thanksgiving but usually I don’t mind the smell of cooking turkey in the house with the regular oven. Global Sun Ovens are popular at Base camp at MT Everest because they work so well.

When cooking, the glass gets condensate on the underside. This tells you that the food is cooking. This condensate will drip on the wood trim when the door is opened and has a nasty habit of slightly staining the wood frame. I found that painting the wood trim with a couple coats of polyurethane will keep the wood looking nicer, longer. At the factory the wood is treated with a UV inhibitor designed to last 20 or more years of regular use, but I intend to use mine much longer (heaven willing).

Makin’ it look like new
When the paint on the bottom of the oven gets too ratty looking I gently take off the reflectors, the glass door, scrape any loose paint off the bottom and paint the inside of the oven with flat black high temperature paint. It looks brand new! Please note that you want to protect the polished aluminum reflectors at all costs. If the wind blows over your cooker the panels will bend. The oven will still work but it may cause burn marks on your bread.

Other Important Uses of the Global Sun Oven
I believe that the Sun Oven is one of the most important emer-gency preparedness items that you can get for your family. You can find more in other discussion flyers available at the store.

We use the Sun Oven at home, but in the Third World solar cooking is critical, even life saving. One Sun Oven saves up to 4000 lbs of wood a year. Fuelwood is needed by nearly half of the world’s population for cooking. Solar cooking helps habitat and helps eliminate many respiratory diseases associated with cooking smoke. It can pasteurize water, impeding diseases like cholera and diarrhea in children. Solar cooking could be instrumental in saving the lives of 15 million children who die every year. Our adventure with solar cooking at home is only the beginning of the importance that solar cooking can provide for the world.

Note: My family has been using the Global Sun Oven for 10 years and we couldn't imagine being without it. It is one of the most valued appliances that we use in our daily life. I also think of solar cooking as a sort of insurance against hard times or if our utilities go out. You can read an article I did for EarthToys a few years ago about using the Sun Oven for emergencies. I could probably add to that article but it should give you some food for thought!

All the best in your cooking with the sun! Mike

A Solar Cooking Discussion - Part One

A few thoughts and tips about using the Global Sun Oven

By Michael Little, Manager, Vegas Trailer Supply (vegastrailer.com)

Earth Day was a windy success. Though the winds usually pick up on Earth Day, this was the worst in a decade! I cooked some wings for lunch then cooked a chicken which I took home for dinner. Steve R. from SolarNV, the local solar organization gave a solar cooking demo at the Springs Preserve the following weekend. I tried like the devil to go, but couldn't make it. Steve said that he had about 20 people at the demo. We will have to do it again another day.

I put together some notes for Steve concerning my experiences with the Global Sun Oven. I thought I would share them with you in two parts.

Part One:

If you are planning on getting a Sun Oven in the near future here’s a few tips that might help you enjoy cooking with sunshine a little more.

I’ve had a lot of enjoyment during the past 10 years cooking with the Global Sun Oven. We’ve sold about 250 of the ovens in the last ten years and I’ve only heard back from a handful of customers so I have to rely upon my own experiences for these thoughts. Unfortunately I have heard of one or two people who bought one but never used it! That’s unimaginable to me because, when it comes to cooking, I use my 10 year old Sun Oven for darn near everything (Except BBQ).

The hardest thing to get across to people when they imagine cooking with the sun is that they need to re-think cooking a little. No more timers, no more thermostats, no special recipes. You read that right. You learn to cook the food until it is done (or a little more than done).

Quick set-up at home, camping or anywhere
When most people see the Global Sun Oven for the first time they often say, “Oh, that would be good for camping”. Probably, but I haven’t used it for camping yet. I use it almost every day that I am home when it is sunny outside (a lot of sunny days in Vegas). I especially like to use it in the summer because I don’t heat up the house and make the air conditioner go into overdrive. Sure we are saving energy, but it is also a comfort thing as well. I keep the oven stored like a suitcase behind the couch then grab it, set it on the patio, open the reflectors, point it in the general direction of the sun and go get the food ready. In about 15-20 minutes the oven is preheated to 375 or 400 degrees F. so I put in the food when I’m ready.

Focusing the reflectors is easy but it is hard to explain on paper. It will only take me a few seconds to show you how to do it when you visit the solar area in the front of our store.

Cooking time is a little longer
A commercial solar cooker like the Sun Oven will reach hotter temperatures than a home built solar cooker made out of wood or cardboard so there are no special recipes when cooking. Use the same recipes you are used to, but the cooking time may be a little longer. I’ve found that anything I can cook in a regular oven can be cooked in a Sun Oven. Most foods can be kept hot in the oven for a long period past the point it is cooked.

No special pots needed
I’ve used every type of pot imaginable, but I have my favorites. I try to use thin, dark metal pans with a lid but I have been known to use a Lodge indoor Dutch oven a few times. More on that later! I do refrain from using shiny mirrored pans as they reflect light (heat) out of the
oven. I use regular bread pans that are a little dark, but I have used the throw-away aluminum formed pans with perfect success.

Food is hard to burn
I can’t tell you how many times that I’ve been side-tracked and forgot I was cooking. The food probably was done to perfection an hour ago but I left it cooking longer than necessary. The food is a little browner, but not ruined like leaving it too long in the oven or BBQ. The sun moved and the interior cooking area got a few degrees lower temperature, but no ruined food! Because of the forgiving nature of solar cooking, I sometimes call it the “Lazy mans cooker”. I’ve heard a hundred times that I am not alone when it comes to burning the family dinner.

Holds moisture
Please understand that cooking longer at lower temperatures than the recipe calls for is OK in a Sun Oven, but would prove disastrous in your regular electric or gas oven. The reason is moisture. The heating element or burner in an oven will pull out the moisture of the food and send it into the room. That great smell you get in the room when cooking bread is actually moisture molecules from the bread that is released in the air. This process of exchanging air does not happen with a solar cooker because there is no burner most of the moisture stays in the food so naturally food tastes better and is more nutritious.

Overcast days take longer
I’ve actually cooked a perfect loaf of browned bread on a slightly overcast day when the oven only got to 250 degrees F. It took three hours but it was perfect. Normally I cook bread during the morning hours when the sun seems to be brighter and the oven on my patio is a little hotter. It usually takes about 55 minutes for two loaves of bread.

Bread
Speaking of baking bread, there is something magic about cooking bread in a Sun Oven. I am pretty sure it is the moisture retention. You may find that when baking rising dough's or batters that you will want to put a little less in the pan than what you are used to. Because some of the pre-heat temperature is lowered immediately when opening the glass door to put in the bread, the lower temperatures are not immediately raised as fast as in an
oven. This allows the bread to rise a little more before actually baking.

Cakes
This is especially true of cakes. When first using the Sun Oven my cakes overflowed. Messy. So I use a little less batter in the pan and the cake turns out light and fluffy every time. I have done pies but I find that lower temps and longer cooking times let the sugar in the filling absorb into the crust so it is not as flaky as it should be.

Cookies
When I said food was hard to burn I did not mean cookies. If the recipe says 10 minutes, you better be ready to take ‘em out in 11 or 12 minutes. Cookies do not have enough moisture to withstand longer cooking times. They will burn, trust me!

We will finish the discussion next time. All the best, Mike

Earth Day in Summerlin

If everything goes right I will be at the Earth Day celebration with the giant Villager Sun Oven.
I say if everything goes right because last year everything didn't, so I didn't make it. Most of the problem this year is my health. Can't do too much standing with the arthritis that has gripped me the last few months and the bout I had with a Bakers Cyst has made things worse. Anyway, enough about me!

The trailer that the Villager is on had to have new tires put on it and this morning I couldn't find the coupler lock key so we had to take off the coupler (it was just bolted on this light trailer) and install a new one. Yesterday one of our techs found that the lights were all corroded so he placed some new ones on the trailer. I guess we are about ready but tonight I will take it to a car wash for a bath.

Iv'e never cleaned it in a car wash before. It should be fun deploying it in one of those huge bays for cleaning. Probably will get a lot of stares.

The Earth Day fair is on Town Center Drive in Summerlin tomorrow from nine in the morning until about 4 pm. The winds are supposed to be up around 30 mph so we will see how the Villager takes it. It is pretty heavy duty so it should be fine. I don't have my daughters to help me cook cookies in the Villager so I will be cooking a chicken in the smaller Global Sun Oven during the day. People just are amazed at seeing the food cooking with sunshine.

I may have mentioned this but my youngest daughter is in Hawaii going to school and my oldest is attending graduate school in Reno.

I will be giving out a 2 page flyer on Solar Cooking at the fair so if you are going, please stop by and pick one up. If not, we have them at the store. I need to update my web site so that I have the pdf files on it for download. Been wanting to get the 4 pager on batteries on the web site too. When I do I will post a link on this blog so you can download it for your library. Of course, most of it is already posted on other pages of this blog, but it is much nicer to have a downloaded flyer rather than lengthy blog posts. A few more pictures too.

Best go for now. If you come to the fair please say hi to me. I will be sitting in a comfy chair most of the time. ha ha. I do miss Chuck and Karen from Arizona who used to help me at the old Earth Day fairs. We did a lot more back then. I usually had all sorts of flyers, merchandise, solar panels, solar distiller, the SunDanzer refrigerator (running on a 12 volt battery), working wind generator, and all sorts of books and solar toys to look at. Problem with the books is that half of them got taken (they were posted $6 and $10) as samples. Oh well.

All the best my energy saving friend, Mike

12v Battery Cable Connection Points

Here is a chart that was refered to in the posts on batteries. Please note that these diagrams are for 12 volt systems. Refer to a battery professional for diagrams regarding other voltage battery banks. Click on the chart to get a larger picture that you can copy and print for your files.

When wiring a battery bank a common mistake is made when multiple load or charge connections are made at various points in the system. Though everything appears to work fine, the life of the batteries is shortened when wired any other way than this chart. We sometimes find that other RV dealers or even the manufactures do it the wrong way.

Notice the positive (+) and negative (-) connection points in these various battery configurations. This often overlooked wiring method is essential to insure equal battery charging and discharging. The above method should be utilized in larger battery banks as well. All load cables and charge lines (+ -) should be connected only at these two connection points.

CAUTION:

These cautions (and others) should be observed when working with batteries.

Wear safety goggles and other protective gear when servicing batteries. Be careful around batteries, serious injuries can result. Keep a box of baking soda nearby. Batteries must be properly stored and vented to the outside of structure. Explosive gas rises off all wet-cell batteries when charging. Never allow battery terminals to be shorted out. This can cause serious explosions and fire.

You can find a link to the one-hour battery condition chart mentioned in the battery posts in another post in this blog.

Happy battering! Mike