Solar Oven Page

This solar oven has been adapted from many designs. Please feel free to improvise! You may want to try making s'mores (graham crackers with melted marshmallow and chocolate) or English muffin pizzas.

The pizza box solar oven can reach temperatures of 275 degrees, hot enough to cook food and to kill germs in water. A general rule for cooking in a solar oven is to get the food in early and don’t worry about overcooking. Solar cookers can be used for six months of the year in northern climates and year-round in tropical locations. Expect the cooking time to take about twice as long as conventional methods, and allow about one half hour to preheat.

How to Make Your Pizza Box Oven

Draw a one inch border on all four sides of the top of the pizza box. Cut along three sides leaving the line along the back of the box uncut.

Form a flap by gently folding back along the uncut line to form a crease. Cut a piece of aluminum foil to fit on the inside of the flap. Smooth out any wrinkles and glue into place. Measure a piece of plastic to fit over the opening you created by forming the flap in your pizza box. The plastic should be cut larger than the opening so that it can be taped to the underside of the flap. Be sure the plastic becomes a tightly sealed window so that the air cannot escape from the oven interior.

Cut another piece of aluminum foil to line the bottom of the pizza box and carefully glue into place. Cover the aluminum foil with a piece of black construction paper and tape into place.

Close the pizza box top (window), and prop open the flap of the box with a wooden dowel, straw, or other device and face towards the sun. Adjust until the aluminum reflects the maximum sunlight through the window into the oven interior.

Your oven is ready! You can try heating s’mores, English muffin pizzas, or hot dogs, or even try baking cookies or biscuits. Test how hot your oven can get using a simple oven thermometer!

Windshield Shade Solar Funnel Cooker

Make an instant portable solar oven. Taking a reflective accordion-folded car windshield shade, you can turn it into a version of the solar funnel, by simply sewing on little Velcro tabs along the long notched side (sewing will tear the fabric). Here’s how:

Cut the Velcro into three pieces, each about 4 cm. or 1 ˝ inches long.

Hand sew one half of each piece, evenly spaced, onto the edge to the left of the notch; sew the matching half of each piece onto the underneath size to the right of the notch, so that they fit together when the two sides are brought together to form a funnel.

Press the Velcro pieces together, and set the funnel on top of a bucket or a round or rectangular plastic wastebasket.

Place a black pot on top of a square cake rack, placed inside a plastic baking bag. A standard size rack in the U.S. is 25 cm. (10 in.). This is placed inside the funnel, so that the rack rests on the top edges of the bucket or wastebasket. Since the sunshade material is soft and flexible, the rack is necessary to support the pot. It also allows the suns rays to shine down under the pot and reflect on all sides. If such a rack is not available, a wire frame could be made to work as well. Note: the flexible material will squash down around the sides of the rack. The funnel can be tilted in the direction of the sun.

A stick placed across from one side of the funnel to the other helps to stabilize it in windy weather.

After cooking, simply fold up your “oven” and slip the elastic bands in place for easy travel or storage.

This is totally simple solar oven, extremely practical, as it is so lightweight and easy to carry along anywhere. But in addition, it reaches a high temperature in a short period of time;a little above 350 degrees F. It can bake breads, granola, brownies, lasagna, all sorts of vegetables, and be used to purify water. The sunshade may not be available everywhere, but can be found in most urban areas. The Velcro was also available in fabric stores. Cost of the sunshade was about $3.00 USD; the Velcro about $.25.

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