Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Bigger Bolder Solar Oven is Done...

Bigger Bolder Sun Oven...big enough for 12 loaves started a little while ago. If you didn't peek at that entry, we've basically made a cooker out of an old dresser drawers and some common household items. We have finished the baker for the most part. Looking close to 350 degrees after 1 hour in sunlight.

For the windows we used glass picture frames (16 by 20 inches) so far they have been the biggest expense at eighteen dollars each. For the reflective panels...plexi-glass mirrors (1$ each at our local dollar store). We purchased an oven thermometer (at the dollar store too) to track the temperature and for the gasket/seal around the edges of the glass, we nailed some heavy laundry rope (about 3 dollars). The only other thing I would recommend is getting the metal hinges. Those doors get warm and it's nice to not have to take them all the way off each time it needs to be lifted.

Finished. The mirror panels are leaning against a lawn chair for now until I can figure out a metal chain system. They are clamped together with the metal clips pictured about.I'll let you know how that goes.


Bread is baking as I type. I'm excited to see how it goes.

That's all I have to say about that.

7 comments:

Connie said...

That's awesome! I posted about our solar oven last week. But it only cooks 2 small loaves at a time! This is perfect!

Amy said...

Seriously? You made a solar oven? How did it work? Is there a minimum temp it has to be outside for this to work? Or does it just have to be in the sun?

InvisibleUrbanHomestead said...

I've been searching around the internet for a while, looking for the most straight-forward, yet highly functional DIY sun oven. Your design looks awesome- one of the best I've found so far. Does it reach higher temperatures and is it more reliable than a cardboard box/aluminum foil oven?

Heffalump said...

I'd like a follow up on how bread turned out cooked in this!

Relaxshacks said...

very cool= and pretty afforable overall too! Nicely done. I'm actually in the process of building a solar cooker (smaller) out of nothing but curbside/salvaged materials.

Your breads look incredible, by the way!

-Derek "Deek" Diedricksen
http://www.relaxshacks.com
-Author of "Humble Homes, Simple Shacks..."
-Host of "Tiny Yellow House" TV on youtube.com

Jenny said...

I was wondering if you have some follow up on this solar oven...would love to know how it is working for you...if you made this bigger one...could you cook different things at one time like a main dish, side dish, dessert type deal? wouldn't that be great!!! new to this so in research stage...thanks for such a wonderful blog!!!

Chef Tess said...

It gets to about 300 on a good day so it will cook things like a slow cooker. It even still bakes bread, it just takes longer. I use it most often as a large capacity dehydrator. It has been a lot of fun having it around.