The Global Sun Oven is the solar oven I have and have used fairly successfully for a few years.
Sun Oven
I have successfully baked chicken, potatoes, casseroles, cakes, cookies, cornbread . . pretty much anything that can be baked in an oven can be baked in a solar oven.
The dishes I have trouble with are those that take a steady, constant temp to cook evenly . . mainly yeast type breads. The temps in the solar oven can fluctuate due to a passing cloud and the temps in my solar oven rarely rise above 350º. I can count on maintaining a fairly constant 325º so long as there are no clouds.
The positives to using a solar oven:
- It is extremely lightweight. The panels fold down, hook and I have no probably carrying it around from place to place. It is bulky enough that I wouldn’t want to carry it through the woods, down to the river or wherever, but it’s plenty easy to carry from the porch to the front yard.
- The minute you’re done cooking, just fold it up and take it back to its storage spot. There’s no cooling down necessary.
- On a sunny day, it gets nice and hot and does the job with absolutely no power except the sun.
- Almost anything that needs to bake or be heated up could be cooked in the solar oven.
The drawbacks to using a solar oven:
- You must have an unshaded, completely open area where the sun shines directly through. Even on a hot, sunny day, one little fluffy cloud comes waltzing by and the temp will drop from 325º to 250º or less almost instantly. It will come right back up once the cloud passes but if there are many clouds, the cooker isn’t effective. This also means that if you live where there are fewer sunny days, this isn’t a good option for you.
- You have to have a safe place to put it. When I was researching the solar oven, I was surprised at how many people said they had theirs out in the front yard, with dinner in it, and it was stolen! If there was a crisis and people were hungry and looking for food, having a solar oven sitting out in plain view is probably not a good idea.
- The inside of the Global Sun Oven is fairly small. Dishes can be staked but it will not provide enough space to cook a meal for a crowd. I can easily bake a whole chicken, add a couple of potatoes, a couple of ears of corn but that about fills it up.
A solar oven is definitely something I want to keep in my cooking arsenal but I live where there’s plenty of sun and a safe place to use it.
For the linkup or in your comments, please write about any ideas you have regarding the solar oven, or ideas you came up while cooking your dinner tonight, as to what you would do if you were preparing this same meal and trying to do without power.
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Norece says
Monday -If no power I would have – – – –
fired up our plancha ecozoom stove to boil water for our dinner and to make mother’s coffee and toast.I had fruit for breakfast.
Lunch – egg salad sandwiches – cooked eggs (have to use cardboard carton) and made brownies in the sun oven
dinner – I used our Saratoga Jack thermal cooker and made a mexican casserole and rice meal – this I actually did and it turned out great.
Anything you can cook in a crock pot you can make in the Saratoga Jack thermal cooker, with a few modifications, usually just more water. You do have to boil your food for 4 minutes before you can put it in the cooker. Stays hot for up to 8 hours. We use it a lot when we go on day trips.
I really like our sun oven, though we do have a lot of cloudy days here in TN, and it wouldn’t get as much use as I would like. I have been looking into the Herc oven – runs on tea candle power! I also bought a Coleman oven that should work on a rocket stove.
Kris Johnson says
Norece, My name is Kris Johnson and I am the President of Titan Ready USA and inventor of the HERC tea light candle oven and Hydrant Water storage system. Is there anything I can help you with in your quest to learn more about the HERC oven. Did you know HERC is an acronym for Home Emergency Radiant Cooking because we not only use convection but also IR radiant heat! It’s the very reason we can cook better than your conventional oven. Maybe we should have Judy do a review and since no one will steal your dinner when you cook it inside your kitchen HERC is a must have for every prepper! I will receive email notices if you or anyone else replies with questions.
Katie Z. says
We probably would have used the propane grill to make tuna melts, and I would have heated our food in the solar oven for lunch, since the afternoon is notoriously cloudy around here. Some of us ate leftovers, and I suppose I would have needed a totally different meal since we wouldn’t have refrigeration. Hmm…
Barbara says
If the purpose is to make us think you have certainly succeeded !
I believe you said in the original post that for this challenge we have no typical fuels…which eliminates my generator and my little portable butane or propane stove (still in the box)
The solar oven sounds good, but it needs sun…the Herc oven was interesting, but it needs candles…
I also like the Saratoga Jack thermal cooker, but it needs to be heated using fuel for a few minutes first…
seems like everything has plusses and minuses, so maybe I need to stop looking for only one thing that will work in all weather conditions and in all circumstances because it sounds to me like most people have several options to fall back on.
I’m hoping by the end of this challenge I’ll have a better idea of the direction I’m going to go because right now I’m still undecided.
Sherrill says
I think a good charcoal grill would be a good option provided you had a good stock of charcoal and maybe lighter fluid and a striker. Guess if you ran out of charcoal you could use wood instead if the woodpile was well-stocked.
Sherrill says
Also, what was that oven that used twigs as the fuel? That would also be a good thing to have!
liz says
Bio-lite camp stove is one stove. And they are getting ready to do a larger unit for “base-camp”. Both are portable. They both will have a charger that uses heat to run a fan that improves burning but also can be used to charge phones, etc.
My stove uses twigs and I have lots of oak trees that shed twigs. They can also use wood pellets which are relatively cheap.
Dar in MO says
This was a very good thinking exercise. If our stove didn’t work,and it was electric, I assume the refrigerator would be out of commission too. I still have a Coleman camp stove (need to stock up on fuel for it), and an old hibachi that takes charcoal. We could cut down some old dead trees on the property to burn for a campfire type of heat with cast iron pots. Depending on the time of the year, some of these options would not be as desirable as others, but we probably wouldn’t starve right off.
Debbie says
I have used a foil oven…..a box lined inside with foil….make a door like a regular oven. then fit a grill inside off the floor with rocks in the corners holding up. Fill a foil pieplate with charcoal – light them to get hot. Put in oven under grill…let oven heat up. Great for pizza….and other meals. Works quite well when camping in winter too.
Cookie E. says
As I was thinking this I recalled that when I was a kid and a Girl Scout (long ago in a far of galaxy) we used to make something called “Buddy Burners” to use on camping triip
The supplies needed for this are simple, inexpensive, and most everyone would probably have some of them.
You need a #10 empty can, or 3lb coffee can, 1 empty tuna fish can, corrugated cardboard cut into strips, parafin and a wick..
What we did was turn the #10 can upside down and cut a square hole along the rim to accommodate the size of the tuna fish can. In a spiral the corrugated cardboard was placed in the tuna fish can with the wich and paraffin was poured on top.
When lit enough heat was generated to the top of the can to cook almost anything — and we did. It can be used over and over with just replacing the tuna fish can fuel when it was used up. I’ve never used one inside but it would seem a doable thing. In lieu of the tuna can fuel sterno could probably be used.
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Margaret R says
I live in northern Michigan. Sunny days are few and far between. We will be using our propane grill, char ole grill and a wood fire. I do some Dutch oven cooking and will probably be brushing up on more meals made that way. During the winter months that will be one of the best options for us. Haven’t really tried a camp fire in the winter but we are prepared if we have to and that is the most important thing. If we just need to heat a can of soup then I have a small stove burner that uses a stereo can type fuel that I can use in the house. I have also been looking into some of the free standing stoves that burn wood that can be used inside. We would probably use it in the pole barn not the house but would be a good alternative in the winter when it is -15 degrees outside.