Inor
09-17-2016, 06:52 PM
Several years ago we bought a Sun Oven solar oven. We did not pay anywhere near the $349 (edited the price - originally I had put in $371 - I do not know where that number came from?) they want for them now.
https://www.sunoven.com/
We tried it a few times when we were living in Minnesota with minimal success. Mrs Inor cooked a pot of beans in it one day and they were marginally edible, but still seemed half cooked. We also tried baking some biscuits (I think they were the Pillsbury biscuits) and those did get cooked but they never did get browned. I always attributed it to the fact that we were in Minnesota.
Starting to put some of our crap away today in Arizona, I ran across it again and decided to try an experiment. I just set it up in back of the house and put a black pot of water in it to see if/how long it would take to boil water.
http://i1297.photobucket.com/albums/ag23/InorTheBloody/20160917_144510_zpsrhkl0vg4.jpg
2675
Admittedly, I did not start my experiment until about 2:30 this afternoon. But I was real careful to check it about every 20 minutes and realign it as necessary to keep it directed exactly towards the sun. At one point, it did touch 300 degrees, but most of the time it was around 275. Also, the thermometer is right in the direct sunlight, so it will always read much higher than the actual temperature of the cooking area. After two hours, it is still out there and the water is getting close to boiling.
But I have to say, the results are pretty disappointing. If this thing cannot work on a 90+ degree day in the middle of the desert without a single cloud in the sky, it is of pretty limited value. If you had a nice calm clear day on Mercury, it might work a little better. But then, if you are on Mercury you have bigger worries than hot food.
It does have a couple nice features like a heavy piece of glass with a gasket to keep the bugs out of the food while it is cooking. And the food actually sits on a swinging tray so your uncooked food will always be level. But at the end of the day, it just does not seem to work very well.
I will leave the rebuttal of this to Mrs Inor because she really likes it. But as for me, I would say put the money towards a Big Green Egg instead.
https://www.sunoven.com/
We tried it a few times when we were living in Minnesota with minimal success. Mrs Inor cooked a pot of beans in it one day and they were marginally edible, but still seemed half cooked. We also tried baking some biscuits (I think they were the Pillsbury biscuits) and those did get cooked but they never did get browned. I always attributed it to the fact that we were in Minnesota.
Starting to put some of our crap away today in Arizona, I ran across it again and decided to try an experiment. I just set it up in back of the house and put a black pot of water in it to see if/how long it would take to boil water.
http://i1297.photobucket.com/albums/ag23/InorTheBloody/20160917_144510_zpsrhkl0vg4.jpg
2675
Admittedly, I did not start my experiment until about 2:30 this afternoon. But I was real careful to check it about every 20 minutes and realign it as necessary to keep it directed exactly towards the sun. At one point, it did touch 300 degrees, but most of the time it was around 275. Also, the thermometer is right in the direct sunlight, so it will always read much higher than the actual temperature of the cooking area. After two hours, it is still out there and the water is getting close to boiling.
But I have to say, the results are pretty disappointing. If this thing cannot work on a 90+ degree day in the middle of the desert without a single cloud in the sky, it is of pretty limited value. If you had a nice calm clear day on Mercury, it might work a little better. But then, if you are on Mercury you have bigger worries than hot food.
It does have a couple nice features like a heavy piece of glass with a gasket to keep the bugs out of the food while it is cooking. And the food actually sits on a swinging tray so your uncooked food will always be level. But at the end of the day, it just does not seem to work very well.
I will leave the rebuttal of this to Mrs Inor because she really likes it. But as for me, I would say put the money towards a Big Green Egg instead.