Solar Box Cooker

Old Technology, New Face

Believe it or not, the solar box cooker has been around since the mid 1700's and was invented by a man called Horace de Saussere. They have not gained real popularity until as recently as the 1970?s however, as firewood and conventional fuels cook food faster and have been so readily available to us in the recent past. A solar box cooker is, as the name suggests, an insulated box with a transparent removable top and a mirrored lid, which is propped at an angle relative to the sun. The heat is then concentrated inside the box, which is usually a reflective surface in order to help contain the heat and also to bounce the light back onto the cooking container/pot. Containers used inside the box should also be dark (preferably black). The material used to insulate the inside of the cooker also has to be able to endure temperatures of about 150 degrees Celsius (which is around 300 degrees Fahrenheit) without melting or releasing any toxins into the food. Usually, the solar box cooker reached temperatures of 150 degrees Celsius, which is not as hot as your conventional oven, so it may take a tad longer to cook with. However this becomes handy if you don't want to spend your entire day cooking, as you can leave the food in the solar cooker all day without having to worry about it burning.

Solar box cookers are handy for camping especially, because they are simple to use, safe, and very portable, but they are also available to install into your homes as an energy-saving device. Especially in the summer months when cooking with your regular oven turns the kitchen into a sauna, a solar box cooker for your home can put a dent in your energy bills, and keep the house a little cooler to boot.

Time Constraints

The only real problem with solar cooking is that it can harness the most energy to cook at the hottest part of the day, which is usually when people would much rather have a popsicle than a hot home cooked meal. To help this problem, you can use heat-conserving materials to cook with, like a cast iron pan, which will keep the food hot for much longer than a non-stick pan, and will preserve the hot food until later in the evening.