How to Construct a Solar Cooker

Before you begin, you'll need to gather a shiny reflective windshield cover, duct tape, a 5-gallon bucket, oven bags, potholders, cake rack or large black frying pan and a cooking pot with a lid. The cooking pot ideally needs to be black in and out. If it can't be black on both sides, it's better for it to be black on the outside.

Most things that can be cooked on a stovetop or baked in the oven are able to be cooked in a solar cooker. Some countries use solar technology to purify water and sterilize medical equipment. People here in the west like to use solar cookers because it saves on the electric bill, reduces impact to the environment and can be helpful during outings when local authorities ban fires of any kind, including campfires. If nothing else, it can boil water for emergency drinking water. Cooking times can take two to three times longer to cook in a solar cooker than with conventional methods.

1) Lay out the reflective windshield cover with the silver shiny side facing you. Put the cut out for the rear view mirror facing away from you at the top.

2) Fold the reflector in from both sides until the reflector makes a cone with a small pointy-like tip. Tape the overlapping sides together with duct tape to hold it together.

3) Place the end closed end of the cone into the bottom of a 5-gallon bucket. Place a cake rack or large black pan into the solar cooker to rest across the edges of the 5-gallon bucket.

4)Place the entire contraption facing the sun. Position your new solar cooker so that the shadow is more to the right of the solar cooker. This will let you adjust the cooker less often throughout the day to maximize the sun's exposure. Otherwise, you will need to move the solar cooker in the direction of the sun's path every hour for maximum heating.

5)Place the cooking pot with food in it covered by the lid, into an oven bag with a potholder underneath the cooking pot but on top of the oven bag. Blow some air into the oven bag and close the top with a twisty tie or small knot.

6)Put the cooking pot inside the solar cooker on top of the cake rack or frying pan. The food will now cook.

This is a relatively easy and simple solar cooker design. In fact, keeping the items needed to build a solar cooker like this in your car at all times can add to your emergency supplies you may already keep in your car. Solar Cookers International at www.solarcooking.org keeps a fresh supply of different solar cooker designs on-hand available free to the public. I've used this particular design to boil water in less than an hour, not to mention it was a great conversation starter. You can build a solar cooker alone or you can make it a fun group project.

Always use sunglasses when you look directly into the center of a solar cooker. Never touch any of the pots, pans or other cooking items you're using without a potholder or oven mitt to avoid burns.

Source:
Steven M. Jones, The Solar Funnel Cooker, Solarcooking.org