anyone use solar ovens?

[Ted S.]

lots of great cooking posts, thought I would see if anyone solar cooks.
I have a GoSun Pro. I like it very much. It is large enough to cook a main course for 2 people. My longest cook time so far is just under 2 hours for small potatoes or very dense squash. It is not affected by outside temp. Just needs sunlight.

[Lisle]

Hi Ted, Thanks for bringing this up. Never used a solar oven but miss being able to bake in my 16' Casita. Your post sparked me to do some research and I think I'll be trying a solar oven soon.

[Byron Kinnaman]

If I wanted to use a solar oven to bake with I'd build one. The price of a "GoSun Pro" is ridiculous.

[chrisblessing]

I started building solar ovens in the early 90s. I've purchased a couple of Sun Ovens as well. We use ours regularly and take it in the Scamp whenever we travel.

[Iowa Dave]

When I was in Scouting I had some boys get interested in a solar oven. At that time you could buy one from Campmor pretty reasonable and one of them did. We had an adult in the troop who was a sheet metal worker. I started buying cookie sheets at garage sales for a quarter apiece and the boys shined them up. With guidance from our sheet metal guy he helped them cut up the cookie sheets to replicate the Campmor folding model. They did some cooking with the solar ovens when earning the cooking merit badge along with Dutch ovens, grates and grills over wood fires etc. Just an idea for y’all. ( Been in Dixie for a couple weeks.)
Iowa Dave

[Cathy P.]

I found that when baking with the solar oven when we were in the Tucson area that the taste was "different", and we didn't really care for it. I have wondered about the glass tube type ones, but I would probably break that.

[Casita Greg]

I looked at them on-line just out of curiosity, and I have to agree with Byron's observations. They sure are proud of them for the price they're asking for those things, and they don't seem to be all that well-built for the price point. I'm just curious why camp baking is such a challenge for some folks. Get yourself a large Dutch Oven and a bag of charcoal, (and it's certainly much cheaper than those solar units,) and bake in that. There are several excellent Cook Books with hundreds of cast iron recipes for everything from not only snacks and main dishes, but also baking bread, rolls, pies, cakes and other desserts. Pretty much anything you could make in a conventional oven could be made in a Dutch Oven, and for a lot less. Just my observation FWIW.

[Cathy P.]

Anyone that just wants to try out solar cooking can find directions on the internet to include youtube to build one cheaply, an example: https://www.chelseagreen.com/2013/we...le-solar-oven/ I would really suggest not going out and buying something expensive from the get-go, as even in Tucson in the summer, it just wasn't all that great especially with wild life in the area and having to keep an eye out for them. I don't like to compete for my dinner.

[Ted S.]

Hi all. Just a few more thoughts.
While buying one. You are buying something that has been proven to work and is proven fairly efficient. Sure you can build one but may be less satisfied and just decide solar cooking doesn't work. The One post about just go with a dutch oven, i agree and use one. The problem is you may be some where you can't have a fire. Can't leave a fire in attended. Dutch ovens require monitoring and occasional rotating. I small solar oven like a gosun can be set up on your dash or console and be left unattended with no worry of disaster.

[Cathy P.]

When we used the solar oven the few times we bothered, it was in AZ. Solar ovens? Location! Location! Location!

One of the things that concerned me with some items is that if one is not getting enough heat, bacteria might flourish leading to spoilage. I limited my cooking to biscuits, cake and baked potatoes. The thing was that when it was hot enough to bake this stuff in the sun, our meal preference was not for hot food anyway.

I know this works for some and solar is cool in many applications, but I am really particular about the taste, quality and safety of the foods that my family consumes.

[k corbin]

Most people don't realize that you need to use the black enamel cookware to help absorb the heat. Some of the commercially available solar ovens do come with at least one such pot and offer others. But they are of course also available in some local stores and online. Of course the tube system is different than the larger solar ovens. For me I would not want the tube system as what you can cook is fairly limited for instance, no pots of soup or stew which is where, long slow simmering is desireable and a solar oven is perfect for that.

Like any cooking method it is a system of components and has advantages and disadvantages. It would likely not be your only choice of cooking options but for some people it is a preferred method when they have a choice, the time and a good location.