Solar Oven with a Twist

In the US, solar cooking has often been relegated to sunny regions such as the desert Southwest and balmy Florida. Residents of other areas may assume that they couldn't possibly use a solar oven because it's not sunny often enough, it's too windy or too cold, or they only have morning or afternoon sun on their apartment balcony.

A unique solar cooker, designed in India, expands solar cooking possibilities. I first caught sight of the Tulsi Hybrid Solar Oven on Peak Oil Hausfrau's blog last month. To be honest, my initial reaction was that a hybrid solar cooker with an electric back-up sounded pretty silly.

Then I started thinking about the times when I haven't used my Sun Oven. In the winter, I lose the sun by 3:15 pm due to my neighbor's tall eucalyptus trees. In the summer, the sun is often dimmed by high thin clouds all morning and thick thundercloud build-up in the afternoons. Maybe that electric back-up wouldn't be such a bad idea after all.

Don't get me wrong; I've been happy with my Global Sun Oven. As much as I like it, though, there are a couple of drawbacks. Peak Oil Hausfrau touched on them in her comparison between the Tulsi Hybrid and the Sun Oven. The Sun Oven's interior is nice and deep, which is great for cooking a big pot of stew, baking a whole mess of potatoes, or heating water for washing dishes. However, the base is too small to fit a baking sheet or pizza pan.

Over the past year of growing awareness of peak oil issues, coupled with climate change and economic downturns, I've been thinking that another solar oven would be helpful so that I could do more solar cooking. It would be nice to be able to cook multiple dishes at the same time, and heat water, too. Eventually my sweetie will find the time to build me this super hot solar oven. After all, I pestered David Omick, the guy who designed it, to post enough details about the design and construction on his website so that anyone handy could build this.

In the meantime, though, a second solar oven would really expand my cooking options, although I don't want my sweetie to think he's off the hook on building me the very hot one. After all, a solar oven will be a hot commodity with increasing energy prices for cooking (and cooling the home in the summer). Offering to bake your neighbor's homemade bread while cooking your own dinner would be a great way to strengthen community.

After seeing the hybrid solar oven on another blog, I did more research into its features. The Tulsi is wide at the base but short in height, definitely big enough to fit my pizza pan although not tall enough to boil a large pot of water. With its electric heating elements as a back-up for overcast or short winter days, it seemed like it would be a logical companion to my tried and true Sun Oven. Why turn the oven on in the house to finish baking the casserole when the solar oven is already hot? If the sun goes behind a cloud or a tree, I could just flip a switch to finish the cooking with less energy.

I compared prices and shipping costs for the Tulsi online and ordered from the company with the best offer. See this post for more about them plus a coupon offer from them if you're interested in getting your own solar oven!

My hybrid solar cooker arrived this past week during my mother-in-law's visit. I decided to give it a test run while we went out Sunday morning. After washing the four stainless steel pans that came with it, I picked different foods to cook in three of them: cracked wheat, brown rice, and lentils. After loading the oven, we headed out.

When we got home several hours later, I brought in my stack of dishes. It was a little tough to get the lids off two of the containers - the instructions advise oiling the rim to help with this and I may have been a bit too skimpy with the oil. Once they were open though, I was thrilled to have three different dishes all ready to eat. The ability to cook multiple dishes at the same time is one of the Tulsi's advantages over the Sun Oven. To be fair, though, I have to point out that the monster sweet potato I cooked in my Sun Oven last week would not have fit in the Tulsi - it was that thick.

Before writing this post, I also wanted to try cooking a pizza in the solar oven. After all, the bigger floor space was one of the reasons for selecting this particular design. When I put the Tulsi in the sun to preheat, I noticed some high thin clouds above. Uh oh; perhaps this wasn't going to be the best day for trying to bake something needing high temperatures. I was right. If I had been thinking, I would have attached the two temperature booster panels to the sides. From what I can tell though, this really needs to be done before the oven is preheated as they attach to the metal frame of the glass lid. I opted not to risk burning myself and filed this observation away for future reference.

As luck would have it, the clouds grew thicker right about the time I popped the crust in the oven to parbake for a few minutes. I flipped on the electric back-up power, hoping it might boost the temperature. Without doing more testing, I can't say whether it worked or not. With a lightly overcast sky, the oven temperature hovered around 325 degrees. After adding sauce and toppings, I put the pizza back in to bake, which took about 40 minutes. Next time, skipping the parbake step would probably be wise as a lot of heat escapes from the oven every time the lid is opened.

In any case, I had my first solar-baked pizza for lunch yesterday afternoon, topped with a variety of CSA produce.

My conclusion is that I've made a wise investment towards our efforts to live more sustainably. With two solar ovens with different features and strengths, my ability to move my cooking off the grid has definitely increased. The electric back-up on the Tulsi hybrid gives me a low energy way to use solar cooking in conditions that in the past would have kept me cooking inside.

Don't forget to read the next post to find out how to get a coupon for 10% off!