I’ve
already written about solar cooking (and plan to continue writing about solar
stuff), but I will try not to repeat too much from the last review in this one.
That said, there was some good generic information there, and you
might want to refer back to it .
As I
continue on this trail, I have come to the All American Solar Oven http://www.sunoven.com/. It is a very high quality, made in the
USA product that works extremely well. SUN
OVENS
is a long time player in the field. The original Sun Ovens came on the market
in 1986, so they have been around for 28 years. I was impressed with the firm’s
history when I read their “about
us”
page. I liked the fact that they go back to the beginning and credit the
original inventor, Tom Burns, and describe the process of developing the oven.
I was fascinated that they got help from the Sandia National Laboratory to
improve the oven. Sandia is well known for energy and weapons research.
Paul
M. Munsen, the company’s president today, took over making the ovens in 1998
from Burns. He had originally gotten involved in helping market them, having
been excited by how much solar cooking could help people in the third world.
Munsen spends a lot of time promoting the use of solar cooking, and a
significant amount of the firm’s income subsidizes solar ovens used by poor
people around the world. Munsen says “We believe there is a lot to be said for
free enterprise and seek to take a private sector approach to helping solve
problems, which people think should be addressed by governments and nonprofit
organizations.” He adds that they seek to help entrepreneurs make and sell SUN
OVENS in the country where they will be used.
So
what is this thing like? Think of a 19.5”x19.5” box that sits about 15” high in
the back and 9” high in the front. It has folding, aluminum, 22-gauge,
reflector panels on top that stick out about 1.5” on each side. They protect
the glass door on the oven when they are collapsed. I really appreciated how
they folded over the edges to make the panels sturdier, as well as to cover the
sharp edges. The reflectors fold out into a square with 32” sides. The whole
thing is then about 30” tall in the back, but when you tilt it to aim at the
sun, it can get taller.
The
cooking chamber is 14” square, about 11” deep in the back, and 8” deep in the
front. You can get a turkey into it if you need to. When you fold it up, there
is a strap to secure the reflectors and a folding handle to carry it around
like a suitcase. It weighs about 23 pounds, so it isn’t hard to move, but it is
a bit bulky and certainly not suitable for backpacking.
The
cooking chamber has a thick glass door, and there is an excellent seal around
the opening to keep the heat in. Two clamps pull the door tightly shut. With
the included thermometer, you can monitor the oven temperature, which is very
important. The tightly sealed cooking compartment is one of the keys to this
oven’s efficiency.
On
the back of the oven, there is a retractable leg that helps you tilt the oven
as needed for aiming it at the sun. You also get some stakes to help anchor the
legs, should you have wind problems.
On
the top of the oven, attached to the glass door, you get SUN OVENS E-Z
Sun-Track Indicators, which make it a snap to keep it aimed precisely. They are
one of my favorite features of the oven. You can aim it by its shadow, but I
found using the indicators really helped maximize the heat in the oven.
My
other favorite feature is the Levelator cooking rack. It is ingenious and
simple. It is a wire rod rack that hangs from two bolts in the cooking chamber.
Remember aiming the thing at the sun? That often involves tilting the oven, and
tilting pots full of food isn’t a good plan. What the Levelator does is swing,
so that what you are cooking stays horizontal. I think being able to tilt the
oven towards the sun offers a major improvement in cooking speed, and it would
be tough to do it without this feature..
The
All American Solar Oven is, by the way, an improvement of the firm’s Global
Solar Oven, which is marketed outside the U.S. The All American has a 20%
larger cooking compartment, a thicker glass cover for the oven, the E-Z Track
aiming devices, a more versatile self-leveling cooking tray, and a better stand
for aiming it. The improved stand is one of Munsen’s favorite features, as he
said it reduces the chance of wind tipping the oven over and spoiling a meal.
The
reflectors are made out of sturdy sheets of anodized aluminum and well attached
to the top of the oven. They are polished on the reflector side and dull on the
outside. The outer box is made of ABS plastic, and the inner shell is black,
anodized aluminum. The top is poplar wood and nicely finished. There is a layer
of insulation between the inner and outer shells, which retains heat and keeps
you from burning yourself when you pick up the box. They use a food grade fiberglass
for the insulation.
As I
mentioned in the last review, I have some concerns about the visibility of
solar cookers at a distance. Something I would do if I owned this oven is paint
the back of the reflectors in a subdued color. The oven arrives with the
polished side of the reflector panels covered with a protective film, so they
would be protected if you paint the backs of the reflector panels before
removing the film to deploy the oven. You also might want to consider a
sheltered area with blocking vegetation or a fence, though you don’t want them
to shadow the oven. Someone above you, though, will still probably see it if
they are at the right angle.
The
kit I tested included the Dehydrating
and Preparedness Accessory Package and goes for $399.00 with shipping
included. Besides the oven, you get three racks that can be used to dehydrate
food and two, nice, Granite Ware, three-quart, roaster pots. One of the pots
has a glass lid that is very helpful for some foods, as you can keep an eye on
it while it cooks. The other has the standard metal lid. You also get two loaf
pans and a roll of parchment paper, which is handy for some dishes. Then there
are Water Pasteurization Indicators (WAPI), like the one I wrote about with the
last oven. It has wax inside that melts at the temperature you need water to
reach for safe drinking. Heating the water until the wax melts and shifts to the
other end kills the bugs in the water. You haven’t, however, removed chemicals,
so you may still need to filter the water.
One
big plus that comes with the All American Sun Ovens is the Cook’n software. It
starts out as a recipe program that allows cooks to easily grab recipes online
and organize them as they see fit. SUN OVENS populates it for you with a number
of nice recipes that work in solar cookers as well as the oven instructions and
tons of helpful information on using the oven. There are links for their videos
as well. There is also a Preparedness for Life series with links to videos and
presentations that offer some advice and tools for organizing one’s preps.
I
have been testing it in the same time period as the last one I wrote about, so
I will repeat my whine about the weather not cooperating. We got a lot of
mid-day cloudiness and early afternoon thunderstorms in late June and July. We
normally get the cloudiness and storms later in the day at this time of year,
so this really impinged on my cooking time. I did finally figure out that I
could put the ovens out as early as 8 AM and start cooking at 9 AM and get some
meals done before the weather went bad. I had read elsewhere that solar cooking
is best done between 10 AM and 2 PM but discovered you can still do a lot of
cooking earlier and later if the sun is out. SUN OVENS does say that you get
more cooking hours in the summer than the winter, which makes sense. That said,
they have reports of ice fishermen in Minnesota using them with success along
with an expedition to the Himalayas.
There
are, besides cloudy days, some drawbacks to solar cooking. First, it’s not so
hot for breakfast. You just don’t get enough sun early enough for that. One
recipe I read suggested that you can cook up a batch of oatmeal and refrigerate
it for later use. That’s a good plan if you have refrigeration. You can do the
same with bacon. Another suggestion was to simply enjoy breakfast foods at
different times of day, and I have to admit to liking that idea a lot.
Another
drawback is how much you can fit into the oven. You can get a large stew or
other one pot meal done easily. Since the Granite Ware pots will stack, you can
cook two things at once, if you want to have several courses and have a large
family, you might need more than one oven. It’s also hard to cook several items
with different heat and time requirements as anytime you open the oven to add
or remove something, you lose a lot of heat. Planning will help, though.
I
think it would be hard to sterilize enough water for very many people with one
oven, especially if you are trying to cook with it too. SUN OVENS suggested
using one quart canning jars for water pasteurization, which worked quite well,
but the oven only holds six of them. That’s not enough for even two people a
day in a hot climate. Again, this points to wanting more than one oven for
multiple people. I’m really not much of a cook; I’m more of a direction
follower, so I was surprised that I was able to make some good meals and dishes
with solar cooking. Normally, I mix ingredients, set the oven temperature, and
leave it in for the specified length of time. Solar cookers depend on a
variable heat source, so the heat varies and the cooking time will too.
Thankfully, there are a lot of things you can cook that come out okay, even if
you can’t use a set time to go by. Crock pot recipes, in particular, seem to
work well. The one thing that has been eluding me is pasta. We like the stuff,
but so far, I’ve managed to make paste, but I will keep trying and report back.
Part of the problem has been forgetting about it, and letting it cook too long.
That doesn’t work on the stove top, either.
As
with the last oven I tested, baked potatoes came out great. I’m unlikely to
ever want one from the microwave again.
Stews
are a natural for the solar cooker. I found a recipe in the software that came
with the oven that was a huge hit with everyone in my household, though I had
to hold the vegetables for my nine-year-old. He was willing to eat around the
dread carrots but drew the line at green beans or peas in the stew. Those he
would eat separately but not in the stew. (sigh) My mother is looking down and
laughing. The surprise ingredient in the recipe was coffee, by the way, so I
knew I was going to like it. I left the stew in all day and the inexpensive,
stringy stew meat I bought came out with a pleasing texture and flavor, just as
it would have in an all-day cook in a crock pot.
A
turkey loaf my wife picked up at the store also came out great. I used the thermometer I bought for
solar cooking. It has a probe on a wire that can be placed inside the pot while
the display unit remains outside the cooker and doesn’t melt. Combined with the
built-in thermometer that monitors the temperature inside the oven, you can
really stay on top of your cooking. The turkey was moist, succulent, and I think
better than it would have been in the electric oven.
I
found that I could easily hard boil eggs in the All American. Fresh eggs have
been problematic for me when boiled in water, as they are usually very hard to
peel. They peeled a lot easier from the solar cooker, but I also have to say
that older eggs seemed a little harder to peel than when I boil them in water.
Both methods led to tasty eggs, and I have to admit the fresher ones cooked in
the solar oven were better than the older ones boiled in water. In short, you
get a payback for working a little harder. Much of life is like that, though.
Hot
dogs and other pre-cooked meats and foods were a breeze in the solar oven. You
could also heat leftovers, but it was hard to walk past the microwave to use
the solar oven for that purpose. I think a power outage, when I can’t run a
generator, will change that attitude quickly.
There’s
also a brownie recipe in the software that came with the oven. Brownies are a
big deal here, and this recipe, cooked in the sun oven, was an enormous hit. I
left off the butter and confectioner’s sugar drizzle, and I bet they would have
been even better with it. Next time. We served them warm with vanilla ice
cream. It took a bit longer than the suggested 30-40 minutes to cook, but I had
the wrong size pan, and I made them thicker than recommended. They finished in
a bit more than 45 minutes. I’m convinced that cooking at a lower temperature
in the sealed up Sun Oven keeps them moister and nicer than they would have
been in a conventional oven.
I’m
sure someone would like for me to compare this oven and the last one. That
would be like comparing apples and oranges. The last one was highly portable
and light weight. This one is much bulkier, and while you can move it, it isn’t
going to work for backpacking. This one is a much more efficient at cooking for
a number of reasons. The tightly-sealed cooking chamber that is heat absorbing
black makes most of the difference, but the aiming system is also important, as
is the insulation. If you are going to be at a base, this one will cook more
and do it faster. If you are on foot, you are going to need something that is
much more compact and lighter. This one does cost more, but the extra cookware
and the software are a big plus. They also include free shipping. I really like
both ovens and see a place for each of them, but for cooking at home, I really
want this one. For campouts, I want the other one. Having both of them would
really multiply how much you could get done in a crisis.
A
solar oven is not going to cook all of your meals, but it can make a big dent
in your need for fuel. It makes no noise, and you have to be aware of its
reflections, but I think it is an important tool. I really liked this oven and
hope to be able to afford to keep it. We really enjoyed using it in our day to
day lives, but I could well see it being a big help in a grid down scenario.
Some
of the websites I found useful while working with solar cooking:
·
An
organization that promotes
solar cooking and has a wealth of information. It has links to a wiki on solar
cooking, and I found the following links on the wiki very useful:
·
Since
these ovens cook best at the solar noon, which is different from the local
noon, I found a site that allows you to determine
the solar noon
with a calculator. It isn’t really going to make much of a difference, but I’m
a bit obsessive. Just in case you want to go overboard too, here it is.
–
SurvivalBlog Field Gear Editor, SFE
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