Yesterday, I received a
solar cooker from Cantina West, a distributor of solar cooking supplies. The cooker consists of a parabolic mirror, stand with adjusting arm, and a circular piece to hold a pan or wok. My 8 year-old and I put it together in about an hour and a half. The assembly time would have been much shorter had the instructions been better. They basically consist of a few blurry pictures. You'll need to use the primary organ between your ears to figure out which screws go to what, but I found this task somewhat enjoyable. The only tools I used for assembly where a crescent wrench and a socket wrench.
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| Find the focal point using a stick. |
After assembly, I took the solar cooker into our side yard. Learning to move and manipulate the cooker may require some play time. Once placed where you want it, a long wooden stick can help identify the cooker's focal point. The focal point is where the stick gets really bright and will catch on fire in about 1 second (which makes it good for starting fires too). For the hottest temperature, get that focal point right on the bottom of the pan.
While cooking scrambled eggs, it was necessary to move the pan and mirrored parabola around a bit to adjust the focal point and control temperature. The partly cloudy sky likely resulted in a slower cook time (10 minutes) than what I might expect on a perfectly sunny day.
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| Focal point on bottom of pan |
The family ate the eggs for lunch and I'm satisfied with the purchase. I look forward to using it for backyard cooking in the future. I'll also be better equipped with a pair of sunglasses and gloves to protect from the sun near the focal point.
