How to Make a Solar Oven with a Windshield Sun Shade

you may have underestimated me if you think that I would never consider dumpster diving if you don't know what that is that's where you go and find treasures that someone else has thrown out and in this past year this is one of the things I found and immediately I knew I wanted it perfect condition all it needed was sterilized and once I brought it home I knew I had to show you just how to make a solar oven very simply so that you could cook or bake just about anything for free using nothing more than a Sun Shade and a black bucket don't go away [Music] all right so you're out of electricity and it's time to make some sort of a hot meal well as long as you have a relatively sunny day and the sunny are the better I will definitely admit to that right now but as long as you have a relatively sunny day and a Sun Shade one of those solar shades that keeps the heat out of your car out of the front - in the window that's what this is if you've got something like that you could probably make yourself a solar oven now you will want some kind of a bucket and the blacker and matter the finish the better what I mean by that is you don't want shiny on anything that you're hoping absorbs heat but you want the shinier the better on anything that you want to reflect this is going to be the perfect reflection because the backside of it is all silver we won't use the front side that has palm trees on it that's not going to work so don't try that but if you've got a silver side like this it's going to reflect the perfect amount of light we're going to fold it just so and put it in the top of this but before I do that I wanted to show you this if you don't have a solar shade like I didn't before I went dumpster diving you may have some other version of that and folks have used tin foil which will work well this it happens to be a couple of those grocery bags if any of you subscribe to or order from Amazon fresh or Whole Foods Market they deliver to your doorstep in these wonderful refrigerated type bags that are made of the same thing that your solar shade is made of so you could easily cut this up and have the same exact effect with this silver side of this as what you're going to see me make today with the solar shade all right let me also give you a couple of more tips Before we jump into this you want your solar shade you're going to need something to do a little bit of jerry-rigging and if you don't know what that is google it I'll bet there's a good explanation online for what jerry-rigging is because that is all about what we're going to do today for me the way I jerry-rigged mine is with these wonderful little black clip and the bigger the better I didn't have big ones though but these wonderful clips that you can get at the office store or in your everything drawer if you have an everything drawer I had one big giant paperclip so I used that you could also actually sew it with a little bit of fishing twine or in a pinch you could tape it let me say this though if you're going to tape any part of this so that it makes that perfect cone shape that we want you're going to want to use black electricians tape not clear packing tape the reason being is this can handle heat and it's not going to reflect any light but this can handle the heat and not melt or like slide off whereas the clear packing tape not only is it going to obstruct the reflective surface but it's not made for a high heat and it's going to come unstuck it's gonna slip off it's going to be a mess so don't even mess with clear tape even though it in your mind it would seem that should work so if you want to tape it get black electricians tape that's really all you need now to actually cook in this stove that we're going to make you're going to need some sort of a vessel to put it in and keep in mind this the blacker the better and the matter the finish the better this enamelware this is metal with an enamel finish on it this works perfect and you've probably got some antiques somewhere that are made of this incidentally I use this on the campfire a lot so it's got kind of a finish already with a little bit of baked on soot from the fire and that's perfect for this if I were to shine this all up so it's glossy again it would be reflecting some of the light so I just leave that matte finish on there as long as it's not getting black on my fingers too bad I just leave that black finish right on there because this is what we're going to cook inside of now I could cook a soup or something like that directly in this but more ideally you're wanting this to be the outside vessel that you're going to set into your solar oven and then inside you're going to want to have a little elevated foot in there like when you're canning and you don't want the can't the jars to touch the bottom of the canner in here the ideal is to have a little metal grate in the bottom so if you can get a little cooking grate or a little cooling sort of griddle go ahead and put it in the bottom but in a pinch which is what I am in today what works just fine our canning lids the rings of the canning jars just rings in the bottom if you just set those in there it will elevate whatever you put down into this so that's what we're going to use today and then lastly you're going to want a lid to go on it you've got two options you can have a solid lid and in that case definitely use black and the matter the better or you can use a clear lid and I would say the clear lid is nice because it lets you kind of keep a visual on what's baking in there and you can kind of see things rise or if something needs to come to a boil you'll know when it's boiling because this will all get clouded over and you'll see the bubbles down below but black works exceptionally well as well for getting the heat drawn in this doesn't absorb heat so much but this is absorbing heat even to the top of the little cake that we're going to bake today we're actually going to make honey brand muffin bread a little loaf of that just so you can see how this works but I'm using the solid surface top as what we're going to put on over that just so it kind of absorbs all the heat I can get to help that bread rise on top Hey one less thing I want to show you that might take this up just another notch for you if you like Michael withers in Lebanon Tennessee turns me on to this idea and he showed me that he had one of these it's a programmable wired probe thermometer that actually can go into the oven or in our case a solar oven and it has a little wire that lets you have the actual probe of the thermometer in the oven and then it has the wire come out so you don't have to lift the lid off to find just how hot the oven is getting inside that's what this is perfect for and for those of you who want the elite version of the free solar-powered oven you can get one of these thermometers so you can always tell just how hot it's getting inside your oven okay let's get started for the sake of time today I am cheating just a little bit and I just went out and got a Martha white honey brand muffin mix because all I need to add is two thirds of a cup of milk and I thought that would be easier for us with time today I just add a few of my own little ingredients to make it special so I've got it in a bowl I'm going to pour in my milk and then we're going to give it a stir and I'll add my extras to it and we'll get it in there to cook up for us today I happen to be using this almond and cashew milk although normally I would just use regular whole milk because I love that but I had some of this and it works great when you're baking so we'll use that but what I like to add to almost anything is a little bit of my homemade vanilla which I have put in the regular little vanilla container and of course I have to add some real maple extract because no honey brand muffins are complete without a little bit of that maple extract you can put in as much as you want or not any at all if you like and then of course you know my passionate love affair with ground Saigon cinnamon so we're gonna put in a good amount of that you're gonna choke it how much I put in I'm gonna put in about two tablespoons worth because I love cinnamon and because it's good for you alright get that stirred in now you can see over here to the side while I'm stirring this let me tell you over here to the side I've prepared a little baking pan and the secret to this working well in the solar oven is going to be the darker the pan the better just keep that in your mind no matter what you're baking or cooking you want darker is better and and not glossy so if you've got the extra shiny pans they reflect light every bit of shininess reflects light just keep that in mind always for every bit of this the shiny reflects light so you want matte finish you as dole of Finnish as possible to absorb the heat that is going to be given off by what reflects onto it and a lot of folks will even take jars and if they cook in jars like if you're wanting to boil water or something and use an old jar you can spray paint the outside of it black with matte black spray paint and that works great all right this is about perfectly ready for us I am loving it so I've got this little pan standing by and to make it extra easy for this to do everything it needs to in a solar oven I have made sure that I've coated the inside all with butter and then I've taken a little bit of parchment paper not wax paper make sure you know the difference that I've taken and cut a little parchment paper and put that in the bottom of there and that'll just help us lift out that delicate loaf that will cook up nicely in there of course the ends are a little bit exposed that's just fine as long as they've got butter on them but let me say this is the miracle of solar oven cooking and that is that you cannot really burn anything that you're baking in there so we're gonna put this in there and it can absolutely be cooking all day long while I go to town and run my errands if I need to when I come home it will probably be finished but it probably won't be over done it's very very difficult to overcook something in there since it doesn't really get very much hotter than about three hundred and thirty three hundred and forty degrees at the most all right let's get this poured in and we'll put it in there to cook now I've got my little pan about two-thirds of the way full the reason for that is because it probably won't overflow like if it didn't have enough heat but it's probably not going to rise up quite as well with that nice big perfect arch in the middle like you would get in a traditional oven that's just my guess we'll find out when it comes out but what it will do is have a nice mound on it and be just a little bit more moist than what I would get in a traditional oven and I am very good with moist breads like this one so now that we've got this put together let's go ahead and get the oven setup so the first thing you're gonna want to do is take and unravel your sunshade and this happens to be a particularly large one I think but you're gonna locate the little V down there at the bottom actually I think that's the top that goes around the rear view mirror that's the part we're looking for and we want to pull it toward us and then you're going to try to emulate here in a minute I will you're going to try to emulate a giant waffle cone you know how they're wrapped so it's kind of like a cone shape giant loosely wrapped cone so we're using this as that bottom part and we're going to fold it until it cooperates and then we'll stick it down that you're into the bucket thankfully for me this has this little wonderful ribbon that I don't know why it's there but I'm going to use that to clip on to to make this little cone shape down at the bottom alright and I'm going to ultimately get it put together where that is almost making a little hole right into that bucket and I've still got more than I need on the sides here so I'm going to actually fold these back and put a little clip on them because they're just going to be in the way and catch the wind in a bad way so on both sides we're going to put some clippies on those if I had the bigger ones for sure I know that would work better okay that's one side if you have some giant paperclips you might be thankful for them I'll bet I could have done this whole thing with some of these and that would have worked well all right I think we're close the last thing you want to put in the bottom is going to be some sort of a little grate if you've got it or if you don't what I've got are these little metal black kind of plates and I'm gonna use this today just because I've got it but if I was going to use this over and over I would probably go ahead and spray paint it with something that made it not so shiny because like we talked about before anything that you want to absorb heat and not reflect it you want to have not be shiny but I'm gonna set that down in the bottom and your best effort is going to be to have a level surface and you kind of got to do a little bit of that finagling to get that to be level you can even use a level if you wanted but I'm just gonna eyeball it and we'll get it set up over in the Sun with some goodies on it as you can see I've already had the pan in the Sun with the solar oven put together getting hot waiting for its chance to be an oven so that's always going to give you just a little leg up on this whole process if you can have everything in place heated like this we're just gonna set it right down in here put the lid on and I want you to try your very best to not let your curiosity get the best of you and lift that lid off again I want you to just leave it right where it is now the only assignment you have is to get it lined up with the Sun the best way is to look right behind the bucket on the on the ground and watch where that shadow Falls because if you can line it up that way you'll know you have it right in line with the Sun if the shadow falls perfectly directly behind the bucket that's kind of the easy way to do it we're gonna leave it here and I'm gonna give it at least 40 minutes before I even check it it'll probably be perfectly done but even if I end up having to go and run to the store and and look at it in two hours I'll bet it'll be just fine because it don't overcook it probably would just be not fully done at that 40-minute mark but that's where we'll check it first we can't wait for this big reveal I've got to used a hot pad to get this lid off which is always a good sign but look at this this loaf turned out perfect I can see it's just a little bit soft on top but I love it with some moisture in it let's go get a cutting board and see what we've got all right are you ready for the big reveal this is the actual little loaf that came out of that wonderful solar oven look at how well that cooked it's absolutely perfect and a super moist on top it's had a chance to cool and all I'm going to do now is cut it and give a little taste test for you to see what that looks like it's a little bit more moist than you would find if you had of course baked it in the oven but I love moist bread so I am going to put just a little dollop or maybe this is a big dollop I think this is big of cultured whole cream butter on that and I'm going to enjoy a bite of it right while you're watching and you can make fun of me if you like and I even brought out a spot of tea to enjoy with it well I got crumbs down on myself and there's lots of butter so anything with lots of butter is good but that is delicious that cinnamon I taste the maple and of course the honey brand of the honey bran muffin is fantastic all right I shall pour myself a cup of tea and give you a couple of last thoughts that I wanted to make sure you knew so there are many different ways to do this I want you to explore and absolutely have fun jerry-rigging your own setup but keep in mind this everybody has a different way of doing it there are lots of right ways there's not really very many wrong ways except for to keep away from anything that's shiny as what you're cooking in also it's a very good idea to use something a lot heftier and to start a lot earlier in the morning if you want to bake something big like even the Thanksgiving turkey can be cooked this way or a whole chicken or something like that but that's when it's good to get out that Dutch oven that's cast-iron it takes so much longer to heat up in the solar oven but know that once it gets hot it's gonna bake it really well for a long time because it holds the heat so well so that's a good option for that but not for everyday baking just because it takes so long to warm up and the other option a lot of folks like to use is that liner that you can take out of your crock pot that is made of that thick porcelain I believe that thick crock pot with the glass lid because then you can see down into it that's another great option all right I'm going to enjoy my tea I'm going to encourage you to do your own research one of my favorite places for recipes to use in my solar oven is sunshine on my shoulder calm not shoulders just one shoulder sunshine on my shoulder calm I don't know her personally but it looks like a delightful lady that runs that web site and has so many amazing recipes you can try now it's your turn share your favorite recipe or what your favorite little hack is for making your own version of a solar oven with a Sun shield let's meet back here next week and until then God bless you and go out and be a blessing to someone and today bye for now [Music] you know I want to share with you a quick Scripture before you go this is out of the New Testament in the Holy Bible and Paul's letter to the Ephesians it's in chapter 5 verses 1 & 2 it says this therefore be imitators of God as beloved children and walk in love just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and a sacrifice to God now go walk in love and spread the word I'll see you next time [Applause] [Music] you

Channel: PREPSTEADERS

Views: 255,890

Rating: 4.9264412 out of 5

Keywords: Survival, Homesteading, Prepping, Preppers, prepsteaders, wisdom creek, solar oven, sun oven, outdoor cooking, honey bran

Id: cLCBQscnSdU

Length: 20min 56sec (1256 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 04 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/hideout78]

Prepper women are so fucking hot. I’m serious. And I’m not talking about looks. I’m talking about them knowing how to do stuff.