Omelet wrote:
>
> In article >,
> Peter A > wrote:
>
> > This is the main point - too many people consider any large, whole,
> > cooked potato to be "baked" when a microwaved potato is in fact steamed.
> >
> > Even so, when I have been in a hurry for a real baked potato, I have
> > found that a few minutes in the microwave followed by finishing in the
> > oven will cut your cooking time in half and give a result that is hard
> > to tell from the real thing.
>
> I'm wondering what kind of results I'm going to get from a solar oven
> when I finally get around to building one.
> --
> Peace, Om
>
> Remove _ to validate e-mails.
>
> "My mother never saw the irony in calling me a Son of a bitch" -- Jack Nicholson

Good solar ovens will produce results directly comparable to a
conventional oven as they produce an environment of dry external
non-radient heat. Be aware however, that a good many of the designs
you'll find are not good solar ovens and have undersized collector area
relative to the cooking area and won't generate enough heat for normal
oven type cooking. The small box ovens with reflector "petals" aren't
really adequate for cooking, really only for heating to consumption
temperature, say 160 degrees.

An example of a good solar oven would be a steel oven box, insulated on
5 sides and not the bottom, with a diffuser "pizza stone" type device
inside on the bottom, located at the focal point of a good sized
parabolic collector. Figure a good 6' dia collector for a cubic foot
sized oven. This setup will put sufficiently concentrated energy on the
bottom of the box to heat the oven interior to "normal" oven
temperatures like 350 degrees. With this design you can also interchange
the oven box with a pot holder so you can boil or simmer food. You do
have to periodically re-aim the collector, which is also how you
regulate the temp by aiming a little off to reduce the heat.