4 ms·

Reminds of this (sadly discontinued) project: http://www.photongrill.com/ http://www.photongrill.com/

prawn 9y ago
There's also this parabolic solar camp stove I spotted on the REI site a few months ago. Seems like an absolute gimmick, but the few reviews are all very positive: https://www.rei.com/product/100561/gosun-sport-solar-camp-stove https://www.rei.com/product/100561/gosun-sport-solar-camp-st...
- sswaner 9y ago
  The Boy Scout handbook (1980's version) had an aluminum foil solar oven design for cooking a hot dog. It was a version of that psychology test of putting marshmallows in front of kids. The patient scouts got a cooked hotdog in about 45 minutes - on a bright summer day. I ate a raw one after about 10.
  - logfromblammo 9y ago
    Unfortunately, my kids already know from watching How It's Made that most wiener-type sausages sold in the US are fully cooked at the factory, and when you "cook" them at home, you're just heating them up. One would just eat it without bothering with the foil for even one minute, and the other doesn't eat hot dogs at any temperature. I remember, as part of a wilderness survival challenge, being told to eat some breakfast, then they gave me one match, a juice can, a raw egg, and two uncooked pork sausage links. The "correct" solution was to build a fire, drink the juice, cut the top off the can, grease the inside of the can with cooking sausage, and then fry your egg in the greased can. Alternate solutions turned out to be a whole lot easier--left as an exercise for the reader because many of them are disgusting. Knowing how to do this was of great comfort to me, because sausages, eggs, and juice cans actually grow on trees in the woods near me. Along with plastic tarps and alkaline batteries. It felt like the sort of thing that might give kids just enough confidence to wander off alone to die in the actual wilderness, or to miraculously return in five years speaking fluent Wolf, with plenty of helpful suggestions for the next edition of the manual--such as a primer on the intricacies of wolf pack politics. That manual probably should have just skipped the solar oven and gone straight to starting a fire with the foil. (As though your average Boy Scout doesn't already know too many ways to set something on fire. Have you ever seen someone start a bonfire by shooting an arrow into it? That guy was probably a Boy Scout, and the secret he wouldn't tell you is that the tinder had KMnO4 in it, and the arrow popped a hidden balloon with some glycerol in it. It wasn't actually a ghost.)
    - cr0sh 9y ago
      > most wiener-type sausages sold in the US are fully cooked at the factory I don't know if I would say most, but some may be. From my experience, hotdogs (and other sausage products) typically contain a ton of what is known as "pink curing salt" (aka "Prague powder"): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curing_salt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curing_salt It's dyed pink to prevent confusion with common table salt (and it isn't the same as the "pink artisan table salts" you sometimes see, either); in fact, the amount used in curing sausage and other cured meats is actually very low in proportion. Such cures are used for ham and bacon making, too. The actual meat isn't cooked in any manner, but is perfectly safe to eat - though technically raw. In the case of hame and bacon, the meat (after curing) will usually then go thru a secondary smoking process, which also tends to dry out the outer layer of meat, further protecting it from bacterial intrusion.
      - logfromblammo 9y ago
        Those that aren't cooked are smoked. 100% of all frankfurters, wieners, hot dogs, and bologna intended for sale in the US is safe to eat cold, as long as it has been kept sufficiently cold since it was packaged. If it wasn't cooked or smoked, you can't call it by those names. The most common [pathogenic] contaminant is Listeria. This would be on the surface, so if you want to be strict about food safety, you can just drop your cold hot dogs in boiling water for a few seconds before eating them. But if you're really that concerned about food, why are you eating sausages at all?
    - cr0sh 9y ago
      > that the tinder had KMnO4 in it, and the arrow popped a hidden balloon with some glycerol For those that don't know, KMnO4 is also known as potassium permanganate: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potassium_permanganate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potassium_permanganate As noted in that wikipedia article, when combined with glycerol or other glycerin containing products (like automotive antifreeze) it can also be used as a fire starter. It can be easily found online or at home improvement stores, as it is sold for water softening and filtration purposes. Grant Thompson ("King of Random") documents how to make a survival fire starter kit using this knowledge: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ja_6Yin9JuM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ja_6Yin9JuM In short, keeping a bit of potassium permanganate in your car with you, should you get lost and don't have another source of fire making with you, might be a wise thing (then again, if you know anything about automobiles, there are tons of ways to use parts in them for starting a fire).
- tmm 9y ago
  I saw one of these work at the Annapolis Boat Show a few years ago. Given that it was an October afternoon in Maryland, the angle of the sun was not ideal (and there were a lot of vendor tents in the way). It still made a hot hotdog in about 15 minutes. I'm sure it could do much better in the summer with a clear view of the sun.
jaclaz 9y ago
Once, ispired by this (skip to 32:30), I quickly made a small solar parabolic mirror: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bh4n6QzX9S0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bh4n6QzX9S0 and it worked nicely (to set to fire some wood). Admittedly the sunshine in Southern Italy where I tested that (or Andalusia, Southern Spain, as in the TV program above) is probably much different from the one in Sweden, but on a good day it is most probably strong enough even in North Europe.
cr0sh 9y ago
Parabolic reflective solar cookers are fairly easy to build: http://www.motherearthnews.com/diy/how-to-build-a-solar-cooker-zmaz74zhol http://www.motherearthnews.com/diy/how-to-build-a-solar-cook... If you do some research, you'll find a ton more examples. When I was around 11 years old, as part of a "science project" I built a small solar cooker to cook hotdogs with. I built a linear parabolic reflector (so that the focus was a line, instead of a spot), and placed the hotdog on this line using a skewer (a straightened piece of coathanger wire). It worked rather well. The most efficient solar cookers, though, are solar ovens. As an adult, I've built ones using cardboard and tinfoil and cooked rice, beans, and made cornbread. You usually can't get them above 100 C (because of boiling and the vapor lowering the effective temperature inside), but if you can keep them properly oriented to the sun over hours, and keep the inner temp high enough, the oven can act as a very effective slow cooker for all kinds of food. The trick with either one (concentrator or oven) is making them portable (easier with a concentrator - but it is possible to do it with an oven, too - if you change the design a bit). Check out some of the DIY plans out there; you'll be surprised at what is possible.

There's also this parabolic solar camp stove I spotted on the REI site a few months ago. Seems like an absolute gimmick, but the few reviews are all very positive: https://www.rei.com/product/100561/gosun-sport-solar-camp-stove https://www.rei.com/product/100561/gosun-sport-solar-camp-st...

sswaner 9y ago
The Boy Scout handbook (1980's version) had an aluminum foil solar oven design for cooking a hot dog. It was a version of that psychology test of putting marshmallows in front of kids. The patient scouts got a cooked hotdog in about 45 minutes - on a bright summer day. I ate a raw one after about 10.
- logfromblammo 9y ago
  Unfortunately, my kids already know from watching How It's Made that most wiener-type sausages sold in the US are fully cooked at the factory, and when you "cook" them at home, you're just heating them up. One would just eat it without bothering with the foil for even one minute, and the other doesn't eat hot dogs at any temperature. I remember, as part of a wilderness survival challenge, being told to eat some breakfast, then they gave me one match, a juice can, a raw egg, and two uncooked pork sausage links. The "correct" solution was to build a fire, drink the juice, cut the top off the can, grease the inside of the can with cooking sausage, and then fry your egg in the greased can. Alternate solutions turned out to be a whole lot easier--left as an exercise for the reader because many of them are disgusting. Knowing how to do this was of great comfort to me, because sausages, eggs, and juice cans actually grow on trees in the woods near me. Along with plastic tarps and alkaline batteries. It felt like the sort of thing that might give kids just enough confidence to wander off alone to die in the actual wilderness, or to miraculously return in five years speaking fluent Wolf, with plenty of helpful suggestions for the next edition of the manual--such as a primer on the intricacies of wolf pack politics. That manual probably should have just skipped the solar oven and gone straight to starting a fire with the foil. (As though your average Boy Scout doesn't already know too many ways to set something on fire. Have you ever seen someone start a bonfire by shooting an arrow into it? That guy was probably a Boy Scout, and the secret he wouldn't tell you is that the tinder had KMnO4 in it, and the arrow popped a hidden balloon with some glycerol in it. It wasn't actually a ghost.)
  - cr0sh 9y ago
    > most wiener-type sausages sold in the US are fully cooked at the factory I don't know if I would say most, but some may be. From my experience, hotdogs (and other sausage products) typically contain a ton of what is known as "pink curing salt" (aka "Prague powder"): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curing_salt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curing_salt It's dyed pink to prevent confusion with common table salt (and it isn't the same as the "pink artisan table salts" you sometimes see, either); in fact, the amount used in curing sausage and other cured meats is actually very low in proportion. Such cures are used for ham and bacon making, too. The actual meat isn't cooked in any manner, but is perfectly safe to eat - though technically raw. In the case of hame and bacon, the meat (after curing) will usually then go thru a secondary smoking process, which also tends to dry out the outer layer of meat, further protecting it from bacterial intrusion.
    - logfromblammo 9y ago
      Those that aren't cooked are smoked. 100% of all frankfurters, wieners, hot dogs, and bologna intended for sale in the US is safe to eat cold, as long as it has been kept sufficiently cold since it was packaged. If it wasn't cooked or smoked, you can't call it by those names. The most common [pathogenic] contaminant is Listeria. This would be on the surface, so if you want to be strict about food safety, you can just drop your cold hot dogs in boiling water for a few seconds before eating them. But if you're really that concerned about food, why are you eating sausages at all?
  - cr0sh 9y ago
    > that the tinder had KMnO4 in it, and the arrow popped a hidden balloon with some glycerol For those that don't know, KMnO4 is also known as potassium permanganate: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potassium_permanganate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potassium_permanganate As noted in that wikipedia article, when combined with glycerol or other glycerin containing products (like automotive antifreeze) it can also be used as a fire starter. It can be easily found online or at home improvement stores, as it is sold for water softening and filtration purposes. Grant Thompson ("King of Random") documents how to make a survival fire starter kit using this knowledge: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ja_6Yin9JuM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ja_6Yin9JuM In short, keeping a bit of potassium permanganate in your car with you, should you get lost and don't have another source of fire making with you, might be a wise thing (then again, if you know anything about automobiles, there are tons of ways to use parts in them for starting a fire).
tmm 9y ago
I saw one of these work at the Annapolis Boat Show a few years ago. Given that it was an October afternoon in Maryland, the angle of the sun was not ideal (and there were a lot of vendor tents in the way). It still made a hot hotdog in about 15 minutes. I'm sure it could do much better in the summer with a clear view of the sun.

jaclaz 9y ago

Once, ispired by this (skip to 32:30), I quickly made a small solar parabolic mirror: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bh4n6QzX9S0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bh4n6QzX9S0 and it worked nicely (to set to fire some wood). Admittedly the sunshine in Southern Italy where I tested that (or Andalusia, Southern Spain, as in the TV program above) is probably much different from the one in Sweden, but on a good day it is most probably strong enough even in North Europe.

cr0sh 9y ago

Parabolic reflective solar cookers are fairly easy to build: http://www.motherearthnews.com/diy/how-to-build-a-solar-cooker-zmaz74zhol http://www.motherearthnews.com/diy/how-to-build-a-solar-cook... If you do some research, you'll find a ton more examples. When I was around 11 years old, as part of a "science project" I built a small solar cooker to cook hotdogs with. I built a linear parabolic reflector (so that the focus was a line, instead of a spot), and placed the hotdog on this line using a skewer (a straightened piece of coathanger wire). It worked rather well. The most efficient solar cookers, though, are solar ovens. As an adult, I've built ones using cardboard and tinfoil and cooked rice, beans, and made cornbread. You usually can't get them above 100 C (because of boiling and the vapor lowering the effective temperature inside), but if you can keep them properly oriented to the sun over hours, and keep the inner temp high enough, the oven can act as a very effective slow cooker for all kinds of food. The trick with either one (concentrator or oven) is making them portable (easier with a concentrator - but it is possible to do it with an oven, too - if you change the design a bit). Check out some of the DIY plans out there; you'll be surprised at what is possible.