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Ransom Riggs
Solar ovens and solar coffee
by Ransom Riggs - July 27, 2007 - 7:28 AM

Solar ovens aren’t a new phenomenon, but with the worldwide interest in alternative energy growing, new attention is being focused on them. NGOs are distributing them to impoverished villages where deforestation and desertification are a problem, and they’re also popular in places where fire risk is extremely high (for instance, with campers inside particularly dry national parks). One interesting fact about solar cookers is that many of them use the greenhouse effect to cook food: solar rays are reflected and concentrated inside a glass box, which traps increasingly hot air inside. As the temperature builds, your food cooks, and even the humblest of solar ovens can reach 350 degrees in about 30 minutes. The main problem with these contraptions is that they function best during the hottest parts of the day — when people are the least likely to want a hot meal. But a Colorado company has found an ingenious way to use the midday cooking power of the sun to their advantage: by roasting coffee.

solar-roaster.jpgSolar Roast Coffee has invented (and continues to refine) a specialized array of focusing mirrors, which swivel to follow the arc of the sun during the day, and can roast a drum of coffee beans at up to 600 degrees Fahrenheit. (You can watch it in action here.) The beans may be brown, but this is one green coffee.

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Comments (8)

  1. Just a few practical questions; What do you do if it gets cloudy part way through cooking that Turkey? How do you know how much to increase cooking time if it’s cloudy for half an hour? Also in impoverished villages, how do they keep the mirrors clean? I’d assume they don’t have much money for windex and paper towels. Issues such as these seem to make ideas/products like this impractical.

    -Stew

    posted by Stew on 7-27-2007 at 12:42 pm

  2. Kinda along the same lines:
    While working at a Girl Scout camp I’ve helped construct cardboard ovens. You just take cardboard box, line it with heavy duty foil and place a mental dish with two brickettes (sp?) of charchol in it. You can add a rack a few inches above the coals to place a pan of brownies/cornbread/etc for cooking. Then, we’d just place it out in the sun (the extra heat helps). In 30 mins we’d have a great snack.

    posted by Amy on 7-28-2007 at 12:46 pm

  3. Kinda along the same lines:
    While working at a Girl Scout camp I’ve helped construct cardboard ovens. You just take cardboard box, line it with heavy duty foil and place a mental dish with two brickettes (sp?) of charchol in it. You can add a rack a few inches above the coals to place a pan of brownies/cornbread/etc for cooking. Then, we’d just place it out in the sun (the extra heat helps). In 30 mins we’d have a great snack.

    posted by Amy on 7-28-2007 at 12:46 pm

  4. As a second grade teacher, I became interested last spring in solar ovens as a potential science project for my students. Little did I know how incredibly fascinating and versatile solar ovens could be. Sixteen months later, I’ve constructed 6 solar ovens of varying styles and capacities. Two models were constructed by my students. My wife and I have cooked approximately 65 times last summer and about 45 times so far this year. We can cook/bake/boil virtually anything from simple rice dishes to meatloaves to large pots of vegetable soup to the more tempermental homemade breads. We have also enjoyed impressive savings on our utility bills. If you have common cardboard, aluminum foil, glue, some tempered sheet glass, and black enameled bakeware, you could be off and running in a couple of hours!

    posted by Charlie on 7-29-2007 at 6:56 pm

  5. I remember many many years ago, making a mock up of a solar hot dog cooker for a Social Studies section on inventions. Never tried it, it was only for show….

    As far as telling if something is done, a meat thermometer is a MUST for any cooking of meat, inside or out! Otherwise, follow your taste buds. Adjust for cloudiness as needed, since you’re reading this site, you must have SOME native intelligence…

    posted by Jinx on 7-31-2007 at 11:16 pm

  6. Hi, I agree with you that alternative energy growing is required to be implemented for globalism…

    cheers,
    suma valluru

    posted by suma valluru on 8-9-2007 at 12:35 am

  7. If anyone is interested in supporting poor families in sun-rich countries please have a look at kyototwist.org. Founders of this Canadian based charity are using their experience with solar cookers to make a difference and help improve lives affected by the cooking fuel crisis. Solar cookers address so many needs. It is great to see small companies spreading the use of solar cooking and roasting! Sunny solution!

    posted by Mary Ann on 1-14-2009 at 6:08 pm

  8. I am all for green but it sounds like a lot of effort to roast coffee. I guess this is a test and it could lead to something much great down the road.

    posted by Gourmet Coffee Lover on 9-12-2009 at 2:02 am

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