Redrock SOLAR User manual

SOLAR COOKER MANUAL
RED ROCK
SOLAR

GETTING STARTED – THE BASICS
Which pot you choose makes a huge
difference. You have lots of choices,
which become limited by what you
actually have available to you in your
home. The three main choices are;
glass, crocks and metal.
To start, a thicker container is better
than thinner. Why? Insulation and heat
retention. You want something that
absorbs the heat and then radiates it into the food well.
Metal - like a nice, heavy dutch oven, it holds heat the best, and radiates
it into the food the best.
What a Crock! - Clay pottery and crock pots mellow out the heat, and
hold it well.
Glass - works well if it’s thick. It lets the sun through, so the food is
getting directly heated, rather than just the radiant heat of metal and
crockery.
Put a lid on it!
While the Red Rock Solar Cooker holds heat in pretty well, you also
need to cover any container you use to trap as much heat in the food as
possible. Unlike a traditional oven, the heat that cooks food is not inside
the oven, it is inside the food and the container. You are using the sun to
heat the container and the food directly, not the space within the solar
cooker’s cookbox. Like the pots, use metal, crock/clay, or glass. DO
NOT use anything with plastic on it, like plastic handles. Lids that form a
seal are better than lids that are too large for the pot, they keep the
moisture inside the pot.

Desert or Ocean?
It’s really hard to burn things in the solar cooker, mostly because the
moisture stays trapped in the food and the cooking temperature is low.
However, you do need to make sure there is enough liquid. Breads,
follow a recipe, stews and soups are like oceans with plenty of water,
but the trouble comes with plain vegetables and meats. Always add a
little water to them. A couple tablespoons is usually enough.
Caveat: some recipes are designed to be cooked dry. Examples are
baked apples, salmon on a wood plank, beef jerky.
Warm Up
Start with the warmest food possible. Don’t start with frozen food. Use
warm or hot water from the tap. Anything to start the process as warm as
possible will improve cooking time.
Wait…wait…wait…
Put the container with the food in the cooker early in the day and wait.
Keep checking on it, to see if you might need to add liquid or if it’s done.
If you are working all day, just put everything in the cooker in the
morning, double check that it is facing south, and take it all out when
the sun goes down.

TIPS FOR GREAT COOKING
Using a solar cooker is a lot like using a slow cooker, combined with
your backyard barbeque - it is not the same as your kitchen oven. And
one of the things that make the Red Rock Solar Cooker very different
from other solar cookers is that it is designed for re-use of materials and
savings that are passed on to you with a lower price.
Using the solar cooker is foolproof, but to use any solar cooker well, it
requires some practice to get the hang of it. These tips come from years
of practice with solar cooking and can get you started more easily so you
can have successful meals from the first try. We still encourage you to
experiment, however. This section will introduce some unique tips for
making the most of your Red Rock Solar Cooker.
POTS, PANS, & JARS
The type of container or cookware you use inside the Red Rock Solar
Cooker makes all the difference. We’ve tried them all, and each has it’s
place. In the “Basics” section, I described the three types of containers
you can use. Here, I will go into more detail about each one:
Metal -Not the thin metal pots you might use on a stovetop, especially
because they often have plastic in the handles or lids which is really bad
in a solar cooker. I’m talking about dutch ovens and cast iron. Those
heavy, black pots and pans. And you can get great dutch ovens that are
enameled. Those are the best all-around cooking containers for the Solar
Cooker. You want the darkest enameling, and can also paint them a nice
flat black to absorb the sunlight. Be careful of the thin, blue enameled
containers however. Those are designed to be lightweight for camping
and don’t work as well in solar cooking.
Crocks & Clay Pots - I have picked up a large set of different sized
crockpots over time, mostly from secondhand stores like the Goodwill,
Salvation Amy or Deseret Industries (the DI). I mostly use glass lids with
them retrieved in the same way. I even have one crock that has two glass

lids, one fits a little inside and the other on the top.
Clay and crock pots hold heat pretty well, and tend to cook food very
evenly. They do not hold and transfer the heat quite as well as dutch
ovens, but they also don’t impart any flavor to the food. Plus, you can
easily store leftovers in the same crock in the fridge. I even have one that
fits inside my slow cooker, so that I can continue slow cooking if the sun
goes away from a storm or cloudy day.
Glass - Glass baking dishes like CorningWare®can work well in the Red
Rock Solar Cooker because they allow more direct solar energy into the
food instead of into the pot material. This means your food might cook
faster, with more browning of the food that is exposed. This is a great
container for meatloaf! The glass itself does not retain as much heat as
thick metal or clay, so the heating is less consistent if you have a cloudy
day, or clouds are blocking the sun occasionally throughout the day. On
very sunny days, this works well for small amounts of food to cook pretty
quickly.
Mason Jars - My experiments with using sealed mason jars to cook food
have all worked pretty well, no exploded jars yet. But that’s always a
possibility. Mason jars are designed to work on a vacuum in the jar not
necessarily pressure from inside. The risks of using sealed mason jars are
that they might explode in the cooker, at best making a mess, and at
worst blowing out the glass, which is easily replaced anyway. The real
problem is that when you remove the jar, the sudden change in
temperature can cause it to explode in the hands.
Doing this safely is easy, but limits the amount of pressure. Simply screw
the mason jar on loosely, but tight enough to hold some pressure.
With that in mind, and knowing the risks, I still use mason jars,
especially in the winter. The sealed mason jar works well because it
becomes a pressure cooker. This significantly shortens cooking time, and
the amount of heat (solar energy) that you need.

LIDS
The most important lid is the lid for the Red Rock Solar Cooker. Once
you close the lid on your food, try very hard to keep that lid closed. You
lose valuable and hard to generate heat every time you open it. But that
heat is not what cooks your food. The well-lidded cookware you use is
retaining the heat that cooks your food.
It is assumed that all pots you cook with will have a lid on it. Why?
Because you need to retain the heat inside the pot to cook. Unlike a
traditional oven, the heat that cooks food is not inside the oven, it is
inside the food and the container. You are using the sun to heat the
container and the food directly, not the space within the oven. That’s
why it’s called the Red Rock Solar Cooker, not an oven. So a lid makes
this work. Lids that form a seal are better than lids that are too large for
the pot, they keep the moisture inside the pot.
Like pots and pans, there are three kinds of lids and also two ways of
sealing the lid. Plastic handles on lids will melt and add poisonous gases
to your food. DO NOT use anything with plastic on it, like plastic
handles. In fact don’t use plastic of any kind inside the Red Rock Solar
Cooker, for any reason. Even so called oven safe rubber and plastic,
because direct sunlight works differently than the radiant heat of a
traditional oven.
Metallids are either cast iron or the thin metal you get with normal pots
and pans. The thin metal lids can be good only if they form a nice tight
seal around the top of the pot or pan, and they don’t have any plastic on
them. BUt usually, when I talk about metal lids, I’m talking about cast
iron. They absorb heat, hold and radiate heat well.
Clay or Crock lids are similar to heavy metal lids, they absorb and
radiate heat well, but do not hold the heat very well. They are my least
favorite type of lid, and I only use them when they make a perfect fit on
one of my crockery pieces.
Glass lids are the ones I use the most. I find lids that fit all my other
cookware. They are great because they let the sunlight through to heat

the food directly, and seal in the moisture and heat. They are by far the
best type of lid to use. One of my crockpots even has double glass lids.
STARTING & FINISHING (#1 Greatest Tip!)
This is the number one hint that you can’t find anywhere else. It will
make all the difference for you in actually using the Red Rock Solar
Cooker more frequently, thus saving energy, time, and making your food
better. This is how you get to use the Red Rock Solar Cooker year-round,
not just in the summer.
To save time and energy, not all your cooking has to be done by the sun.
The great part about a solar cooker is that the sun does the cooking for
free. But what if there is not enough sun, or time in the day, to fully cook
your meal? Sometimes clouds move through the sky and sometimes you
put the food in the Red Rock Solar Cooker too late. Or it’s winter and the
sun is less intense at a lower angle and the day is short.
All of your cooking does not have be solar. You can jump start the
cooking by heating things up on a stove before you put it in the cooker.
If I’m cooking two items throughout the day, say lunch and then dinner, I
might have the dutch oven warming up of the stovetop while I’m putting
the food into it. That way, the whole thing goes into the solar oven
already warm or hot and the sun only needs to slow cook it for a couple
hours.
Other times, the sun disappears because of cloud cover or a storm, or
the day just ran out. Or maybe I’m rushed for time. Then I can bring the
container in and put it on the stove or in the oven to finish the cooking.
Just because it did not get completely cooked in the Red Rock Solar
Cooker does not mean it was failure, it simply needs to be finished.
With either method of preheating or finish cooking, I’ve saved energy
and cooking time.

STACKING
You can cook multiple dishes in the Red Rock Solar Cooker, not just one
thing at a time!
This can be done in your kitchen oven as well, but we stack pots and
pans because the solar cooker has decent vertical space but little
horizontal space.
While you can place multiple small pots and pans inside the Red Rock
Solar Cooker at the same time (this is how I often add mason jars), it can
be more efficient to stack the pots and pans.
There are two ways to stack food in the Red Rock Solar Cooker.
You can stack food within the pots, sometimes using foil to separate the
items. I learned this great trick from Stephanie O’Dea’s book “Make it
fast, cook it slow.” But I don’t like to use foil, for various reasons, mostly
it can make food taste “metallic.”
I use combinations of the pots and pans I have gathered for the Red Rock
Solar Cooker. I have different sizes of cast iron pans, dutch ovens, and
crockery.
CHAIRS
Bending over to move the Red Rock Solar Cooker to track the sun can
become a pain in the back. After all, your barbecue grill is not on the
ground, right? So put the Red Rock Solar Cooker on a table, or better yet
a rotating chair.
Yep, a chair! I find old, used office chairs at our local Goodwill stores for
very little money. I can nestle the Red Rock Solar Cooker into the chair
and this allows me to turn the cooker into the sun very easily throughout
the day. It also raises the cooker up so I don’t have to bend over. I also
place a small table next to it. You can also put a turntable on a tabletop.

MOVE IT!
Turning the cooker throughout the day to face the sun can improve
cooking time and keep the internal heat at it’s highest. Contrary to
popular belief, having the sun perfectly lined up to enter the cookbox is
not the most efficient way to heat. You don’t need to turn the Red Rock
Solar Cooker as much as you think you do. In the summer, I turn it about
once an hour. Turning is most effective for when I want to cook
something in the morning, and then cook something else in the
afternoon.
Because the Red Rock Solar Cooker is using the heat of the sun to cook
food in the container, the cooker itself is acting as an insulator to keep
the heat inside and around the outside of the pot as hot as possible. It’s
the pots and pans that contain the cooking, not the cookbox. That means
that as long as the sun is directly on the cookware inside the box, it is
working at maximum efficiency. And if some of that sunlight is hitting
the side, back and bottom of the inside of the cooker, then you are
getting heat built up inside the cookbox too, improving the cooking. That
Angling the Red Rock Solar Cooker can improve solar gain into the
cookbox. The top is cut at an angle to allow sun to enter the cookbox
because the sun is rarely straight up in the sky (unless you are nearer the
equator, which you might be). In northern and southern latitudes, the
sun is at a lower angle, especially in spring, autumn and winter, so we
need to lift the back edge of the box and increase the angle to get more
sun into the cookbox. You can see it inside the box. If there is sunlight
on the front of the inside of the box, it might be tipped forward too
much, but you want to see sunlight hitting as evenly as possible.
Rather than develop some fancy delicate mechanism to lift the back end
of the box that might be unstable, weak, and eventually break over time,
I’ve discovered that a piece of wood works perfectly. Or a brick. Or a
couple rocks. Anything, really. I have a old 2x4 so I can use the 2 inch
side in the summer, and the 4 inch side in the late fall, winter, and early
spring. To increase the angle you can also slide the lifter further forward
by a few inches, not just leaving it at the back edge of the box.

I added a pan to the bottom to be able to adjust the angle of the bottom
of the cookbox to keep the inside level while the outside is angled to the
sun. Just place a piece of wood or something under the pan at the front
edge of the box. In Utah, I always have the solar cooker tilted forward to
get maximum sunlight into the cookbox because we are so far north. I
adjust the angle throughout the year, so I also have to adjust the angle of
the bottom pan inside the cookbox.
LEAVE IT….
Learning how to leave the door of the cooker closed while cooking is an
important lesson. In the middle of a bright, sunny, summer day, this
makes little difference. But at all other times, opening the door lets out
heat that has taken a long time to develop. So leave that door closed as
much as possible. Remember, this is like slow cooking.
THINK AHEAD
This is the real beauty of solar cooking. It can actually change the way
you think, for the better.
You know how they (who the heck are they anyway?) planning ahead
can make you more prosperous? Or maybe you haven’t heard those
reports in the news. Well, they are true. I’ve read many of those research
studies, and I practice meditation. They completely change the way you
see the world and deal with stress. Solar cooking is the art of planning
ahead
But what does this have to do with solar cooking? Because the best way
to solar cook is by preparing the food the night before. If you use the
cooker every day, this replaces cooking dinner in the evening, and takes
less time.
By thinking through recipes and preparing the food in the containers the
night before, then placing everything in the fridge until morning, you
save overall cooking time.

GRILLING & BROWNING
Browning: If you use a glass lid
on the pot inside the Red Rock
Solar Cooker, the food being
exposed directly to the sun will
get browned. And it will also
retain the liquid, so it gets
browned without getting dry. It’s
browning like you’ve never
experienced it, unless you’ve
used a solar cooker. So if you
like browned meat, make sure it is on the top of the food in your pot
with a glass lid.
Grilling: Grilling works with the same principle as browning in the Red
Rock Solar Cooker. Place a wire rack over the top of a pot. The wire rack
can be from a toaster oven, for example. A cast iron pot or pan works
best because they get the hottest in the sun.
Place the food on the rack. The thinner the better.
Cover the food with a glass lid. Because the lid is not sealing the liquid
inside the pot, the liquid drips off into the pot or pan. For vegetables, do
not add liquid to the pot or pan, unless you want your food steamed.
This is a dry cooking technique.
The glass lid concentrates the solar rays and browns the food. This does
not work as fast as a BBQ grill, but on a hot sunny day in the summer, it
can.
What’s really cool is that you can put other food inside the pot, so that
when the grilling is done, you can keep cooking the food in the pot.

WHERE TO GET STUFF
Glass, hardware, paint, and other finishes can easily be found at local
paint stores and hardware stores. The Red Rock Solar Cooker is designed
to be easily maintained and repaired by the owner using commonly
found items.
Pots, pans and jars can be found new at most stores that sell kitchen
items.
The real score is how you can find used items for significantly less
money at places like Salvation Army, Goodwill, Deseret Industries (the
DI), or Savers. These places are goldmines for pots and pans, glass lids,
tables and rotating chairs.

CARE & MAINTENANCE
The Red Rock Solar Cooker is designed to be treated like your backyard
barbecue. So find a great spot outside where there is full sunlight, from
morning to night.
Winterizing: For about three month in winter I cover my solar cooker
with a tarp, or barbecue cover to protect it from weather.
Outer Care: Because you are moving the solar cooker around, you will
most likely chip and scratch the paint over time. Made of outdoor
plywood, the best paint to use is an exterior paint, like you would use on
the outside of your house. You can also use any kind of siding, if you
want to match your house. Brickface looks good and adds insulation to
the solar cooker, as well. Try different things, and don’t be afraid, it can
always be repainted with ease and a small amount of paint.
Glass: The pane of glass on the top door of the solar cooker is a special
kind of glass - tempered or double strength. The size is 15 by 151/2
inches, but measure it yourself to be sure. If the glass breaks you can
easily and affordably replace it by going to a local hardware store or a
chain store like Lowe’s and Home Depot. Measure the size of the glass
and give the dimensions to the person who will cut a new piece.
Squeeze a small amount of caulk around the edges of the glass frame on
the top door of the cooker and place the new glass into the frame. It
should dry in a day and be ready to go.
Inner Care: The inside of the Red Rock Solar Cooker is made of recycled
aluminum flashing from the outer shell of hot water heaters. It will likely
have a strong coat of appliance paint that is covered with zero VOC
black paint. The black paint will get scratched over time as you use
different pots, especially if you use cast iron dutch ovens with legs.
Those legs make pretty good scratches, which is why I recommend using
legless cast iron pots in the “Pots, Pans, & Jars” section of this manual.
I strongly recommend using a exterior zero VOC black paint, flat finish,
to touch up the inside frequently. It eliminates the smell of paint that

won’t get into your food, but seems wrong somehow to add inside your
cooking oven. This paint can be found at all paint stores and hardware
stores.
For some reason, people want to use black spray paint and especially the
high heat black spray paint for barbecues. You can do this, but it is
unnecessary and probably unsafe, because of the high VOC content in
spray paints. You don’t need anything that special, so don’t waste your
money, or your health.
I added a pan to the bottom of the cooker to catch overflowing liquid (I
tend to overfill the pots…). Then I painted it black. You can use an
aluminum foil pan, they are vey affordable, and you can make one fit by
bending it into the shape of the bottom. I suggest painting it black, but
the reflective surface will work well too. It’s nice to be able to remove it
and clean, or just replace it altogether if it gets too dirty. The best part
about adding a pan o the bottom is that you can prop it up under the
front to make the bottom more level as you tip up the back. Just place a
piece of wood or something under the pan at the front edge of the box.
In Utah, I always have the solar cooker tilted forward to get maximum
sunlight into the cookbox because we are so far north. I adjust the angle
throughout the year, so I also have to adjust the angle of the bottom pan
inside the cookbox.
Fasteners, handles and hinges: All the hardware on the cooker can be
found in your local hardware store. If some of the hardware becomes
loose over time, simply tighten it with a screw driver. You can also
replace pieces if you want a different look or size. The plywood is ¼
inch thick, so use short screws to fasten.

RECIPE BOOKS
There are tons of books that can really help you out with solar cooking.
To find them and get them, I have found that the best place to look is
Amazon.com. Search for “solar cooking” and you will get a small list of
books specific for using a solar oven. But the real tip is to search through
the “slow cooking” books, because those recipes are far better and more
diverse. And you don’t have to buy the books, by the way. Once you
find a book you might be interested in, go to your local library, either
online or in person and see if they have it. And if they don’t, they can
most likely get it for you.
Cooking times will vary based on what type of container you use, the
time the food is the sun
Remember that by stacking, you can cook a main dish, side dishes, and
a dessert all at once. That technique is described in the “Tips” section
under “Stacking.”
My favorite books are crock pot cooking books by Stephanie O’Dea.
They are the best because they have great, easy to make recipes, but
mostly because they provide unique instructions for slow cooking in a
crock pot. You can check out her blog at crockpot365.blogspot.com and
I recommend two books; “Make it fast, cook it slow” and “365 slow
coking suppers.” She even includes a recipe for stacking food inside a
crock pot, using foil to separate, to cook an entire meal. So if you only
get one or two books, those are the ones.