CooKit

From Solar Cooking

In Ghana, Zouzugu villagers, like this woman, prevent dracunculiasis and other waterborne diseases by pasteurizing water in CooKits.

1 Construction plans
2 Buying a CooKit
3 Tips and Tricks
4 Audio and video
5 See also
6 External links
7 Photo Gallery

Panel solar cookers are the first solar cookers that are truly affordable to the world’s neediest. In 1994, a volunteer group of engineers and solar cooks associated with Solar Cookers International developed and produced the first “panel” cooker, the CooKit. Elegant and deceptively simple looking, it is an affordable, effective and convenient solar cooker. It requires a dark, covered pot and one plastic bag per day or one high-temperature plastic bag per month. With a few hours of sunshine, the CooKit makes tasty meals for 5-6 people at gentle temperatures, cooking food and preserving nutrients without burning or drying out. Larger families use two or more cookers. The CooKit weighs half a kilogram, folds to the size of a big book for easy transport. CooKits are now produced independently in 25 countries from a wide variety of materials at a wholesale cost of $3-7 US. We expect that the new hand-assembled CooKits will outlast the manufactured CooKits which last for two years.

CooKits complement other cooking methods needed at night and on cloudy days. Coming about twenty years after the first efforts to replace open fires with improved cooking stoves, the CooKit uses no fuel at all. The CooKit is both user-friendly and environmentally friendly. Families can save scarce, expensive fuel for when they cannot solar cook and when economically capable, add other, higher cost cooking improvements such as modern biomass, smoke hoods, biogas, or liquefied petroleum gas.

The CooKit folds to be about the size of a large notebook when not in use.

The value of CooKits is outlined in the following manner:

Addressing fuelwood scarcities:

Solar cooking one meal a day, three times a week has been proven to reduce fuelwood consumption and related smoke by one third.
The CooKit saves more than four times its value in fuelwood each year. With careful use and storage, a CooKit can be used for two years, reducing fuelwood consumption by two tonnes.

Improving health:

The CooKit can pasteurize household drinking water, making it safe to drink.
The solar cooking process is smokeless, reducing respiratory diseases and eye irritation
Solar cooked foods retain vitamins, nutrients and their natural flavors; there is no smoky taste; the foods cook slowly in their own juices. Nutritious, slow-cooking traditional foods (beans, root crops, and some grains) are restored to the family diet
Clean up is easy as the food never burns or sticks to the cooking pot.
Solar cooks frequently report that the money they save on cooking fuel purchases is used to for many essentials, such as extra food, school supplies, and medical care.
Without having to gather wood or dung, breathe smoke, and tend a fire – all associated with traditional cooking – solar cooking is easy and safe for people with AIDS and other illnesses, the elderly, disabled and young orphans.

Tying down a CooKit solar panel cooker so that it can withstand the winds at the Iridimi Refugee Camp

Enhancing household and women’s economic status:

The CooKit represents a new opportunity for women to capitalize on an underserved market and better meet their own cooking energy needs
Solar cooking saves time as there is less need to tend a fire or collect firewood. A person can cook while at work, at the market, or tending crops. Young girls can attend school instead of searching for fuelwood.
Solar energy is free and abundant in many areas of Kenya, providing a safe, clean, healthy supplement to traditional fuels.

Co-developers are Roger Bernard of France and Barbara Kerr of the USA, with work also by Ed Pejack, Jay Campbell, and Bev Blum of Solar Cookers International. Extensive field tests in the USA and in many developing countries confirm its performance, convenience, low cost, acceptance, and adaptability to diverse needs.

[edit] Construction plans

Easy plans for making a CooKit

Plans for making a CooKit exactly as Solar Cookers International manufactures them. Start with a big piece of cardboard about 1m x 1.33m (3'x 4'). Cut and fold as shown. The angles and folds shown are best, but small variations are OK.

Hints:

To make clean straight folds in cardboard, first make a crease along the line with a blunt edge such as a spoon handle, then fold against a firm straight edge.

Make the slots a little too small and narrow so that they fit snugly to hold up the front panel.

Glue aluminum foil on the side that will form the inside surfaces when the oven is set up for cooking.

To set up, lay panel flat with shiny side up. Fold up front and back parts and fit back corners into the slots in front.

You're ready to cook! Put your food into a dark-colored pot. Then place the pot inside a plastic bag (an oven cooking bag will withstand the heat best). Close the open end of the bag and place pot and bag into the center of the cooker.

You will find more detailed plans in Solar Cookers: How to Use, Make and Enjoy (pdf).

[edit] Buying a CooKit

Order a pre-built Cookit from Solar Cookers International.

[edit] Tips and Tricks

	Dr. Steven Jones found that raising the pot on a wire frame improved cooking in a panel cooker.
	Wietske Jongbloed created a simple frame to allow the use of normal plastic bags (instead of heat-resistant oven cooking bags).
	Jose Albano created this frame to protect normal plastic bags (photo shows frame with bag removed).
	Mr. Diasanna of Nigeria had also suggested using a simple wire frame to allow the use of normal plastic bags. Dr Ashok Kundapur has slightly refined the arrangement as shown in the diagram. Here plastic sheeting is supported by wire frame while a transparent cover, made of the same plastic material, makes access to the food very easy. This arrangement can also be used for retained-heat cooking.