Solar Beans and Bread

We have a heat wave where the temperatures are reaching above 90F every day. I am very thankful for the coolness my geothermal heatpump is providing me. But I hate to tax the system by cooking. Two years ago I made a solar cooker, a simple insulated box with a glass lid and large reflectors on the side. I used it periodically until one night I forgot that I had been cooking granola and left it out over night. The raccoons tipped it over broke the glass and enjoyed my granola. The cooler outside temperatures and the waning daylight hours discouraged me from making immediate repairs that this intense heat has motivated me to do.

I have decided to log my cooking results so that maybe I can start to get a handle on the cooking qwerks and times necessary for a solar cooker. In many ways I imagine using a solar cooker to be similar to an old wood stove in that the heat is not regular or uniform, but without all the ash and smoke. Getting the right results will always be an art form, but if I can add some scientific rigor to it, I might be able to do so with a little more regularity.

Day 1, Pinto beans: 1 ½ cup dry soaked close to two days, cooked in two separate sealed quart jars covered by at least an inch of water from about 10am to 5:30pm. Started cold out of the refrigerator. Ended at 180F after having been in the shade for a bit. Outside temperature reached 98F.

Day 2, Bread: baked in two glass loaf pans that had been pre-heated by the solar cooker. Solar cooker was started warming about 9:30am. Baked bread from 11am to about 2:30pm. Average outside temperature at time of cooking was 96F. Bread cooked from the top down. Inside the pan the bread was very moist. Hard crust on outside. The bread slid down while cooking as the pans were tilted.

Day 2, Refried beans: some of the pinto beans cooked from the previous day were put back in the afternoon sun with chopped onions, green peppers, garlic, and spices in a sealed quart jar. Some water had been drained. The beans and green pepper started out cold from the refrigerator, the onions and garlic room temperature of 80F. The outside temperature reached 100F. They cooked for about 3hrs or less. When we brought them in we decided to add the remaining refrigerated beans and some additional spices. They were cooked on the stove top to remove excess water for twenty minutes.

I was very pleased that the pinto beans cooked soft in the sun. The last time I tried to cook pintos I had to cook them additionally in the house before they were soft enough to eat. Pintos are some of the longest cooking of the beans. I think I could improve cook time by not refrigerating the soaking beans. When beans soak they let off gas. I wonder if I soaked them in a sealed quart jar I could the bean gas possibly add pressure which might reduce cook time. Canning jars are designed to keep pressure out. What kind of jar design would keep pressure in? What is the most gas soaking beans give off? I am wondering if I soak them in a sealed jar the sun, if that would kill bacteria? Do I need to change the water between soaking and cooking?

The top of the bread seemed done after an hour of cooking but the inside was not when it was taken out of the loaf pan. The bread seemed to cook from the top down. Glass loaf pans are great when baking in the oven as they provide an even cooking surface/container. But considering how bread baked in the solar cooker with a very thick crust on top and a very moist bottom, I'm thinking that a thin walled form or no form at all might be better. Cooking on a board might be better too as it would absorb the extra moisture. I've thought about venting the oven to reduce moisture, but then I would also lose heat. And I definitely need to find some way to keep the bread level. The problem is I have to keep adjusting the tilt of the oven to the angle of the sun. One solution is I could limit bread cooking to the time of day when the sun was at it's height, particularly if bread didn't take too long to cook.