off grid cooking part two -side dish cooking items

Re: off grid cooking part two -side dish cooking items

Henry, as I recall you don't want to use gas, correct?

I think you will want to look into many alternative ways of cooking, and depending on your desire to have a huge system, might want to consider a cold breakfast.

While I could and have done most of those items electricly (including pizza!) I have only done them while the sun was shining on my panels. and I currently have 1300 watt array hooked up.

Oatmeal, in the microwave is doable, but somewhat different texture, and a bit more water. I have a west bend 1 gallon slow cooker, that I have rarely used as a slow cooker, but it has a nonstick gridle that runs around 5-600 watts (from recollection) I've made 2 up 4-5 inch pancakes on. I don't even know if I still have this around, I've done most of the things I cooked on this in the foreman grill, and will make eggs in a castiron fry pan over propane.

I guess I might try scrambled eggs in a glass dish in the microwave, other have done this sucsessfully, some eggs a bit of water and a bit of butter, I've never tried it, but at least one of the maintenance workers keeps eggs in the fridge for this. They cook fast and with a good set of batteries and not having taxed the system too much I might try this in the morning, I will at times heat water for hot chocholate in the morning. While I have a large array I currently have a tiny battery bank.( 4-6v Golf Cart (GC) batteries in series)

Cooking beans, non-instant rice, and potatoes, tend to take a good bit of time, during the day, I've cooked rice in the microwave in a special plastic rice cooker It works absolutly great, you might need a little practice, and it acts differently with different microwaves, but makes great rice. I've also used it to make pasta and mac and cheese or tuna-noodle cassarole. It's plastic and I don't know if it leaches and hormone symilar substances, so I've largely quite using it, I could spend this time looking for answer, but I suspect I'll worry now regaurdless, I'll find a glass lid for a glass bowl and try that sometime in the future.

I will and you could explore cooking in a thermos for things that need long cooking times with relativly high heat. I think one of the moderators here suggested this (Bill?). Basically you can preheat the thermos with a cup of hot water (nuked?) then bring your cooking things (beans spices and water?) to a boil for a couple minutes, then throw them into the preheater thermos to cook, they make special thermo pots for this. I'll use a wide mouth thermos I have and I found a deal on a 3 quart coffee thermos pump pot that I'll try for larger meals(hey for $20...)

Soups and stews work well in a small crockpot. Mine runs 80-100 watts on high, after being on high for a while it cycles on and off, and will simmer on medium, all of which happens quicker if you leave a kitchen towel covering the top, mine doesn't seal very well.

I'm working on a half gallon of brunswick stew now;

1each Smoked chicken breast and thigh, boned
most of a lb of pull beef BBQ,
1 large can of stewed tomatoes, diced with liquid,
4-5 new potatoes,
8-10peeled carrot, sliced fine,
1/2lb of corn
1/2 lb of peas
1/2 med onion
a little pepper
1tbsp westchester sauce
1tbls A1

Enough for 3 meals for me, perhaps 6 servings for normal sized people...

Bread machine for bread works for me.

As I have an excess of energy, I've been using a large toaster oven, I actually wish I had gotten the slightly bigger Oyster 1300 watt oven as I spent the $30 I saved on some smaller toaster oven sized pans (these work great)
Once warm it kicks on and off and I run at a wash with the batteries ( I don't think I'm loosing any charge while the sun is out and panels well exposed) I've kept the oven on close to 3 hours at times cooking, a couple pizzas from scratch, bread sticks/pretzels, brownies, cookies, even cobbler, back to back. I can load shift (using power while the sun is out) easily as I typically work 4pm until during the week, I'll make a couple pizzas and eat the last one hot for dinner or a late lunch, and cool then fridge the other for dinner the next day(at work)

To say, I do any of this any time I want, simply is not true, living Off Grid is to think about when you can do these things and live within your ability to generate and store power. for a long baking session, I need a sunny day when I don't have a taxed system (1st day after a long cloudy period,would NOT be a good time, I will need to store most of the energy I produce.)

To be Off Grid and want to cook when ever, you would need a seriously over built system! and to give you a point of reference, this is from someone who just doesn't use much electric and has a very over sized system for most of the year, as I run an AC during the summer months. My forklift battery should get ordered in about a month, perhaps I'll change my tune, we'll see.

As to how many Watthours... No one can tell you, I can tell you, my watt hours used vary with the sun.

Re: off grid cooking part two -side dish cooking items

It's a question of system, if you have a relativly small battery bank, we'll use mine at 24 volts 220 Amp Hours it's not tiny, you want to use likely a 1500 watt hot plate? You could just tell me the cumlative watts used...

Amps x Volts = Watts
or
Amps = Watts / Volts

or 1500/24 = 62.5 Amps at 24 volts

While you might be thinking thats just 22/60 (minutes in and hour)x62.5 Amps=@ 23 AmpHours out of a bank of 220 Amp Hours, your really doing something else.

The battery bank is rated at 220 Amp Hours assuming a complete discharge in no more than 20 hours, a discharge of 60+ amps an hour will completely discharge the battery in less than 4 hours(compared to the 20 hour rate), at this rate the batteries may be completely discharged in less than 2 hours(have a capacity of maybe 100 Amps), this is a great strain on your battery system.

Things get worse believe it or not as with a big load like this the voltage will quickly drop below 24 volts. Making your divider smaller, and we haven't started talking about the inverter only being 88 - 90% efficient so multiply your loss by another 12%...

Now think if your fridge pops on while your doing this, and your not cooking in the dark, so there's at least one light on,...

On the good side likely the hotplate does cycle on and off during that time... but big loads are best run during the day if possible, other wise you will need a huge system...