Heat-Retention Cooking

Please see update information on this topic in the Solar Cooking Archive Wiki.

After food has been heated to cooking temperature, it can be placed into an insulated box where it will continue to cook until it is done. Retained-heat cooking is often introduced along with solar cooking since it further reduces the use of traditional fuels such as firewood, and the use of this method allows much more food to be cooked each day in a solar cooker. This method of cooking is also called fireless cooker, haybox cooking, and wonder box cooking.

• Cooking Fuel Conservation
• Building a Hay Sack Cooker
• Retained Heat Cooking (also in French)
• Efficient Haybox Construction
• Information on Hayboxes
• Heat Retention Cooking vs. Solar Cooking
• A good external resource on this topic is BioEnergy Lists: Haybox, Retained Heat or Fireless Cookers.
• Interview with Mike Bridgwater about his work in combining solar cooker and heat-retention cooking in Tanzania.
• How to make a retained-heat cooker from a cardboard box
• Tanzania 2001 Report