tips and tricks

some alternative cooking pots:

• smoked-glass casserole dishes. pyrex makes a low-cost model available for $5 - $10 in stores in the us.
• rough up glass jars with sandpaper and paint these black.
• cook in gourds with a small sheet of glass for a lid.
• put shiny pots in a brown paper sack.
• paint a shallow cake pan black and fashion a lid from a sheet of black-painted aluminum flashing with its edges folded down.

to allow easy removal of unwanted condensation between the double panes of glass in a wooden cooker, drill one or more holes into the airspace from the side. stop these holes up with corks during normal cooking. to clear condensation between the panes, remove the corks and allow the cooker to heat.

where large cardboard boxes are hard to find, you can glue together small boxes as if they were bricks.

build a cooker with the sides and glazing permanently attached. to open the cooker, lift this assembly off the base upon which the pots are resting.

when cooking uncovered cake or bread, sprinkle cinnamon on top to darken the surface and catch more sun.

in areas where theft might be a problem, attach the lid with hinges and a padlock.

heat dry grain in an sbc before storage to kill off any insect larva or eggs.