Sunflair Mini Portable Solar Oven: Sports & Outdoors

I have been getting into solar cooking lately and bought this mini version to take with me camping. I have found this a great way to heat up items. I really like the compact size of it. Easily fits in the car and I can justify the space used. I have used it to make baked apples, warm up pre cooked or canned foods, and I even put my cold brew coffee in the night before and used the sunrise to warm up my coffee. This did work, it just took a couple hours so not perfect for early risers but if you are going to sleep in worked just as I hoped. Didn’t have to use the stove to make coffee. Just pulled it out of the solar oven. So far the highest temperature I have been able to get it to is 225 degrees. What I plan to do for my next trip is freeze some left overs in round dishes to take with in the cooler. Freezing it round makes it easier to just pop it in the round bowl it comes with. Then I can easily have the solar oven warming it up for lunch or dinner while I am out enjoying my surroundings.It was easy to assemble and seems to be quite sturdy in it’s contraction. Time will tell how sturdy it really is.On a side note when I was using my large American Sun Oven to dehydrate some mushrooms on a whim I threw some in this mini to see what would happen. It worked great! I liked the way they came out even better than the ones in my larger oven. I flipped the mini around so the zipper was on the top and vented out the moisture. Of course you couldn’t use this to make large quantities. But if you just had one or two pieces of fruit that were going bad and you don’t want to pull out your large dehydrator for just one trays worth of food you could easily use the mini. No sense in letting your unused fruit go bad and end up throwing it away when you can easily use the mini to preserve it. And for the cost of it I wanted to make sure I can save as much money as possible as to make it ‘pay for itself’. I put the sliced mushrooms on a small cooling rack I had already and placed that on the black tray that comes with it. This way there are air underneath the fruit as well.My only constructive feedback is that it is pretty expensive. While I have enjoyed it so far it is on the upper range of what I want to spend on ‘toys’ and would be a bigger fan if it wasn’t so expensive. Not the kind of thing you can easily give as a gift in this price range.

(Update: 08/15/20)This solar oven is still working amazingly and still holding up very well. I have recently been using it to disinfect my N95 masks and other filter inserts.Since then, I have come across a Washington Post article highlighting the practice of disinfecting N95’s in a rice cooker for 50 minutes at 212° with no pressure. This solar oven reaches temps just over 225°. With a little fine tuning of its positioning relative to the sun, it can get close to 240° during the summer.So this article, in no uncertain terms, has corroborated what I’ve doing for about a month or so. I will continue to disinfect my masks in this manner but now I wish I had the larger solar oven, as this one can only accommodate 4 N95’s across the oven floor.(Update: 01-07-17)Still works great and the clear plastic cover is still as clear as it was when I first purchased it. No signs of yellowing from repeated use nor any signs of creasing in the clear plastic cover from folding it flat from storage.I did see a question about how it performed in the cold. I’ve never used it in the cold so I decided to see how hot it would get. I’m in Kentucky and it’s currently 16°F with clear skies. I started testing it at 1:45pm, and it took 15 minutes to get to around 150°F.However, it only managed to get up 168°F despite being left out for over 2 hours. Interesting to note, though, is that it was at that temperature even though it sat on top of snow. Moving it to a dry chair did not increase its cooking temperature at all.Probably could only use it in winter to warm up canned goods because at this latitude I’m looking at maybe 4 hours (tops) of good sun. More than likely couldn’t cook anything raw due to low temps and sunlight duration. Others may get hotter temps at lower latitudes and possibly in warmer ambient temperatures. Still 5 stars for me though.(Original review)This is my first solar oven but I was surprised in its abilities. It’s smaller than I thought it would be but it contains everything one needs to cook without constantly monitoring the food.The highest temperature I’ve been able to attain was just above 225 degrees. It heats up fast. I tried to set it inside a sealed car on a sunny day but it didn’t get any hotter. I think the UV rejecting properties of the front windshield had something to do with that.It comes with a solid surface flat trivet that doubles as a baking sheet, albeit small. Also comes with a collapsible silicone pot with lid, small as well, a thermometer, a cooking guide, and a bag to carry everything in.Very light and very portable. Cooked rice and beans just recently during a partly sunny day. We forgot about it hours later and the food was very fresh, still moist and still very hot! Very pleased.

I received the mini Sunflair oven last night. I am no stranger to solar cooking, but have only used home made cookers so far. This one seemed a little small to be efficient, but mostly I wanted the collapsible silicone pot, so…Today at 1:55 pm I threw two eggs (in the shell, no water) in the silicone pot good sun. and set it in the driveway facing the sun. Ambient temperature about 32 degrees, no wind. A little less than 2 hours later, after 2 minor adjustments to face the sun and tilt it forward for the low sun, I decided to check the eggs, with little hope that they were cooked. To my surprise, they were perfectly hard boiled. Not bad for late afternoon in mid-winter. Happy with my purchase, and looking forward to more fun. I’ll probably buy the full sized version soon.Update: if you want higher cooking temperatures, place the pot inside a turkey roasting bag available at any grocery store. This also helps contain the steam coming off the food s theres less condensation on the clear front panel of the cooker. The bag puffs up, helping th keep the clear panel from drooping onto the pot inside. Maybe some of the reviewers who complained about low temps could try this out.Another update: where this thing really shines (pardon the pun) is heating MRE’s and preparing freeze dried meals. MRE’s often contain 2 pouches of food best consumed hot, but only one chemical heater, so I ended up with some leftover pouches and no heaters. I dropped one on the trivet in the sunflair and 30 minutes later it was almost too hot to eat. I think 20 minutes would be enough for a hot meal. Freeze dried meals placed in the silicone pot with cold water and placed in the oven come out more thoroughly hydrated and plenty hot than when using boiling water. Takes 30 minutes to an hour, but worth the wait, especially when you account for the ease of set up and no monitoring necessary. Great for camping during wildfire danger. Still love this thing, though still think it’s too smal for household use. Still want the bigger one…For those having trouble, consider the size. It’s fine for re-heating and very simple cooking on clear days, but beans and othe things will take a looonnngg time. My brother-in-law has the bigger one, but gave up on it because it was “too hot”. I have played with lots of designs of solar cookers, and consider this one a good accessory, not a go-to cooker. Worth the money, but if you are new to solar cooking, get the bigger one, make your own (search for Teong Tan’s designs) or try the All Season Solar Cooker. Also, the temperature inside the pot will be higher than outside the pot, so don’t trust it entirely, check the food temp after a while. There’s a learning curve. It works, but learn how it works.

I am very happy with my Sunflair Mini! My first experiment was hard cooked eggs. No water needed. I cooked them for an hour and fifteen minutes and they were perfect. Today I am baking sweet potatoes. I bought it to take camping in my van but am enjoying using it at home until I hit the road. Great product!

I live in a camper van and this has been a fantastic way to reheat food. Being that it’s winter, I haven’t really tried to do full on cooking with it yet (highest it’s reached so far is 200).For warming up cold food (I have a weird love of hot bananas) / reheating leftovers, this thing is great. While you’d expect it to be a very dry heat, it surprisingly holds quite a bit of moisture in (and I’m in a desert). I rarely eat anything I don’t cook, but I did get to test this once on reheating pizza from the day before and I’m convinced it was actually better than when it was fresh.