Cooking Vegtable Beef Stew & Brown Rice

The clouds thickened up from 1:30 to about 4:00 pm. So the rice was under cooked just a bit.

Sourdough & Better Oven Furniture

I have started some Sourdough Starter
And a short clip tweeking the oven furniture.


I like looking into the bonnets of these things.

Saturday July 25th Tweeking & Cooking.

Tweeking



Cooking



This was the largest amount of food by far that I have tried to cook. Our brisket was 14 lbs.
In all, nearly 30 lbs. of food and the associated water that goes with it. ( I had a gallon of water to cook the corn. That's 8.6 lbs, plus 10 apples, 18 ears of corn , plus maybe 2 lbs of peas with their water. )

Tomorrow's menu at The Maria Telkes :

10 lb. brisket
Boiled corn on the cob
Purple eye peas with peppers, garlic, and onions.
Super thin corn bread with peppers
Baked apples with brown sugar & cinnamon
And iced spearmint lime aid.

And here's the logo , it's going on the back of the bonnet. Along with the screen names, or first names of all the people who helped me build is " red pepper " .

Cooking

Back to Back Days of 400 Plus Temps

415 F yesterday, 405 F today .

The first firing was 305 F , these improvements from that number are all due to me fixing bad design work and poor craftsmanship. There's another 70 degrees there in that puzzle pile, yet to capture.
Lots of clips of all this, but life has been hard lately , and I've been away from my Mac.

Remember one thing, Maria Telkes took her oven to 437 F 50 years ago.

Everything else has just been making pizza boxes into something useful.

This thing is like owning a Double A Fuel Dragster.
A couple of " tweeks " , and this thing stands up, and runs like a bat out of hell.

Tony & Larry Take " The Maria Telkes " to 335

Sorry no clip , I cleaned up my mess today, and made most of my " corn pan ".
It's a 16 X 24 X 6 inch box. With a fancy lid.
You'll see it tomorrow. We're cooking tomorrow. Ceremonial corn bread all day long.
I have chosen a name for my oven . The Maria Telkes. I decided on a ship name. Not a machine name.
I love to give machines names. So from now on, she's called " The Maria Telkes ".
There's a bit of "seamanship" in running her.

RECORD EVENT REPORT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE LUBBOCK, TX
212 PM CDT THU JUL 9 2009

...RECORD HIGH TEMPERATURE TIED AT LUBBOCK...

AT 159 PM CDT...THE TEMPERATURE REACHED 107 DEGREES AT LUBBOCK/S
PRESTON SMITH INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT. THIS TIES THE DAILY RECORD HIGH
TEMPERATURE ORIGINALLY SET IN 1940.



My friends, running much better instruments, made 335 in the Maria Telkes today .

First Sun Shot - 305 for 4 Hours

305 , that number is about to go up by another 100 degrees . There are several adjustments yet to be made. Bringing the reflector bonnet into it's correct angles. I did this with one side yesterday during the first sun shot, and saw a 20 degree jump. There is a door gasket leak , to fix, lot's of dialing it in so to speak. Baking the first ceremonial corn bread tomorrow.

It was 106 here yesterday , a new record for the date.

It Is Done, Tomorow We Point It At The Sun

The taping of the reflector edges, the glass install , final assembly. To all the friends who made this possible , many thanks.

Now the forecast at Lubbock for tomorrow, er a today -

" Wednesday: Sunny and hot, with a high near 103. South southwest wind between 10 and 15 mph. "

I'll be at 500 degrees by 11 A. M. folks.

Application of the Reflective Film

I got 3 of the 4 reflector panels coated . Challenging work. Not hard , but challenging.

The glass comes in today. If that happens, we'll point it at the sun for the first time tomorrow morning.
I feel like a little kid waiting for the " Solar Santa " to arrive.

Door Install & Prep for Film Application

Building the Door

9 1/2 hours today. But the door is ready to hang.
And it is pretty clean. All my mistakes in fabrication came together in the door, and the hole it fits into. But it will be tight, and it will close. That was a big leap. And I think I cleared it.

New Goggles & Gasket Install

This the 39th clip in the series. Wow, I can't believe I'm nearly done.

Nearly Finished Making the Bonnet

I hope to apply the film to the inside of the Bonnet this weekend.

July 1st Putting Bows on the Bonnet

I bought some goggles to cook with :


I also ordered the glass 2 - 3/16 clear tempered 24 /12" X 27 1/2". And a snafu this morning, I learned, the door gasket was only shipped today.

Day 30

Just about solved the problem of how to keep an 8-ft. high "Bonnet" on the oven in the wind.
No small problem the past 2 days. This thing is huge. I really like standing next to it , it's what I call "man sized". 1 guy can manage it. It's been a design rule of mine for a very long time.

Still waiting on the oven gasket to finish out the door.