Home made hay box or thermal cooker

[@genkiferal7178]

This is better than those using cloth or loose materials, I think -- cleaner and more compact. If it was bigger and had wheels added on the bottom, I guess it might make a decent tiny coffee table or plant stand.

[@oxbowfarm5803]

We have found another very excellent use for a hay box is making stock. Especially meat broths which traditionally are cooked for very long times. We can get the stockpot to boil and then leave it in the haybox for the next 12 hours and it will still be well over140°F/60°C. I like your construction method better, than ours. I am going to rebuild ours more sturdily like your build. Thank you.

[@gaetanproductions]

+Oxbow Farm Thanks for watching and thanks for your comment. These "hay boxes" are amazing, I use it all the time ! Such an easy way to save money and energy.

[@jwwm2]

Beautiful job as always. Thermal cookers are fantastic. The commercial thermal cookers can be expensive, so a home made thermal cooker just makes good sense.

[@gaetanproductions]

Thanks for your comment John. Yes I think every home could benefit from one of these ! And a home made one made from recycled items that cost nothing is even better !

[@pbudinsky1]

Excellent video. Great job on making that hay box!

[@susanp.collins7834]

I made mine specifically to match my GSI Glacier 1 Person Mess Kit. The bottom part - the saucepan part. It works well. I made bean and bacon soup and the flavour was AWESOME.

[@margaretchristinafryde4033]

You can also use polystyrene parcel packing beans to fill the spaces.

[@simpleshoemaking]

my husband receives medication in a big styrofoam box. i'm going to try to use this technique for cooking oatmeal etc. we get these boxes every month..

[@margaretchristinafryde4033]

Spread the word about this cooking method. You can help so many people with all those boxes!

[@fizzedupslade4082]

Very interesting. I'd not heard of this particular method. Thanks for sharing and for practical build solution. Best wishes.

[@gaetanproductions]

Thank you

[@stephencoleman3578]

We cook with a rocket stove and have a thermal bag. In a pressure cooker we bring the rice up to pressure and then place it in the thermal bag. in 15 minutes the rice is perfect. The same for beans but leave them in several hours. But using a rocket stove, the pots are covered with soot and the thermal bag gets really dirty. We find enough prunings in the neighborhood to fuel our rocket stove for free. My wife grew up cooking on an open wood fire and she really loves the rocket stove. It uses 1/4 the fuel, cooks hotter and no smoke except at start up. Between the rocket stove and thermal bag, we only use 1/8th the gas, or in other words a month's gas bill is now what we pay for 8 months. (We only use gas when we just want to heat something up or guests come.)

[@gaetanproductions]

That is fantastic - Way to go ! Would love to see a picture of your setup

[@TaulantRamabaja]

How much of a difference does the pressure cooker make vs using a normal pot? Have you made that comparison?

[@stephencoleman3578]

@@TaulantRamabaja Cooking dry beans normally takes about one hour and a half. Cooking the same beans in a pressure cooker takes less than one half the time to cook.

[@janamiles597]

Id like to know more about the kind of rocket stove you have

[@nikolaguscic5075]

Great idea, thank you for sharing!

[@arth8265]

You can use pressure cooker and just cut boiling time to 5 minutes. It'll also keep temperature better because of valves.

[@ghisjoris4028]

Agree I put my high-pressure pan when it comes under pressure after a few minutes heating into a bedspread and then into a sleeping bag. After four hours and a half I still measure seventy degrees Celsius with my meat thermometer. Great for stews, soups. Also to make yogurt, bring two liters of milk to temperature 45 degrees celsius and add 2 tablespoons of a yoghurt with a living culture and after eight hours I have perfect youghurt. Keep a small jar to use as live yogurt next time.

[@howardsmith8430]

Nicely built. Does it work?

[@susanp.collins7834]

Oh yes! I made a small one specifically to match the saucepan part of my GSI Glacier 1 Person Mess Kit. I made bean and bacon soup. The flavour was AMAZING.

[@ourcatsworld6241]

Can we bake biscuits?? Pls try and tell..

[@genkiferal7178]

another tutorial showed that you can, but you must use a bit less water in the recipe.

[@pheart2381]

@@genkiferal7178 water in a biscuit recipe?

[@bonniefrench9595]

How do you keep the Styrofoam from melting?

[@margaretchristinafryde4033]

I use lots of towels to stand the pot on.

[@susanp.collins7834]

I use a layer of folded heavy duty foil, shiny side up underneath the pot. Its most heat, you see, not enough to actually melt the styrofoam. But I do that anyway. Also extra heat reflection.

[@stealth48nurse]

a rocket stove and this thermal cooker is all one needs

[@gaetanproductions]

totally right !

[@solasasudhakar9181]

Good thank you sir

[@siegfriedc]

Mmmm! je veux bien manger le plat de pattes à la fin de la vidéo ! Très écologique je connaissais déjà, mais je ne l'utilise pas .....pourquoi? .... .... .... Parce qu’il faut la fabriquer et que je n'en prend pas le temps !! comme beaucoup de personnes.... Propose un modèle déjà monté et je serai le premier à en acheter une.... et je pense que d'autres personnes me suivront. et petit conseil, mieux vaut fait que parfait ! PS: vous aimez beaucoup les boites en bois dans la famille non ?! :)

[@gaetanproductions]

Prends le temps d'en faire un, avec ca tu va gagner du temps !!! :)

[@traceygray4956]

A Potnoodle does exactly the same as haybox cooking: save any effort, fuel, eco friendly, ready in around 6 minutes...

[@hazelblair6634]

can wood ash be used as an insulator as i have loads of this from my fire. all so can loose polystyrene beads be used? 1 more question. what did you line the lid with? Thank you for taking the time to make the video.

[@gaetanproductions]

Thanks for watching and for your comment. Wood ash is a good insulation, the only thing is you would have to make it "leak proof" and not have ash leaking... Yes polystyrene beads are fine, again you would need to find a way to contain them, some people have actually used bean bags as thermal cookers ! Polystyrene is inside the lid.

[@elizabethcope1502]

I made my insulation out of a thrift shop wool coat. Wool has excelliant insulation properties. God bless.

[@rebeccaharp8547]

THANK YOU

[@AnoNymous-2013]

one benefit is that this slow cooking method cooks food at a much lower temperature, keep the nutritional values of the food.

[@susanp.collins7834]

Yes, but you have to be careful not to let it sit TOO long and get cool enough to incubate micro-organisms. Don't cook anything longer than 5 hours.

[@AnoNymous-2013]

most past only take 5 to 7 minutes to cook.

[@muserwood]

I saw this technique in a book called "The Solar Boat, and he claimed he cooked whole chickens this way. Have you tried that? Thanks btw.

[@gaetanproductions]

I don't eat chicken so I would not know ! This being said if meat or chicken are submersed in a liquid, like a stew it would work. The thermal mass of the liquid does the cooking.

[@muserwood]

@@gaetanproductions, This works great! I just use a super cheap Styrofoam cooler. I spread a towel in the open cooler, place a 5 inch stone on towel so I don't melt the cooler, boil; food, place pot, with long handle, LOL, water and all, in pot, pull the edges of the towel up and wrap pot, use 2nd towel to finish filling box, close cooler, wrap in larger towel, open a few hours later. Even tough chicken is very tender.

[@josephdupont]

You really don't want a lot of contact with anything... because heat rises you might want to drop the big box over the lid and cover the whole thing a plastic bag.

[@genkiferal7178]

Another video shows the pot being places in an oven bag. or the bag being placed over it to retain moisture.

[@nervousdog1]

:)

[@Ouf-la-la]

REALLY irritating beeping music in background - WHY!!??

[@susanp.collins7834]

Because people won't learn. There are 7 billion people on this planet and if they ALL wrote in the Comments Section that they HATE the music the video makers would STILL include the insane jangling.

[@DW-jb5rz]

You havnt saved time you've just kept it warm, if you know how to cook efficiently ie cook 3 or 4 things at the same time you don't need this as a "time saver"

[@oldtimerlee8820]

You've missed the point of the video. It isn't about saving time. This method of cooking saves fuel, thus saves money when that fuel has to be purchased. This method only needs a small amount of energy at the start of cooking, instead of needing an energy source for the full time needed to complete cooking.

[@baranjan4172]

Nope, you keep stuff warm at lower temps. Anything above 165F and you're cooking.

[@nnu110]

Nope, You can not cook a pot of food in just 10 min, such as a stew or soup. You have to stir and tend to it over the simmering times. Bringing a pot of food to a fast boil and then leaving to cook on it's own in a hay box that requires no more stirring it or monitoring the temperature does save time. But saving energy costs is the big deal here.

[@baranjan4172]

@@nnu110 how about doing this with a pressure cooker? When that boils its 121 C / 250 F. Transferring it into a haybox at that temperature would be even better. Faster cooking, guaranteed results. I'm gonna try soon. Just bought a pressure cooker and made a haybox for it.

[@pheart2381]

It does save time though. I boil a stew 4 minutes,into the hay box and go about my day. It saves time AND fuel. Plus I dont have a burnt pan to scrub!