No Charcoal? The SolSource Grill Says No Problem!

Summertime means grilling time, whether it’s at a picnic in the park, at the beach, or in your own backyard. But then grilling requires either charcoal or propane, and unless you’re at your house where everything is stored, you find yourself hauling a bunch of stuff around and it quickly becomes more bother than it’s worth. Also, if you’re using charcoal, you have to make sure it’s cold and disposed of properly, and then you’ve got a mess to deal with before you can put your grill back in your car to go home.

The SolSource Grill says nyet to all that, and instead of requiring expensive propane or messy charcoal, it harnesses the power of the sun to cook your meals to perfection. This is a Kickstarter project right now, but since they still have well over a month to go and are nearly $20,000 over their goal, I feel pretty confident in saying these will be in stores sooner rather than later.

How this works is really perfectly simple: Position the SolSource so the sun hits its reflector. The reflector focuses the sun’s rays directly on your food, and much like little boys burning ants with a magnifying glass, your food is cooked to perfection within minutes. The prototype was tested with nomads in the Himalayas, and it worked perfectly. What this tells me is your picnic is going to be no problem for it whatsoever. You can use it to grill, bake, steam, fry, or boil food, so it’s more versatile than a regular grill. The base holds up to 40 pounds, and is built to withstand storms, wind, snow…even temperatures down to -40F! Of course, it goes without saying (but I’m saying it anyway just in case) that this is an absolutely green method of cooking since it uses no actual fuel.

The plan is for SolSource to start shipping in September, to arrive at your house by early October. All you need to do is pledge $249.00 US or more to guarantee you get one. You can, of course, pledge less than that (it’s a $5.00 minimum, for which you will receive a personalized thank you video by the design team), but since SolSource is expected to retail for $399.00, that savings of $150.00 seems like a pretty sweet deal to me.

Source: Gadget Review