Bill Worrel's Go-Cooker
Most of us have heard of cooking with gas, but it takes on new meaning with this auto-exhaust cooking technique.
July/August 1982
By the Mother Earth News editors
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FROM TOP: The auto oven installation? from bare bumper to ready-to-go? took under two hours; The mounting bracket... a taster... and a bumper-barbecued feast!
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Most of us have heard of "cooking with gas".But it takes on a whole new meaning with. . .
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Lately, most folks in this country have been concerned with squeezing more miles per gallon from their vehicles, but Bill Worrell—a personable teacher and inventor who hails from Art, Texas—has come up with a way to eke out a few meals per gallon as well.
What Mr. Worrell has designed is—in essence—a cast-aluminum pot that slowly cooks victuals, using only the heat from an internal combustion engine's exhaust. Of course, the food doesn't ever come in con tact with the noxious fumes . . . instead, the hot gas is circulated through a lower chamber while the simmering dinner (or breakfast or lunch) is held safely within the confines of a sealed upper chamber.
Bill calls the appliance—which he sells by mail—a "Go-Cooker" . . . and when he offered to send us a unit to road-test, we were so intrigued by the idea of his contraption that we just had to say yes.
Our Go-Cooker—a sturdy, well-built device about 9 inches high and 12 inches in diameter, with a heavy attached lid—arrived complete with a separate mounting bracket and all the nuts, bolts, and locking washers necessary to secure the auto oven in place. The bracket has eight drilled holes and is designed to fit, or at least be adapted to, nearly any kind of vehicle's rear bumper. We decided to attach the cooker to the back of MOTHER staffer Garry Turpin's Toyota pickup. Within just a few minutes—after boring holes in the bumper to match those in the mounting bracket—we had the hardware firmly attached.
Next, we simply slipped the cooker onto the assembly and secured the two components' flanges together with a pair of heavy duty bolts . . . which, in turn, are held by cotter pins, making it easy to take the oven off and put it on at will.
With our Go-Cooker in place but not yet connected to the exhaust system, we drove to our local muffler shop and had an extension piece—which is also attached with cotter pins for easy removal—custom-fit to connect the existing tailpipe to the entry hole in the oven's lower chamber. Exit openings at the side and bottom of the unit allow exhaust gases to escape.
In our case, this work cost just under $28. However, Mr. Worrell says the price will vary (generally, he claims, it'll be less than we paid) according to the kind of vehicle involved. He also says that although he'd like to include a complete tailpipe connector with his invention, custom installation is necessary because of the many different kinds of exhaust systems in use today.
