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It's a tool. What you get out of it will depend on what you expect of it. What I try to tell people is that Instant Pot is not something that makes food bette
by cdumler 3y ago
It's a tool. What you get out of it will depend on what you expect of it. What I try to tell people is that Instant Pot is not something that makes food better nor does it necessarily cook things faster. When you factor in the time it takes to get up to pressure and the time it takes for it release it, it isn't necessarily faster than normal cooking.
What is does do it take care of itself. In other words, I can throw a bunch of stuff in the pot, configure it for cook time then turn off the heat, set a timer and know that in 45 minutes it will be ready to serve. In a house hold where multitasking is a necessity, that is a huge boon. Finally, one pot to clean up.
- ksaj 3y agoThere is also the pressure cooker option. That's where our household gets the most mileage out of it. Pressure cooking is easy. Instant Pot pressure cooking is automagic.
- koolba 3y agoPressure cooking itself is magical but the InstantPot is like a level one mage casting magical missile. Even the “high pressure” setting is pretty low compared to a real pressure cooker. Thankfully most meals have low HP.
- ksaj 3y agoYes, you might not use it as an industrial broaster, which requires a significant amount of pressure. But for most home use, InstaPot is painless. And the cleanup is really easy.
- chongli 3y agoInstant Pot sold a model called the Max which went up to the full pressure of stovetop pressure cookers. It didn’t sell. The problem is that it took so much longer to reach the highest pressure. The main limitation? North American household 110V 15-amp circuits max out at 1650W (and typical appliances max out around 1350W to leave margin). If we had European 240V circuits we could have an Instant Pot designed for well over 2000W and it wouldn’t be an issue. The same story goes for electric kettles. Alec of Technology Connections [1] went into extensive detail about it! [1] https://youtu.be/_yMMTVVJI4c https://youtu.be/_yMMTVVJI4c
- callalex 3y agoMy instant pot (the “ultra” model) only draws a maximum of 700w. It’s very annoying that they seemingly cheaped out on the heating element, it makes it take way too long to get up to pressure.
- markus92 3y agoYup. I have an EU version, the heating element draws exactly 1000W during the pressurization cycle. It takes pretty much the same time to pressurize as the US version does.
- HarryHirsch 3y agoPressure cooking is magic. Your dhal is reliably done after 30 minutes, even with an old batch of beans. Before, I might have waited 2 hours, and dinner was till not ready because the beans were too old.
- jerf 3y agoFor me, culinarily, it is basically a slow cooker that produces acceptable results, and also isn't necessarily slow either. We do ribs a lot in the instant pot and while I disagree with just about every recipe on the internet and add 10-15 more minutes than they specify, it is still faster than conventional methods because the extra heat does matter. We also use it as a rice cooker a lot; whether or not it is faster it is convenient, and, you know, we have one, which makes it cheaper than buying a dedicated rice cooker.
- codingrightnow 3y agoRegarding the set it and forget it, I can reliably steam to perfection any of the vegetables we regularly eat just by setting the pressure cook time to one minute. I don't have to constantly monitor the firmness, worry about the pot running out of water, or have uneven results. The device is worth it for that alone.