7 ms·

I have an Instant Pot, and love it a lot. But, here is some perhaps relevant anecdata: 1. The original stainless steel removable liner is embossed with nice, l

I have an Instant Pot, and love it a lot. But, here is some perhaps relevant anecdata: 1. The original stainless steel removable liner is embossed with nice, legible capacity levels. Unfortunately, they're way off: the "9 cup" line is actually about 12 cups. (Not a big deal; we just don't use the markings.) 2. I bought the Instant Pot Air Fryer Lid lid add-on, which was supposed to support temperatures of up to 400°F. But, after a lot of testing, I found that it was seriously limited as to the heat it would supply. Basically, the internal temperature never got over 360°F, and in fact after eight minutes of running the heater would turn off and the unit would cool down to 270°F and then maintain that temperature. All the while, the external temperature would happily show 400°F. My guess: they discovered late in the development cycle that the air fryer lid would overheat and kill older Instant Pots. They couldn't fix this after the fact, so they modified the lid firmware to limit the actual temperatures, but keep displaying the desired temperature, hoping users wouldn't notice. (I complained, and they promptly send me a new lid. But, it had the same flaw.) My Amazon review with the details: https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R2D14J5XXHC2GA https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R2D14J5XXHC2GA . (Yes: I may have too much time on my hands...) IMHO, a company which ships clearly flawed products and hopes their customers don't notice is just burning their reputation.

dbg31415 3y ago
While I don't disagree, I think the main reason they failed had to do with spreading themselves too thin. Competing where they had no business competing. When they launched, they made an Instant Pots, and it was a fairly good product, with good marketing. There were other pressure cookers before, but this was beyond easy to use -- and super Instagram and Facebook friendly to share cooking videos. But then they expanded out to... Air Fryers, Coffee Makers, even Air Purifiers... and it's just too much. They weren't going up against old pressure cookers that hadn't really been updated in 40 years, they were going up against established modern brands like Nestle and Keurig, and whoever else. And they never really established a reason for all the different devices to live under that brand... and probably lost quality control (as you said). And yeah, I mean... I got an Instant Pots as a housewarming gift in 2010, and I loved it. So I gave Instant Pots to a bunch of friends as housewarming gifts... and it never seemed like a hit with the people who received it. At one point someone told me, "Thanks, but I already have one..." So I figured I'd replace my old one, and holy hell the quality in like 2017 or so was not good. Like you pointed out the measurements on the sides were not accurate. And every dish I had made in the old Instant Pot didn't cook right in the new one. (Probably because the temps were off.) I was an idiot and tossed the old Instant Pot I had before really trying the new one out... then when the new one sucked I stopped using it all together and never bought another one. Edit... here's a pressure cooker from like 2004. It was such a pain to clean and no matter what I did it splattered steam and liquid all over when it was turned on. Instant Pot was so much easier to use than this thing was. https://www.overstock.com/Home-Garden/Wolfgang-Puck-7.5-qt.-Pressure-Cooker-Refurbished/1181999/product.html https://www.overstock.com/Home-Garden/Wolfgang-Puck-7.5-qt.-...
- CommieBobDole 3y ago
  There's a whole generation of pressure cookers after that thing with electronic controls, presets for different food items, etc, that precede the Instant Pot. I have one that I got for free somewhere that has all of those features. Which was why I wondered what the big deal was when everybody started raving about the Instant Pot. https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/OdoAAOSwPFNkUgOY/s-l1600.jpg https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/OdoAAOSwPFNkUgOY/s-l1600.jpg
  - Scoundreller 3y ago
    imo, it's the standardization that a universal device offers. Perceived or actual. But it's one big variable in preparation removed. I wish everybody on the planet had the same couple of ovens too. Then your recipe for preparing cookies or whatever will have one big variable removed. But because we don't have that, we waste time and energy pre-heating the oven, just to be sure that we're all cooking at the same temperature. And even then, ovens will vary in how they control temperature and grrrrr. Same for soft/hard boiling eggs: the only error-proof way is to boil your water first and stick eggs in there for X minutes and then drench them in cold water. But that's a huge waste of the heat in the heating process. If we all used the same amount of water on top of the same heating source in the same place, we could use that pre-heating process as a part of cooking.
- spacemadness 3y ago
  I’m confused reading these posts about recent Instant Pots being considered low quality. I’ve been using mine every other day for over five years with zero issues whatsoever. Maybe it works too well as I haven’t checked up on the company since.
  - dbg31415 3y ago
    What do you make every day that you can stand to eat for 5 years?! (= The original was good, but the version I got later has issues. Like sone of the button controls stopped working, and the pressure seal leaked and sputtered even when it was “locked” in the close position.
sk0g 3y ago
Maybe the temperature is meant to be "oven equivalent"? Our air fryer goes up to 200C, but at that range it's closer to 250C on convection ovens. Your theory is probably right though, of course.
temp12192021 3y ago
IIRC "cup" refers to the plastic cup (160ml) that comes with the instant pot. EDIT: 1 rice cup is 180ml- meaning it will produce 1 cup of rice when done. https://toirokitchen.com/products/rice-measuring-cup https://toirokitchen.com/products/rice-measuring-cup
- OJFord 3y ago
  I'm not even American (i.e. I don't ordinarily use anything else called a 'cup' (unless playing cricket)) but that seems unreasonably dumb. Of course that will cause confusion? That's surely fraudulent in it's deception or reckless unawareness of its deception? 'Cup' is a crazy unit for a number of reasons, one of them is that there's an Imperial cup, a US cup (customary), and a US cup (legal), and a metric cup, and that they're all different. But an entirely new one on me is that there's an 'Instant Pot cup' that's only roughly ⅔ the size of any of them! By comparison the other difffernces are intellectually annoying but completely inconsequential!
  - temp12192021 3y ago
    It's a "standard" amount for rice cookers- https://www.thespruceeats.com/measuring-rice-for-rice-cookers-1907466 https://www.thespruceeats.com/measuring-rice-for-rice-cooker... 1 rice cup produces 1 cup of rice when cooked
    - OJFord 3y ago
      That says 180ml, so similar but different again? Still dumb either way. Don't call it 'cup', if you must use cups just use ⅔cup? It's like if I invent an 'air fryer' as though that's something new, and then talk about an '18" oven tray' which is actually 6" wide, but in my air fryer line that's the measurement of what we call '18" oven tray'. Who's winning what? How is this good for anyone?
      - ndiddy 3y ago
        It’s fairly standard for cooking appliances. What your coffee maker refers to as a “cup” is also not a cup.
GuB-42 3y ago
It is the same company that sold cheaper soda-lime glass under the name "Pyrex". Pyrex as a brand used to mean "borosilicate glass", a type of glass known for its superior resistance to thermal shock.
- ksherlock 3y ago
  Corning started doing that in the 1980s. Then Pyrex was spun off to Correlle in 1998. Then Correlle merged with InstantPot in 2019.
  - hedora 3y ago
    It’s strange instant pot would burn their brand by being associated with pyrex. Just last week, I was talking to an older person, who commented that she kept somehow shattering her pyrex. I guess an older piece finally broke a few years ago, and she hadn’t heard about it. Anyway, it continues to be a safety hazard. Shame on corning for making the change (without just killing the brand name). My instant pot’s fine though. I dropped the lid from 10 feet on to concrete, and the heat sheild cracked, but it didn’t affect the seal or safety.
Reason077 3y ago
Not familiar with the Instant Pot personally (I have a Sage/Breville Fast Slow Pro pressure cooker, which is pretty great!), but I believe it has a rice cooker function? The “cup” markings are presumably the fill lines for making rice (ie: for 6 rice-cups of rice, add water to the 6 cup mark)? At least, that’s how it works with a regular rice cooker.
NullPrefix 3y ago
Thank you for your service. As a consumer, you not only have rights, but also have responsibilities - if a product is not as advertised, the market needs to know about it and the producer needs to fix it.
jee1shi 3y ago
I believe the line markings is for water when you cook rice. You add 9 cups of rice (perhaps with the plastic cup that comes in the box), then fill it up to the 9 cup line with water. Once cooked, this will produce perfectly cooked rice.

dbg31415 3y ago

While I don't disagree, I think the main reason they failed had to do with spreading themselves too thin. Competing where they had no business competing. When they launched, they made an Instant Pots, and it was a fairly good product, with good marketing. There were other pressure cookers before, but this was beyond easy to use -- and super Instagram and Facebook friendly to share cooking videos. But then they expanded out to... Air Fryers, Coffee Makers, even Air Purifiers... and it's just too much. They weren't going up against old pressure cookers that hadn't really been updated in 40 years, they were going up against established modern brands like Nestle and Keurig, and whoever else. And they never really established a reason for all the different devices to live under that brand... and probably lost quality control (as you said). And yeah, I mean... I got an Instant Pots as a housewarming gift in 2010, and I loved it. So I gave Instant Pots to a bunch of friends as housewarming gifts... and it never seemed like a hit with the people who received it. At one point someone told me, "Thanks, but I already have one..." So I figured I'd replace my old one, and holy hell the quality in like 2017 or so was not good. Like you pointed out the measurements on the sides were not accurate. And every dish I had made in the old Instant Pot didn't cook right in the new one. (Probably because the temps were off.) I was an idiot and tossed the old Instant Pot I had before really trying the new one out... then when the new one sucked I stopped using it all together and never bought another one. Edit... here's a pressure cooker from like 2004. It was such a pain to clean and no matter what I did it splattered steam and liquid all over when it was turned on. Instant Pot was so much easier to use than this thing was. https://www.overstock.com/Home-Garden/Wolfgang-Puck-7.5-qt.-Pressure-Cooker-Refurbished/1181999/product.html https://www.overstock.com/Home-Garden/Wolfgang-Puck-7.5-qt.-...

CommieBobDole 3y ago
There's a whole generation of pressure cookers after that thing with electronic controls, presets for different food items, etc, that precede the Instant Pot. I have one that I got for free somewhere that has all of those features. Which was why I wondered what the big deal was when everybody started raving about the Instant Pot. https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/OdoAAOSwPFNkUgOY/s-l1600.jpg https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/OdoAAOSwPFNkUgOY/s-l1600.jpg
- Scoundreller 3y ago
  imo, it's the standardization that a universal device offers. Perceived or actual. But it's one big variable in preparation removed. I wish everybody on the planet had the same couple of ovens too. Then your recipe for preparing cookies or whatever will have one big variable removed. But because we don't have that, we waste time and energy pre-heating the oven, just to be sure that we're all cooking at the same temperature. And even then, ovens will vary in how they control temperature and grrrrr. Same for soft/hard boiling eggs: the only error-proof way is to boil your water first and stick eggs in there for X minutes and then drench them in cold water. But that's a huge waste of the heat in the heating process. If we all used the same amount of water on top of the same heating source in the same place, we could use that pre-heating process as a part of cooking.
spacemadness 3y ago
I’m confused reading these posts about recent Instant Pots being considered low quality. I’ve been using mine every other day for over five years with zero issues whatsoever. Maybe it works too well as I haven’t checked up on the company since.
- dbg31415 3y ago
  What do you make every day that you can stand to eat for 5 years?! (= The original was good, but the version I got later has issues. Like sone of the button controls stopped working, and the pressure seal leaked and sputtered even when it was “locked” in the close position.

sk0g 3y ago

Maybe the temperature is meant to be "oven equivalent"? Our air fryer goes up to 200C, but at that range it's closer to 250C on convection ovens. Your theory is probably right though, of course.

temp12192021 3y ago

IIRC "cup" refers to the plastic cup (160ml) that comes with the instant pot. EDIT: 1 rice cup is 180ml- meaning it will produce 1 cup of rice when done. https://toirokitchen.com/products/rice-measuring-cup https://toirokitchen.com/products/rice-measuring-cup

OJFord 3y ago
I'm not even American (i.e. I don't ordinarily use anything else called a 'cup' (unless playing cricket)) but that seems unreasonably dumb. Of course that will cause confusion? That's surely fraudulent in it's deception or reckless unawareness of its deception? 'Cup' is a crazy unit for a number of reasons, one of them is that there's an Imperial cup, a US cup (customary), and a US cup (legal), and a metric cup, and that they're all different. But an entirely new one on me is that there's an 'Instant Pot cup' that's only roughly ⅔ the size of any of them! By comparison the other difffernces are intellectually annoying but completely inconsequential!
- temp12192021 3y ago
  It's a "standard" amount for rice cookers- https://www.thespruceeats.com/measuring-rice-for-rice-cookers-1907466 https://www.thespruceeats.com/measuring-rice-for-rice-cooker... 1 rice cup produces 1 cup of rice when cooked
  - OJFord 3y ago
    That says 180ml, so similar but different again? Still dumb either way. Don't call it 'cup', if you must use cups just use ⅔cup? It's like if I invent an 'air fryer' as though that's something new, and then talk about an '18" oven tray' which is actually 6" wide, but in my air fryer line that's the measurement of what we call '18" oven tray'. Who's winning what? How is this good for anyone?
    - ndiddy 3y ago
      It’s fairly standard for cooking appliances. What your coffee maker refers to as a “cup” is also not a cup.

GuB-42 3y ago

It is the same company that sold cheaper soda-lime glass under the name "Pyrex". Pyrex as a brand used to mean "borosilicate glass", a type of glass known for its superior resistance to thermal shock.

ksherlock 3y ago
Corning started doing that in the 1980s. Then Pyrex was spun off to Correlle in 1998. Then Correlle merged with InstantPot in 2019.
- hedora 3y ago
  It’s strange instant pot would burn their brand by being associated with pyrex. Just last week, I was talking to an older person, who commented that she kept somehow shattering her pyrex. I guess an older piece finally broke a few years ago, and she hadn’t heard about it. Anyway, it continues to be a safety hazard. Shame on corning for making the change (without just killing the brand name). My instant pot’s fine though. I dropped the lid from 10 feet on to concrete, and the heat sheild cracked, but it didn’t affect the seal or safety.

Reason077 3y ago

Not familiar with the Instant Pot personally (I have a Sage/Breville Fast Slow Pro pressure cooker, which is pretty great!), but I believe it has a rice cooker function? The “cup” markings are presumably the fill lines for making rice (ie: for 6 rice-cups of rice, add water to the 6 cup mark)? At least, that’s how it works with a regular rice cooker.

NullPrefix 3y ago

Thank you for your service. As a consumer, you not only have rights, but also have responsibilities - if a product is not as advertised, the market needs to know about it and the producer needs to fix it.

jee1shi 3y ago

I believe the line markings is for water when you cook rice. You add 9 cups of rice (perhaps with the plastic cup that comes in the box), then fill it up to the 9 cup line with water. Once cooked, this will produce perfectly cooked rice.