Originally published at: A better multicooker than the Instant Pot | Boing Boing
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I’ve never had any of the problems you describe with my Instant Pot Ultra 6 qt, and it was under $80.
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I heard it was designed by a couple of people who had worked at Fagor. We had a Fagor before we had even heard of Instant Pot. Fagor went under (probably due to Instant Pot’s popularity). We now own a Zavor and it is great. The only electric pressure cooker our local cooking supply store carries.
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My condolences. I will be shattered when my 6qt IP Duo 2 one day ceases to function.
At least the bit about the silicon gasket might not be a problem per se, rather just how electric pressure cookers work.
Stove top pressure cookers hit 15psi on high and 10psi on low. Electrics, including the Instant pot, hit 10-12psi on high and usually sit around 7 on low.
It’s part of why pressure cooker recipes are all jacked up. Even within their own range Instant pot models all have different max pressures. And that low pressure has been a fundamental design short coming for electrics as long as they’ve existed.
This Zavor model hits 15 psi.
Instant pot made a big stink about announcing a 15 psi model a few years back. And while they seem to have gotten there first, that model seems to be poorly reviewed. It’s also pretty much the same price as this one.
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my instant response was… Yeah… the Ninja Foodi.
cuz, well, it’s been a beast for years now and I don’t miss my instant pot at all… although a bespoke air fryer is superior as an air fryer but i wouldn’t give up the counter space to have both.
I bought one of these instead of an Instant Pot. I’ve yet to fully test it out, but I can say that none of the various settings for rice work worth a darn, which is a big disappointment. It seems slow heating up to pressure, but works fine pressure cooking artichokes. So if it really is faster than Instant Pot in heating up, then the Instant Pot must be very slow indeed.
Nope. lol. I’m literally 1/3 scar tissue from the last time I used a pressure cooker.
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That’s horrible. I’m sorry that happened to you.
If it is ok to ask, what happened? (I ask because the the thing in the OP is my first pressure cooker and I don’t know how much to trust it…)
I’ve got a presto I cook beans in all the time, been wondering how long I’ll be able to keep buying fresh gaskets before I have to join the electronic gang. Taking notes just in case.
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You’ll probably be fine. They’ve been making those things for decades and their popularity is rising, Prestos are among the most common and most recommended brands. Lots of after makers as well.
It’s one of the benefits with stove top cookers. Wide parts availability on any decent brand.
Presto still sells stovetop cookers, and they haven’t changed the gasket specifications for newer models. We have a cooker from the dark ages that will be cooking away long after most of these plastic electric ones have gone to the great plastic pile in the sky.
We also have a rice cooker that we use nearly every day and that cost us $10 in the 1980s. Simple tools last longer.
It’s still a pressure cooker. So while there’s plastic in cladding and handles n shit they tend to be mostly metal. And heavier overall than stove top models.
I know some one with a 30 year old electric pressure cooker still kicking. And they didn’t really exist any further back than that. Apparently it’s the electronics that usually wear out.
A lot of their short comings come out of being based on your 80’s rice cooker, rather than adding a heating element to stove top models.
The kicker that kept me away from electrics was the low pressure. They’re bulky, and less repairable. It’s another appliance on the counter.
But when you get right down to it they just don’t work as well for their primary purpose.
I would expect the LED panel to be the first thing to go.
I mainly don’t like all that plastic. We have plastic appliances (like a blender) from the 60s where the plastic is like new, but the plastics that are used today seem to get brittle or otherwise degrade in hot miost environments, which is not uncommon in kitchens. (My rice cooker is all metal except the switch button and the lid knob; I’ve replaced the latter once with plastic, will use ceramic next time. I predict it to outlive me.)
Long story- mostly user error, and an old style stovetop model. But still, knowing what I look like without skin, I won’t be in the same room with one.
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