195
The Instant Pot Failed Because It Was a Good Product
(www.theatlantic.com)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 04 Oct 2024
195 points (87.9% liked)
Buy it for Life
4636 readers
3 users here now
A place to share practical, durable and quality made products that are made to last, with an emphasis on upcycled and sustainable products!
Guidelines:
Things that are well-made and durable (even if they won't last a lifetime) are A-Okay!
Unlike that other BIFL place, Home-made and DIY items are encouraged here, as long as some form of instruction is included in the body of the post.
Videos links are not allowed as post titles, but you may use them in a text post.
A limited amount of self-promotion is accepted, IF the item you are selling aligns with this criteria:
- The item must be made with sustainable or recycled materials.
- If electronic in some way, the item must be open-source.
- The item must be user-serviceable (if applicable).
- You cannot be a large corporation.
- The post must be clearly marked with a [Self Promotion] tag in your title.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
Theyre all good until they are bombs, then they're pretty good bombs
So are water heaters and we use those pretty confidently.
Pressure cookers get a bad reputation for safety from the times when they were basically a metal box with a tiny hole in it, but modern cookers have a lot of additional redundancies. Particularly modern ones with timers. It'd take a lot of work to get one of those to go catastrophically. It's more likely to get killed by lighting than by pressure cooker, at least in the US, and as far as I can tell from available stats, and most of the pressure cooker injuries the stats list are from people who got a contact or steam burn, not by explosions.
It's also interesting that people are often afraid of exploding pressure cookers when they think of them as pressure cookers, but you don't get as much anxiety from rice cookers (AKA pressure cooker - but small).
Every dedicated rice cooker I've seen has a permanently open vent. They aren't pressurized.
"Dedicated" is doing a lot of work there. Regardless, they are both a vessel with a small hole where you're heating up a gas. The difference is the pressure cooker has a valve that lets the pressure climb higher before it vents while the rice cooker is only up to whatever pressure builds up due to the vent cap foam filter being narrower than the lid. The old "exploding pressure cooker" thing is about that valve getting blocked, broken or clogged and pressure building indefinitely.
Only that shouldn't happen on modern versions of either because the electric versions of both are using timers and sensors to control the cook. My old-school stovetop cooker still relies on pressure building until the valve hits the pressure I've set and vents the steam, but the electric one I was using before didn't have to vent (at least when used manually, some programs had venting built in), it just went to temp and pressure and stayed there for some time, then released the steam at the end.
But even if my stovetop's valve failed, there is still a safety valve. And even if that failed again, there is a scored area on the lid that is designed to fail first and vent the pressure (although you wouldn't want to be in front of it if that happens).
I'd still default to an instant cooker if I was worried about safety. Not only does it not build up pressure indefinitely in the first place, but it also won't let you open it until it's vented, so you won't open it and get a faceful of pressurized steam. Which, honestly, is the real danger with old manual pressure cookers. Everybody freaks out at anecdotal reports of explosions, but from what I can tell "opened too soon or vented incorrectly, got a burn" seems to be the real scenario you should be concerned about.
Ironically, that can still happen with rice cookers. I've (lightly) burnt myself by popping the lid open while my rice cooker was still hot before.
I have a modern stovetop stainless steel pressure cooker, very common type in Europe. It has three redundant pressure / over pressure relief safety sytems plus a very hard to circumvent locking mechanism that only unlocks at ambient pressure. Instant pot types look interesting, because they expand on the concept, but a major drawback I see is that they are often small (my pressure cooker is 6L) and, basically a dealbreaker for me, the vessel is usually plastic coated, I.e. non/stick. I think I will stick with mine, which coupled with a programmable stovetop induction single heater I own, fulfills part of the features.
Yeah, I am using one of those, mostly because I already had it in the place I moved to and I don't see the need to buy an electric one. It really causes me no anxiety at all to use it in terms of security. It's safe and reliable.
But also, if you're not used to them and you don't know what to buy and how to use them, I see the appeal of a programmable electric thing where you push a button, it stays to a set temp and pressure and it'll automatically vent and tell you to take things out. I had one of those precisely because it was small and fit my kitchen setup, and I used it constantly with no issues.
I agree. I-m an accomplished cook, but I enjoy the almost set and forget that my Thermomix affords me. I am tempted to get an instant pot type and with my smart Microwave have a semi robotized kitchen.
The reason I'm still tempted to go back is my kitchen has three heating elements, not four. I have other tools to complement it, but getting the pressure pot out of there is a signficant gain. Still, lots of money for that, and I'm also short on counter space, so I'm holding off for now.
I got in on the second season of the IP craze. 6L, stainless pot, didn't actually think about the pressure vessel, I'd have to check if it was non-stick. But it does well. I think if I got a decent air fryer 80% of my need for a stove would be negated.
... Boston.
Peripherally it's about our attention spans, too.
...
dark
Also, every rice cooker I've used has had a lid held down by gravity alone. It wouldn't build pressure even if the vent were blocked.