Even though this isn't dull I'll allow it because you're reporting a near miss, which is an important part of safety.
this post was submitted on 11 Dec 2025
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Very much so, and thank you.
Well that doesn’t sound dull at all.
The end result is pretty dull, no scars. Looks like a mild sunburn on oddly specific areas.
Pressure cookers have been blowing up for decades.
When the safety valve did nothing the thing to do was unplug it. My lab uses these pots as autoclaves for the last 6 years with no issues at all 2-3x a day.
Yup, what I should have done.
The old pressure cooker blow ups were typically a dirty valve when food or gunk has gotten clogged. Is instapot the same issue?
Instapots will seal completely once they're making enough steam, and are built incredibly robust. This one blowing up was entirely because the lid was not on correctly (steam escaping out the sides shouldn't be possible).
Just 1st degree burns ... a little tender but not bad.
It sounds like even though you're using a pressure cooker you still didn't go long enough.
Didn't go long enough? I don't understand. What am I missing?
The joke: you said you're only a little tender. Usually pressure cookers are used to get foods very tender but fast. You weren't super tender, ergo not cooked long enough.
Lol... I'm not a smart man...
Thank you for putting the cookies on the lower shelf.
I aim to please!
Glad you knky ended up with minor burns, boiling water is scary stuff! Getting rid of the thing is probably the right call, I'm sure you can work around not having it.
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My mother's story of my great grandmother making split pea soup in a pressure cooker only for it to explode and take off the entire hood range means I avoid pressure everything for my entire life.
She now regrets that story cause it means I only do water bath canning and not pressure canning lol
I just put my pressure cooker on the back deck when I use it. No worries if it blows up back there.
That almost seems worse …… at least on the stove you are off to the side but now I’m picturing leaning down to pick it up and getting a face full of steel lid with a geyser of superheated split pea soup
Nah, I have installed a counter outside. It was originally for my wok burner, but has seen plenty of other uses.
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Americans and their copay. :)
No shit.... Expensive crap.... Like most things here....
I don't exactly understand what went wrong here, and now I'm scared of this happening to me some day.
How was the pressure valve not releasing pressure in either position if the pot was pressurized?
What is a lock-plunger? My Instant Pot's locking mechanism is a physical barrier that prevents the lid from lifting upwards once you rotate the lid 45 degrees clockwise. If you don't engage this locking position the electronics will complain and refuse to start heating.
I'm guessing the pressure release valve must have been clogged (overfilled with soup?), but how was OP able to turn the lid at all while under pressure? It must have taken a lot of strength, unless the there was also an imperfect seal around the lid's gasket, in which case, oof.
Either way, glad there were no serious injuries.
All good questions, I've since looked closely at the InstaPot and everything looks fine. My wife may have over filled it but she isn't sure.
It's about 8 years old and that might be part of it but if a device like this has a shelf life of reliable functionality there should be mechanisms in place to see least notify me if not prevent its use.
My best guess at this point is my wife didn't have the lid on right and for some reason the InstaPot decided it was good enough and went with it and just touching the lid was enough for the pressure to overcome the faulty connection.
Either way it sucks ass.
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Anytime an electric pressure cooker is not performing properly unplug it and leave the room until it has cooled down completely.
This!
This is a user issue, not a failure of the pressure cooker.
No, if the safety systems can fail like that for any reason it is the fault of the pressure cooker. Unless he intentionally broke the safety systems, or one of the systems was already known to be faulty and he continued to use it. It can never be acceptable for safety systems to fail.
Safe procedure is to let the pressure cooker cool down before trying to open it. Especially if the “release valve wasn’t working in any position”.
1000% on the user here
The point of safety is humans are not perfect. They need to prevent our stupidity in cases where we are likely to be stupid. This has long been known as one of those situations where people don't realize the danger and so we need to force the correct procedure. You cannot document/warn about an issue unless you can't do better in other ways.
He said he was trying to further close it, not open it while hot.
But there was no pressure control. If he did seal it further, it would have been a bigger bomb eventually.
A little of both, really. It shouldn’t have steam coming out of the sides and the release valves should release. I have one. It doesn’t seal well unless I push down on the lid for a bit. The float valve never seems to work properly.
That said, if I saw steam coming out of the sides I would just unplug it and step away.
What I should have done. But I wouldn't have this awesome story to share...
Oh and I forgot the winner of the evening was Rosie, one of our dogs. She immediately went to clean up mode...
Have a Rosie on standby. Lesson learned.
😂😂😂
I don't disagree...
Yeah I basically just use mine as a slow cooker and yogurt maker. Probably would have been better for me** to just get a dirt cheap crockpot that could be put on a dimmer.
EDIT: clarified that I wasn't telling OP what they should have done, I was saying what I probably should have done instead of getting an instapot.
Sure, the solution is buy cheaper hardware.
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Based on some of the comments and responses, it sounds like my Instantpot is around the same age. Presumably yours is a similar design/style.
For this to have happened assuming we're using similar models, it means that there were multiple simultaneous failures on the safety mechanisms and at least 1 if not 2 points of human failure. Basically, you won the reverse lottery and that sucks. There's basically no way I could reproduce this on my machine without going to extraordinary lengths like using super glue and who knows what else.
At least you were relatively lucky in the sense that this could have been a much worse disaster and by American healthcare standards, this was on the low end of expensive.
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Glad you're ok!!
I've got a newer instapot and it has a switch at the top the vents extremely well.
I'd vent and relock it in that situation.
If the vent didn't work I'd unplug it and leave it alone for the rest of the day out of paranoia. Too scared of this happening.
Unplugging it and leaving it is the right thing to do for sure.
Was licking your wounds painful, delicious, or both?
🤣🤣🤣
Painful and worth it!
this is my nightmare. also looks like a design problem did they not compensate you?
I doubt there is anything at the end of a journey trying to get that from them. I'm just delighted no one else was hurt.
Oddly coming out of the burn unit it gave me a sense of glee compared to all the other shit that's happened this year. Helped me see it's not at bad which was nice.
My dad worked for a company that made beef flavors and a reactor blew up and took out a 20-foot cinderblock wall. The reactor in this story is a very large pressure cooker and the cause of the explosion was a clogged pressure valve. The guy in the room was okay all things considered. Safety gear kept him safe. The whole place smelled like exploded meat for a long time.
spoiler
I dont want to wake the old man up to confirm but I think the guy in the room with the reactor left an outline on the floor amongst the spatter. Not unlike the acquaintance of Mr. Bean who went back in the apartment for his hat as Mr. Bean was painting his apartment with a gallon of paint and a firecracker.
Anyways glad you're OK and I hope that soup smelled good enough to paint your walls with.
The USCSB has accident investigation videos on youtube with industrial accidents like this. One was a chemical reactor vessel that was upscaled incorrectly from a smaller test sized vessel and it wasn't cooled correctly. Thing took the building out and killed employees.
Wow, that's a wild story I'm glad to know!
And when we came back from the emergency room the smell was delightful and just made me want soup. Some friends made us replacement soup and brought it over yesterday!
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