I was making ricotta last night using the method where you reach and then maintain temperature undisturbed for 20 minutes to let the curds form. And I think to myself, "Well, that Instant Pot has sucked at everything else so far, but certainly it'll be able to automate this for me, so I don't have to stand at the stove with a thermometer in my hand constantly adjusting the heat."
I mean, this is the main thing, right? The main thing it does? Has a timer and temperature sensors to automate things like this?
Of course not. It has the technical capabilities, supposedly, but the temperature range I needed falls between the only two temperature ranges it is pre-programmed to maintain. So I cannot use it for that.
So let's step back to review the things I expected it to be able to do:
Make rice. It makes rice, but it comes out far too mushy. To make acceptable rice using their preset rice function, I'd need to spend a bunch of time experimenting with the ratios to get it right. Alternately, I might be able to tweak the manual settings to make rice correctly, but then it wouldn't have the fuzzy logic. Then again, if the fuzzy logic aspect were working, my rice shouldn't have come out all mushy.
Make yogurt. The second most common thing I use a multicooker for! This is how the yogurt function worked in my old one: I put the milk in, it brought it up to pasteurization temperature, it beeped, and then began the cooling process to bring it back down to a temperature that wouldn't kill cultures. Once it reached that temperature, it would beep until I added the cultures, and then I would set the culturing time, and it would beep again when it was done.
This is how it works in the Instant Pot: I put the milk in, it brings it up to pasteurization temperatures, it beeps, I TURN OFF THE INSTANT POT, REMOVE THE VESSEL, AND THEN STAND AROUND WITH MY MANUAL THERMOMETER CHECKING THE TEMPERATURE UNTIL IT IS SUFFICIENTLY COOLED. Then, I add the cultures and put it back in the Instant Pot, turn it back on, and start the culturing time.
This is how I make yogurt manually: I bring the milk to pasteurization temperature on the stovetop, then remove it from the stove and stand around with my manual thermometer checking the temperature until it is sufficiently cooled. Then, I add the cultures and put it in the oven with the light on and leave it there for the culturing time.
Point being: The real benefit of an automated yogurt function is the COOLING TIME. It is literally less work to make yogurt manually than to do it in an Instant Pot.
Hold a specified temperature for a specified amount of time, as above. No. Not unless it is specifically pre-programmed to do so. The Instant Pot is not user programmable.
Pressure canning. I don't really have much interest in pressure cooking, because I like to be able to adjust my cooking as I go along instead of just trusting a recipe. I did think maybe I could use it to can small batches of stuff without having to get out my big pressure canner, but no go. Apparently, even the Instant Pot that specifically advertises a canning featurecannot be trusted to be safe.
I also hate that it has an attached power cord. If there is some good, end user reason for this, someone please tell me what that is, because they get in the way a lot, and if they're damaged, they're a lot more difficult to repair.
And now for the difference between me, the superior person, and the people who are always recommending Instant Pots to everyone: I fully understand that different people have different interests and needs. I understand the value in having a combination slow cooker/pressure cooker if you want to be able to follow a recipe and have it ready at a specific time. And that is fine. I think it is great that you have found a tool that works for you.
What is NOT fine is that I saw so many people making blanket recommendations and raving about all the capabilities of the Instant Pot that, when my old multicooker failed, I didn't think twice about buying one. And a lot of those people were specifically hyping up the yogurt feature, so it never occurred to me at all to question whether it automated the most annoying and attention consuming part of the process. If you've never made yogurt before, you probably do think the Instant Pot is somehow making it easier instead of harder. But you also shouldn't be making pronouncements on things you don't know anything about either, so ha ha @ you making Instant Pot yogurt like a sucker.
In conclusion: The Instant Pot sucks, fight me, maybe you suck too, and you're just mad that I'm speaking truth to power, bootlicker.
Modern appliances, a lot of people are saying they're no good. People are flushing ten, fifteen times. Remember the dishwasher? You’d press it, boom! There’d be like an explosion. Five minutes later you open it up, the steam pours out. Now you press it 12 times, women tell me...
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Chained out, like a sitting duck just waiting for the fall _Cage the Elephant
Modern appliances, a lot of people are saying they're no good. People are flushing ten, fifteen times. Remember the dishwasher? You’d press it, boom! There’d be like an explosion. Five minutes later you open it up, the steam pours out. Now you press it 12 times, women tell me...
I laughed harder than I strictly should have.
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Peering from the top of Mount Stupid
So yesterday, I had to start a new batch of yogurt for reasons beyond my control. So I got some store-boughten local yogurt and used it to make a new batch of yogurt.
In addition to the aforementioned issues with the Instant Pot's capabilities, it SCORCHED the yogurt such that I had to carefully scoop out the good parts from the top, and avoid the burned parts from the bottom of the pot.
I never ever had this problem with my previous multi-cooker. From the company that went entirely out of business probably because of the popularity of the Instant Pot. I'm increasingly considering doing this manually, because scorching was the second major thing after the cooling process that attracted me to use a multi-cooker for this as opposed to just doing it by hand.
The Instant Pot is terrible. Good grief. I wish people would stop making it a general purpose recommendation.
I wish people would stop making it a general purpose recommendation.
I will never ever, ever, EVER again make a general purpose recommendation for this "Instant Pot" thing-a-majig.
When I first saw this thread, I thought it was about some kind of "instant weed" you guys bought in a recreational pot shop out there...but clearly, this is something else entirely!
I'm with the brits on appliances. They don't have any. They have cool stoves (costly though they are) that does everything, from baking confection, baking, crock pot, ie they have every appliance known to man installed. Meanwhile, we clutter our counters with instapots, crock pots, gf grills, my husband even has a fricking deep fryer out most of the time. I HATE pesky appliances. Not to mention they're a pain in the ass to clean.
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What are sleeping dreams but so much garbage?~ Glen’s homophobic newsletter
I'm with the brits on appliances. They don't have any.
I suppose that's easy enough when your national dish is tinned spaghetti on toast.
In fairness, Americans love chipped beef on toast, otherwise known as shit on a shingle. I believe it originated when servicemen were deployed overseas, at least according to my dad who served in Viet nam
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What are sleeping dreams but so much garbage?~ Glen’s homophobic newsletter
Neeps are mashed turnips and tatties are mashed potatoes. Scottish words derived by abbreviating 'turneeps' and 'potatties'. Haggis is a sort of spicy sausage (except that it's spherical) made from ground-up sheep meat with grain, onion, suet, ... The skin of a haggis used to be a sheep's stomach, but nowadays, as with most other sausages, an artificial skin is most often used. Most people don't eat the skin anyway - the usual method is to carve through the skin and scoop a portion of the filling out onto a plate: then add the neeps and tatties, with optional other vegetables (I like peas) plus gravy. A typical haggis is the size of a large orange, and is cooked by boiling.
If you've never tried haggis, then you should. It's quite a high class food, as sausages go: probably more healthy than most pork-based sausages and certainly better than the average hot dog filler. Also, delicious.
Neeps are mashed turnips and tatties are mashed potatoes. Scottish words derived by abbreviating 'turneeps' and 'potatties'. Haggis is a sort of spicy sausage (except that it's spherical) made from ground-up sheep meat with grain, onion, suet, ... The skin of a haggis used to be a sheep's stomach, but nowadays, as with most other sausages, an artificial skin is most often used.
If you've never tried haggis, then you should. It's quite a high class food, as sausages go: probably more healthy than most pork based sausages and certainly better than the average hot dog filler. Also, delicious.
Yes, haggis is "the Chieftain o' the puddin' race!" according to Rabbie Burns.
If it had actual sheep meat instead of sheep innards it *might* be edible, but if it's made with heart, liver, lungs, oatmeal, and pepper, it is NOT delicious.
What parts of a pig or cow do you think end up in many delicious hot dogs, pies, sausages, burgers, and so on? Nothing wrong with offal when it's prepared and cooked properly - and it's often tastier than the more glamorous cuts of the animal.
Neeps are mashed turnips and tatties are mashed potatoes. Scottish words derived by abbreviating 'turneeps' and 'potatties'. Haggis is a sort of spicy sausage (except that it's spherical) made from ground-up sheep meat with grain, onion, suet, ... The skin of a haggis used to be a sheep's stomach, but nowadays, as with most other sausages, an artificial skin is most often used. Most people don't eat the skin anyway - the usual method is to carve through the skin and scoop a portion of the filling out onto a plate: then add the neeps and tatties, with optional other vegetables (I like peas) plus gravy. A typical haggis is the size of a large orange, and is cooked by boiling.
If you've never tried haggis, then you should. It's quite a high class food, as sausages go: probably more healthy than most pork-based sausages and certainly better than the average hot dog filler. Also, delicious.
I would definitely eat that. We had an equivalent pork version of haggis, called hogmaw. Pig stomach containing chopped meat, either well salted and peppered ground pork or sausage, with chopped potato and maybe a bit of onion. We did eat the stomach, it would be well browned in an oven by the time everything had cooked and wasn't unpleasant once you got past the idea of it. It was sort of crunchy and just a bit chewy, and it tasted fine.
My grandparents would eat cow tongue and brains but I was never that adventuresome. I mean, when you went to the butcher, it still looked like a giant tongue. Oo
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Chained out, like a sitting duck just waiting for the fall _Cage the Elephant
I found one! There it is, just exactly like that! A hogmaw! Also, chicken livers and hearts, salt and pepper, just fry them in butter. Are those common everywhere?
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Chained out, like a sitting duck just waiting for the fall _Cage the Elephant
Personally, I love my multicooker, it makes my life easier. I don't like spending a lot of time at the stove controlling all the processes there. As for cereals, they always either burn me or turn into porridge, because I can't always control the cooking. So I put all the products in the multicooker, and I go about my business, waiting until everything is ready. This saves a lot of time and nerves.
Maybe multicookers have disadvantages, but I'm sure there are many more advantages, at least for me.
I have this ferment I want to do that requires me to keep it at a specific temperature (135F/57C, like you care), and the instructions say you can do this in an Instant Pot.
THAT IS A LIE. There is no pre-setting that keeps it at that temperature, and as we well know, THE INSTANT POT IS NOT USER PROGRAMMABLE.
Who are all these people shilling Instant Pots all the time? They're everywhere, and the only variation is in the degrees of wrong they are. Why do they do this?
So you remember Sean Spicer's vendetta against Dippin' Dots?
That's going to be me and the Instant Pot. Since I do not have the social medias, though, I'm going to make a bunch of homemade bumperstickers and lawn signs, and maybe paint "The Instant Pot is NOT user programmable" on the garage door. Maybe get one of those programmable (!!!) LED signs.
As God is my witness, you guys.
PS Don't tell Matlock about the bumperstickers. He probably won't notice them for a while.
We tried the instapot thingy a while back. We thought we could let it cook stuff while we were running down the road in the RV, but it seemed to get confused when we stopped and turned off the engine and the power switched from generator to Inverter. The Instapot didn't like that and we had to re-start it after each stop. Major PIA, especially when we spaced that step and found out that our dinner was not cooked, after a long day's drive.
My old fashioned Crock Pot did fine.
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“Logic is a defined process for going wrong with Confidence and certainty.” —CF Kettering
Instant Pot Sucks
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bonny!
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