Pressure Cookers - Does anyone here use them?

[maytagbear]

I've said it before here--

Lorna Sass's Pressure Perfect is a truly excellent, delicious, and well-written book. I have read some of the others, but keep going back to Pressure Perfect.

I have three pressure cookers, and use them frequently. Newest one is a 6 quart stovetop Presto.

Lawrence/Maytagbear

 

[zipdang]

My mom gave me a Kuhn-Rikon pressure cooker as a gift a few years ago. If my memory is correct I've only used it to make pot roast and corned beef (which is about once or twice per year at that -- we rarely eat red meat), but for some reason I'm thinking I cooked beans in it once. Repressed false memory, perhaps. Anyway, we do New England Boiled Dinner/corned beef every year around St. Pat's (I'm Scottish-Welsh but like to pretend there's some Irish in me) and the pressure cooker produces perfect results every time, even when starting with a frozen-solid brisket. Had my friend Jon Shinn (jons1077) over for corned beef on Saturday and there wasn't much left over. And the pressure cooker keeps the brisket redder in color than a traditional boil which turns it an unappetizing gray.

The model I have is about 8L I think (~8 quarts?) and has always been large enough for my needs, although I'm not sure if it would be an appropriate pressure cooker for canning. Have always wished to try that but need to research it more first. Would love to know what else to do with the thing considering how well it's worked for the few things it's cooked thus far.

 

[twintubdexter]

I think I told you about the Wolfgang Puck electric PC I recently bought from Overstock...how they sent me a red cooker when I wanted virgin white. I told them I was not happy and that even though they would send me a prepaid return label that it was too much trouble to rebox and send (kind of a lie) and then they returned all my money, apologized and said "just keep it." This was a refurbished unit (box said HSN) and was undistinguishable from new, including all the accessories.

I have 2 other stove top PC's which work fine, but the electric cooker is just great...set time, cooker comes up to pressure, timer starts, then sounds a chime. I originally thought it was defective because there was no noise that's usually associated with stove tops, but the cooker is almost silent which means the liquid doesn't boil away. This thing is fun and easy to use and the cleanup's easy too.

Overstock has these 7qt PC's from time to time from under $50...I "paid" $43 using one of their every-other-day coupons and free shipping. It's really a very cool appliance.

 

[hunter]

canning

Unless you live at sea level please don't can in a pressure cooker UNLESS it is a canner.

Example: I had several conversations with Kuhn Rikon, because they kept telling me their pressure cooker heated to 15 psi. Something about what I was reading in the UK and US sites did not jive, however, so I asked them to please check with their engineering staff in Switzerland.

Good thing I asked. When the two bars on the Kuhn Rikon are just visible, the internal pressure is .8 bar, or just a bit under 12 psi (1 bar = 1 atmosphere). For COOKING there is NO difference; they claim, I think correctly, that most 15 psi COOKERS don't actually go to 15psi.

For canning at my altitude, however, I must have 13 psi for safety.

Had I accepted their assurance on their US site that "when 2 bars are visible it is 15 psi" I would have been heating the jars at too low of a temperature.

To be clear, at no time do they make any SIGNIFICANT claims about canning but report their cookers' characteristics and essentially tell you to make your own decision.

But it was at this point that I realized my All American 22 quart Pressure Canner is what should always be used for canning.

[this post was last edited: 3/20/2012-17:11]

 

[maytagmike]

1955 presto electric pressure cooker

i have this pressure cooker that i bought off flea bay for 20.00 bucks. works like a charm and i use it all the time, for st patty's day I did corn beef and cabbage in 70 minutes, boy was it good.