I picked up the subject cooker (shown below) for a few bucks a while back at Savers. When I ran some initial eggless tests, it seemed to shut off too soon -- before all water had boiled off. Fred (Robert's husband) suggested turning the small adjusting screw on the bottom. I gave it 1/4 turn clockwise and ran another test without eggs, using the measurement specified inside the cooker for hard cooked. Time elapsed from switching the cooker on to automatic shut-off (steaming stopped and all water boiled off) was between 12 and 13 minutes, which seemed about right, allowing for a couple of minutes of warm-up.
That was until I read some instructions I found on line for a later Sunbeam cooker that looked almost identical, but generates an audible signal upon shutoff. In those instructions, cycle times given for hard cooked are as long as 19 minutes, depending on number and size of eggs and whether they are at room temperature or have been refrigerated. The original instruction leaflet that would have been included with my cooker when new doesn't provide cooking times and instead touts perfectly cooked eggs through the magic of automation.
Can any owners of this (older) type of egg cooker advise on average/approximate cooking times for hard cooked and the various stages of soft cooked? Do you find yourself using slightly more water than the measurements call for? Does operating the cooker without eggs skew the elapsed time results that much? It seems to me that the water would boil off in the same amount of time either way since the eggs aren't in contact with the water, or is the cooker smart enough to know the difference?
Is trial & error using eggs in the cooker the only real way to run tests?
That was until I read some instructions I found on line for a later Sunbeam cooker that looked almost identical, but generates an audible signal upon shutoff. In those instructions, cycle times given for hard cooked are as long as 19 minutes, depending on number and size of eggs and whether they are at room temperature or have been refrigerated. The original instruction leaflet that would have been included with my cooker when new doesn't provide cooking times and instead touts perfectly cooked eggs through the magic of automation.
Can any owners of this (older) type of egg cooker advise on average/approximate cooking times for hard cooked and the various stages of soft cooked? Do you find yourself using slightly more water than the measurements call for? Does operating the cooker without eggs skew the elapsed time results that much? It seems to me that the water would boil off in the same amount of time either way since the eggs aren't in contact with the water, or is the cooker smart enough to know the difference?
Is trial & error using eggs in the cooker the only real way to run tests?
