topic Re: Instant pot as crock pot in Kitchen

Instant pot as crock pot

hick — Mon, 17 Sep 2018 10:59:21 GMT

I have an instant pot that I used as a crock pot. Prior to using it as a crock pot, I bought the glass lid because I like to see what I'm cooking.

I found that using the glass lid slowed down the cooking quite a bit. It took forever to cook frozen meatballs and that was on the "normal" setting.

I noticed on the glass lid, it has a hole to vent steam. Why would you put a hole in the crock pot lid??

Not impressed - I'll stick to the original crock pot and use the instant pot as a pressure cooker.

Re: Instant pot as crock pot

novamc1 — Mon, 17 Sep 2018 12:39:58 GMT

@hick

You can find info on why that hole is in many glass lids these days.

It is present in my relatively new Crock-Pot slow cooker and a few other of my glass-lidded pans made of stainless steel.

This is the only slow cooker I've ever owned that eventually won't have the lid rattling and bouncing after heat and steam builds up or have steamy water bubbling up and out of the pot.

Glass retains heat better than metal and can be subject to thermal shock if it gets overheated, which you can read about on the internet. A hole prevents this excessive heat buildup.

I don't notice that the little hole changes the cooking performance. If it slows it down a little, that's not a bad thing for me, either, because most slow cookers that I have experienced get way too hot for true slow-cooking.

Re: Instant pot as crock pot

hick — Tue, 18 Sep 2018 10:13:59 GMT

Thanks for that information! I did not know that!

Re: Instant pot as crock pot

wagirl — Tue, 18 Sep 2018 14:43:04 GMT

Haven't used mine to slow cook yet---so if you put on the pressure lid, do you lock it in place or just set it on top?

Re: Instant pot as crock pot

Thats Me — Tue, 18 Sep 2018 21:40:28 GMT

You just place it over the body, you don't lock it in place. And you set the lever to "venting" because you don't want pressure to build.

i know it isn't essential but I bought the glass lid on Amazon because I read it was better for slow cooking. But in hindsight I don't know why that should be.