Safety: (4 out of 5 stars)
Electric pressure cookers as a class, are extremely safe. Unlike stove top pressure cookers that may need intervention when something goes wrong – like forgetting to turn down the heat – electric pressure cookers are able to monitor cooking and act accordingly to remedy any situation themselves.
Here are the safety features of Instant Pot:
1. Primary Safety Release Valve – The valve in the lid will release pressure if the internal pressure exceeds 15.22psi or 105kpa
2. Encapsulated last-resort pressure release – Should the primary pressure regulating valve fail, the excess pressure is released into the body of the unit (between the outer lining and the inner pot).
3. Anti-blockage Vent – Special vent shield that prevents food from blocking it.
4. Locking Lid - Mechanical lock that prevents the lid from being opened when the contents are under pressure – even without electricity.
5. Lid Close Detection- If the lid is not properly closed, pressure cooking will not commence.
6. Temperature Monitor- Monitors the cooking temperature and ensures that it remains in a safe range. Also, should the temperature go beyond a safe range, the sensor turns off the heat.
7. Extreme Temperature and Power protection - A special fuse disconnects power should the temperature raise at a level that could damage the electronics and the cooker try to draw an unusually high level of electricity
Unfortunately, Instant Pot gets a ding for how one of their most important safety features work:
Should the cooker not reach pressure in a per-determined time, the temperature monitor stops heating up the cooker and switches the temperatures to “keep warm”, instead. This is to keep the food from burning. All of this is good.
What we don’t like is what the cook sees during its operation. Instead of being warned that anything is amiss, the cook sees the pressure cooking time counting down just as if pressure cooking were happening normally. It is only after the pressure cooking time is finished, be it five or thirty minutes, that the cook removes the lid (with hungry children or spouses nipping at their heels) to discover the meal under-cooked!
The only way to ensure that the Instant Pot is actually pressure cooking, and not saving your food from burning, is to look at the lid and see if the lock is up indicating internal pressure. Having to check this once the count-down starts turns set-it-and-forget-it to set-it-check-in-about-10-minutes-and-then-forget-it.
Even though this is a negative, it shows how Instant Pot listens to its customers to improve future models. A previous model (IP-CSG) beeped loudly when the pot had not yet reached pressure in the pre-determined time and Instant Pot shared with us that the beeping alarmed the cooks who did not understand why the pot was beeping. We think a clear warning, signal light or message should be considered for future models.
In the meantime, Instant Pot assured me that their next model, will have a more prominent lid lock- essentially turning it into a pressure signal.
More Instant Pot IP-LUX Introduction, please visit: http://en.huarenstore.com/electric-pressure-cooker.html
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