Top critical review
2.0 out of 5 starsHeats up slooowly. What is it really good for?
Reviewed in the United States on September 29, 2023
Instant Pot sounds like a great idea. But there's nothing "Instant" about it. It's basically an electric pressure cooker that can double as a crock pot. Its heating element is woefully weak.
When I got it, I read the manual, and then tried it out. I tried bringing 2 cups of water to a boil. The pressure cooking doesn't even start until the boiling point is reached. It took SEVEN minutes to reach boiling. I then tried to boil water in a regular pot with my portable, 120v induction stove. It took TWO minutes. Then I tried with a glass electric teapot. It took 1 minute, 50 seconds. Conclusion: the Instant Pot Ultra 6 qt is painfully slow.
I wrote to Instant Pot customer support and reported the slow boil, asking if my unit was defective. They never responded. I wrote another email asking about recipes, because none are included. They did answer that one.
I returned Instant Pot as defective and bought a regular pressure cooker. With 2 cups of liquid, the pressure cooker is indeed pressure cooking in 2 minutes, even with my plug-in induction stove! That sure beats waiting 7 minutes for Instant Pot to come up to temperature.
My Instant Pot may not have been "defective" but rather "misrepresented"? I strongly suspect that all Instant Pot Ultras heat slowly because the manual states that it may take 10 to 40 minutes for the food to come up to temperature and the pressure cooking to begin.
There are many fancy cycles shown on the display for porridge, rice, soup, yoghurt, etc. But when I actually found some Instant Pot recipes, they rarely use these settings: The recipes just tell you to Pressure Cook for a given amount of time. So what's the purpose of all the fancy settings?
I love gadgets and I thought Instant Pot sounded like a winner. But my experience was that it is nothing more than a slow-to heat-up electric Pressure Cooker. But, I gave it 2 stars because it can double as a crock pot slow cooker, and it is possible to set Instant Pot to delay cooking. So you can theoretically set it up in the morning and come home to a freshly cooked pot of rice, for example.
I made some applesauce yesterday. I used a pressure cooker to prepare 3 lbs of macintosh apples using 1 cup of liquid. It took only 5 minutes to come up to pressure, and then 9 minutes to cook. Using a conventional stove in an open pot, it takes about 30 minutes to prep 3 lbs of apples. What about instant pot? The manual says that it takes "10 to 40 minutes" to come up to pressure!!! That estimate is certainly consistent with my experiments with just 2 cups of water.
Seriously, would I want to wait 20-25 minutes for Instant Pot to come up to pressure, then 9 more for the apples to cook? Then you have to deal with the pressure release, which can take ten minutes if you don't want foam to spurt out of the pressure valve.
My overall recommendation is: if you like kitchen gadgets, you might enjoy tinkering with this one. If you want to really pressure cook, buy a pressure cooker that heats up at a reasonable rate.
