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Do you sailers out there use them and if so which one do you reccomend? Ive been searching for 12 volt models of electric cookers but am open to suggestions. Thanks,
Laurel
A pressure cooker is a useful tool for all the reasons stated, but there is a learning curve for more delicate foods like fish and non-fibrous vegetables. One mistake people make is to buy a cooker that's too large, which increases the heat-up and cool-down time. Buy one that's the right size, use it regularly at home for a year to get up the curve, and you'll love it on the boat.
The vintage cheapie has a jiggler, but there's also a rubber "plug" in the lid, so if the jiggler gets jammed up, the plug will shoot out before the pot can explode. The new gen-you-whine fancy brand pot has some kind of trick handle that is supposed to blow off steam if there's a problem.
So, tell your wife it is like a Stanley Steamer: Despite everything that Henry Ford said about them, there never was a boiler explosion. Steam has been safe for a long time.
Oil burns and fires from skillets, now that's a very different story.
And i'm told (haven't fact checked it) that in classic Rome, citizens took their food to a local bakery to have it cooked. Dangerous stoves and fireplaces weren't allowed for the hoi polloi.
Placed over the head with a couple wraps of a long sail tie down around your the chin and it makes for a nice helmet in the event Oracle needs last minute crew.
Swung wildly from right to left at the head of a zombie may destroy the brain. I would guess it would be easier on those that have started to decompose. It might take a few swings if my girlfriend was recently bit and turned. She's hard headed.
The single most useful tools In the galley is the pressure cooker. Unless you love going to fill propane tanks. Beans 45 minutes from dry!! Conch in butter sauce , yum. I have a 15;year old tfal and still going strong. Make sure you carry extra seals . I know it’s obvious but it’s also just a regular pot. So once less thing to stow. I make bolognese in it boil pasta , you name it.
Modern ones don’t explode. Plus less time equals less heat in the Caribbean.
I stream is correct learning curve is there but if you undercook just leave the top off and keep boiling . If you over cook , stew it is!
I even made cake and bread in mine when my stove went out and waited 4 mo this for a part.
Good luck
Who's tried one of these new Instant Pots? They run on 110v AC, so they're not as cruiser friendly as a stove top pressure cooker. However, they are fast and unbelievably simple. They start and stop automatically, in the event you're distarcated or unavailable when the timer goes off. No open flame could be considered an advantage. Personally, I do not like having the galley out of eye sight if a burner is on.
These pots are temperature and time controlled pressure cookers. The will do slow cooking too, but I see no advantage to that for a cruiser. You press a button and it will heat to sauté first, if needed. Then throw all your ingredients in, slap on the top and press Stew, Soup, etc. Starts and stops automatically. Of course, manual settings are available, but unlike microwave auto buttons, the instant pots auto settings actually seem to work.
If you do the type of cruising that may run a generator for a single hour here and there to recharge batts or make hot water, it would be a free add on to plug in the pot. Most everything takes 35 mins or less.
We have one. And like it. The big problem for use on a boat is the power requirement. Ours is rated at 1000 watts, so really only usable at the dock or if you have a generator.
Depends on if you are livng at the dock or on a trawler. If your afraid to leave a stove unattended what do you do at home. Buy a couple of cheap timers ! I would be more afraid of wiring than of gas.
For me it’s all about energy anything electric takes twice as much energy because you have charge the batteries then suck em dry.
1000 watts equals 83 amps. How big is your battery bank and how fast can you charge it.
Take a cooking class instead.
The idea of cruising for me anyway, is relaxing! If I take a whole day and do nothing, I’ve won.
So cooking is always fun and something to fill my days , not the rush like back on land.
Also depending where you cruise makes a difference. I’m in the water almost everyday so I eat lots of conch , lobster and whatever else I find. If someone has fresh goat or chicken then roti
Peaceful sailing
That's pretty limited thinking. We run our 8kw generator at least once per day to make ice and hot water for showers. Knocking out a 30 min pressure cooker meal would essential cost nothing.
If your afraid to leave a stove unattended what do you do at home. Buy a couple of cheap timers ! I would be more afraid of wiring than of gas.
It's the open flame that is my concern, which I do not have at home. If I did have a gas cooktop at home, I would never leave that on, when I went outside either. Granted, wiring is the number one cause of boat fires, but an open flame is a danger aboard, no matter how you look at it.
For me it's all about energy anything electric takes twice as much energy because you have charge the batteries then suck em dry.
1000 watts equals 83 amps. How big is your battery bank and how fast can you charge it.
Ok, newbie/self-proclaimed smartass. I will give you one pass and hope you have more constructive contributions, as you settle in. I'm a pretty damn good cook. Not a relevant point to whether this device is effective.
The idea of cruising for me anyway, is relaxing! If I take a whole day and do nothing, I've won.
So cooking is always fun and something to fill my days , not the rush like back on land.
I enjoy cooking as well, but a 3 hour braising is not cooking, it's watching. Knocking that out in 30 mins is great. We're going to give short ribs, then baby backed ribs a shot next.
Also depending where you cruise makes a difference. I'm in the water almost everyday so I eat lots of conch , lobster and whatever else I find. If someone has fresh goat or chicken then roti
Peaceful sailing
Talking about electric pressure cookers not crock pots! Look it up the medium one is 1000 Watts large one is 1200.
But always nice to see another smartass like myself here
8k genset. I get it now. I’m also just a newbie here because of Irma and Maria I’m on land in the states. Never had internet on board. My cooking class comment was meant to be constructive not mean.
I try to not go to the dock. So genset equals fuel no matter what. You must be on a large boat or power boat. My 44 held 90 gals of fuel still had solar panels. I could also see my galley from the cockpit.
While I wouldn’t go to shore , I would certainly lay in the cockpit and read a book while cooking.
I’ve lived on board for 40 years so just trying to pass on some info.
Everyone has their style I’ve just never liked the dock scene. But I don’t really like the land or the U.S. thing either. Once they find all the parts of all the boats and clean up the islands I can go home to the West Indies. I’m just to old to do clean it again. Hugo and marylin were enough
Hard to interpret people’s feelings on this interweb thing.
Burn that fossil fuel and drill baby drill! ( that was me being a smartass).
Have you ever read the van sant book? It’s got some good ideas.
I’m sure your a great cook and a fine person. Hope you have great days on the water.
Cheers capnbh, we’ll get along just fine. Sounds like you’ll have a lot to contribute. Welcome. Our boat is listed in my signature line, a Jeanneau 54DS.
We don’t think of ourselves as live aboards, but we do live aboard 4 days per week from Apr thru Oct, plus a few cruises of a week to three weeks in length. We have a permanent slip, however, we are at anchor nearly every week. We very rarely utilize a transient slip, when away from our own. We carry 110 gallons of fuel and have plans to add more capacity, for offshore passages. We have not yet added solar, but plan to. For now, we run the generator daily to recharge, therefore, electric appliances are not inconvenient.
Sorry to hear about your boat loss. Hope you recover soon.
out here cruising in mexico just fine with my antique 15 year old presto aluminum pressure cooker.
used to have a really pricey stainless steel one but they each last same length of time, so when that beauty was stolen i went to cheapo presto, as i grew up with those. surprisingly durable presto. donot underrate them. momma even used hers for canning.
why pay more .
I enjoy cooking as well, but a 3 hour braising is not cooking, it's watching. Knocking that out in 30 mins is great. We're going to give short ribs, then baby backed ribs a shot next.
Yes on that! Perfecting my pulled pork in the pressure cooker, just about got it right. Bringing back some seccret herbs and spices to give it a go for a New Years party in the tropics.
For the most part, I still like it. However, it really depends on what's inside. If you don't have sufficient liquid to make steam, the pressure valve never closes. Learned that the hard way with some tomato sauce. Burned too.
The second revelation......... for small batches, the pot heated to temperature in a few minutes, so total run time was not significantly longer. When I made a full pot of stew, it took at least 20 mins just to come to temp, then cook for 35-40 more. Not as quick as originally experienced. I suppose that was a few meals at once, so perhaps efficient if you look at it that way, but that requires at least an hour of generator time. Not the end of the world, since it typically runs that long anyway, but not as great.
Several people have reported baking bread in their pressure cooker. I have found some videos of this on Youtube but they are not what I expected so I have some questions.
- Are you just using the pressure cooker as a "vessel" to bake the bread like an oven?
- Are you putting the dough directly into the pressure cooker all by itself?
- Or are you placing another vessel (such as a coffee can) into the pressure cooker on some sort of trivet to avoid direct contact with the bottom of the pressure cooker?
- Are you sealing the pressure cooker and building up pressure or is it vented the entire time?
All bread and cake recipes I used needed a pan that would fit inside the pressure cooker on a rack and at least a small amount of water to get the heat distributed however I have not had one for many years now as the wife is deathly afraid of them.
Some had mentioned concern about explosions however every one I can remember from even 50 years ago had a rubber blow-out plug in the lid aside from the pressure valve.
For acidic foods I would lean away from any unlined aluminum ones so as not to have aluminum leaching into my food. I have pretty much eliminated all raw and non-stick coated aluminum from my like and prefer to stay with stainless or iron as appropriate to the task.
Today though things have cooled down a bit since the pressure cooker bombing at the Boston Marathon but for a while there you did get some scrutiny if you purchased a pressure cooker (even more so if you bought more than one).
I have a new, stainless pressure cooker with the little rocking thingy on the lid. I've never used a pressure cooker so I'm in uncharted territory.
When baking, does the bread/cake bake faster? Do you remember what the times were?
They are still great for other types of cooking where using a wet or steam pressure process is the way to go especially for beans, rice, meats, etc where the pressure helps tenderize and cook through more quickly. Wolfgang Puck sells a small pressure oven that produces a good finish for baked goods while speeding up cook times too that you could run on the genny or bank of batteries and inverter however there is a learning curve and you do have to deal with the space requirements.
Some put the main reason to go with some of the electrics as safety since there is no open flame requiring constant attention however electronics fail and too many fires are caused by thermostats or logic boards failing on small electric appliances. I can cook a full meal in 15 minutes on a stove top while my daughter can spend hours making the same basic meal so many times the best fuel savings is not due to the efficiency of the cookware but rather due to the efficiency of the cook.
We love our pressure cooker because of how quickly it can cook meat (or a whole meal even!). This uses less power and means LESS HEAT inside our boat.
I have even made my own YOGURT in it. Really a great device for boaters.
Cara
"I have even made my own YOGURT in it. Really a great device for boaters"
Especially when you have so many head of cattle on board, that there's no other way to preserve all the excess milk!
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