cross-posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/17069345

Because I’ve been eating rice more often I realized via my energy bill that cooking in a pot on an electric plate for 30 minutes consumes massive amounts of electricity. Therefore I’m currently browsing for rice cookers, but the info on energy efficiency leaves much to be desired.

What would be the most efficient method to cook brown rice? Which appliance would be recommendable and ideally be in line with the Buy It For Life philosophy?

  • odium@programming.dev
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    3 days ago

    For lower budgets, stainless steel aroma rice cookers last a really long time. My parents have had the same aroma rice cooker for the past decade and use it everyday (more than once a day on avg). I would find it difficult to tell the difference between it and one that’s only a month old.

    For higher budgets and higher efficiency (because they trap the steam and use the pressure), you can go for a premium japanesee brand like zojurishi or tiger.-

    Yum Asia (Chinese brand) rice cookers are somewhere in between the premium Japanese ones and the low budget aromas.

    While the rice cooker itself is fairly bifl for all these options, the inner pot is not.

    Aroma has stainless steel inner pots which are truly bifl. The east asian brands mostly have Teflon nonstick inner pots which aren’t bifl as the nonstick will start peeling after a few years and you will need to get a replacement inner pot. Tiger and Yum Asia also offer a ceramic inner pot which will last longer than the Teflon, but not as long as the stainless steel.

    With aromas, you need to physically remove the pot once the rice cooker is done or the bottom of your rice will get a bit burnt if you leave it in keep warm mode for too long. The mid and premium end brands won’t burn your rice even if its on keep warm mode for hours.

    Keep warm mode is what rice cookers go into once they finish cooking the rice and give you the rice cooking finished signal.