Instant Pot IP-LUX60 6-in-1 Programmable Pressure Cooker, 6-Quart 1000-Watt

CUSTOMER REVIEW



I eat plain white rice every day and always use a Japanese rice cooker ($150). For years I have wanted to try the famous Japanese "Pressure" rice cooker ($450), but could not bring myself to spend that much on just plain white rice (how good can plain rice be that is worth $450?). I bought this one because it is a pressure rice cooker and could do other dishes like a regular pressure cooker (I figure if the rice coming from this pressure cooker does not taste better than my regular cooker, at least, I can use it as a regular pressure cooker, so no waste here.). The pros of this cooker are:



1. As a regular pressure cooker, it is much better than the conventional stove-top one. Very easy to use. Seals very well, no food smells before you open the lid. Turn off automatically, so if you forget and leave the house before it is done, there will be no explosion.



2. As a pressure rice cooker, this cooker is better than my $150 regular rice cooker. The white rice coming out of this cooker definitely is stickier than that from the regular cooker. It tastes as if you mixed sticky sweet rice into regular white rice. If anyone has tried the $450 Japanese pressure rice cooker (Zojirushi Induction Heating Pressure rice cooker), I still want to know if there is a difference (if there are people willing to spend $450 on a rice cooker, there must be a good reason.).



I would have given this cooker 5 stars if I had not found out the following:



The white rice cooked by this cooker looks grey. It seems that there is something coming off the stainless steel pot. You would not notice it unless you cook something white, like white rice. I have no prior experience on stainless steel pots. I am not sure if the problem is universal to all stainless steel pots. The grey color is annoying, but tasteless. I wonder if it is bad for health....



Updated -7-11-12:

Per suggestion of one viewer of my review, I contacted the company in Canada. Their customer service is excellent. The person who returned my call did some experiments with his Instant Pot cooker as well as a regular Japanese rice cooker using his white rice (a different brand from mine) and found no color difference. He then contacted his factory in China and sent me the following answer:



"All rice cooked with pressure over 70kpa (10psi) appears to be a little grey. This has nothing to do with stainless steel or taflon cooking pot, or bleaching impurities from the pot. Under high powered microscope, the cooked rice has pin holes which make them appears a little grey. The number of pin holes vary by the type of rice. Some rice appears to be more grey than others. To avoid rice being slightly grey, some Japaneses/Korean rice cookers use less than 70kpa pressure. We will also investigate introducing models allows lower pressure for rice cooking. Hope this assures you of the health concern."



I think this addresses my concern, so I have changed my rating to 5 stars.