Hamilton Beach 33182A Slow Cooker, 8-Quart
CUSTOMER REVIEW
I just received my new unit. We are using it for the first time right now. This report is to note details of purchase and first use.
1: It was packaged good enough to survive UPS undamaged: Great job Amazon!
2: Directions for use (the instructions pages), are few and nearly usless. Since they have to put them into French & Spanish as well as English, I guess they wanted to keep it VERY short.
3: It does not say this in the listing, but it has about a 24 inch cord. This keeps their costs down: if the cord was any longer the cord would probably not be heavy enough for the load?
4: It LOOKs great! I love the features of the well made see through top, the removable cooking dish, and the keep warm setting. Nice too that there are NO electronics to screw up: electronics hate heat and moisture..... which this would provide in spades of course.
5: It does have the wire lid holder on the back, but it does NOT have a seal, a stretch lid latch, nor an indicator lamp on the front to say that it is turned on or not. I guess all of those items (except the indicator lamp) must be bought separately.
6: I saw several listed "8 Qt Pots" where people were very disappointed that they were not 8 Qt at, all but barely made a 7 Qt at best. This unit IS an 8 Qt up to the top lid edge......and if you needed a large one, you will love it's size! Real life use? (NOTES: You never want fill any pot to the very top edge, it will obviously boil over and make a MESS! So,....so make it a solid 7.5 qt? :-)) It is still a BIG pot.
Now that I have this, and assuming that it does cook as well as others have said it would, would I buy it again? Absolutely! Enjoy!
UPDATE on 03 Nov.2012: We have very much enjoyed using this cooker: It works very well. One thing I did not count on was how heavy the removable washable interior cook pot really is. I had no problem with it, but today, my wife just could not hang on and broke it: it gets very slippery when ever it is wet or soapy! A new pot is $25 + shipping= cost new. So, the only way to go is just buy another new one I guess. I looked around carefully, and anything from 5.5 qt up through 8.5 qt show a solid serious weight of 15 to 20#, so the pot is going to be "heavy" in all of them. I am so glad I did not buy a $100+ type priced unit, at this rate of 1 per 13 months..... that could get expensive. (humor)