What’s the best BIFL electric pressure cooker?
I mostly need something that’ll cook beans fast (with pressure). I want something electric with lots of (pressure-related) safety features. I figured if I got a multicooker, then I could also make yogurt; specifically I want the ability to set the temperature myself (not just “high, med, or low” – but the specific granular number of degrees in Celsius, including low temps down in the 30s)
I’ve read good things about Instant Pot, but I’ve also read some people say they broke after some years. That’s expected for some percent of devices, but the big red flag was that I couldn’t find any place on their site to buy replacement parts. They had a video describing the different components, but it was 40 seconds of trash – no info on how to replace the PCB or troubleshoot other common hardware issues to actually repair this thing. So it didn’t seem very BIFL…
I’m wondering if there’s any commercial-grade alternatives to Instant Pot, which really are BIFL. Something in the thousands of dollars, not hundreds (I’d also be willing to pay more for one that has better sensors for cooking rice – and elimination of stupid fads like radio-control-by-app). Something where they offer very few models and lots of standardized parts – where those parts are clearly purchasable on their website, and they have comprehensive guides on how to fix and replace parts that fail after 10 years.
What’s the best commercial-grade BIFL electric multi cooker?
As others said, only a stovetop pressure cooker will be BIFL. All the self-powered ones have far too many points of failure - electronic controls, electrical power, mechanical parts, the silicone gaskets. You can eliminate half of that with a stovetop one.
Some induction cooktops can go down to 40 C for melting chocolate, I don’t know if that’s good enough for yogurt. Bread proofing settings on ovens are usually around 30C.
For cooking beans, rye groats and other hours-long jobs I’ve found Heat Retention Cooking (sometimes tautologically called “Thermal Cooking”) works well - get what you are cooking up to a high temperature, then turn the power off and put the whole pot inside a larger, insulated one to retain the heat until it is done. A system like the Wonderbag can be DIYed by wrapping your inner pot with a couple of silicone baking mats then putting it in an insulating box/bag.