I've used a stainless steel Presto pressure cooker for years. Mostly for making brown rice. Two cups water, one cup rice. Bringing it up to pressure takes about five minutes. Then it chatters away on the stove, and I constantly have to adjust the burner and hope that I don't burn the rice as the liquid boils off. It's very noisy, and often a little stressful, since often there is a little layer of burned rice on the bottom. Last night I tried my new Kuhn Rikon for the first time, and it's hard to believe how different it is. First, they tell you to use less water, since the precision valve doesn't chatter away the steam, but keeps it all inside. Okay, I follow the instructions and put in 1 1/2 cups of water to one cup brown rice. Then it says to keep the pressure on the lower range, where one red line shows on the little valve that rises up when there's pressure. It also says to bring the liquid up to boiling before putting on the lid, which is different than I had done in my Presto years. Difference 1: With less water, it came up to boiling faster. Difference 2: The Kuhn Rikon has a thick aluminum plate bonded below the stainless steel pot. It must capture and distribute the heat, because my water was boiling in under a minute. Really fast! Difference 3: Almost instant pressure. I put the top on, and being used to my old pressure cooker, I kept the flame on high. Within a few seconds, the pot was up to the first red line -- 8 bars of pressure, and about 15 seconds later was at the second line, 15 bars. I turned down the flame to low, figuring that the pressure would drop. It didn't. It stayed at the second red line. They recommend rice at the first line. So I went to the lowest flame level. Diffference 4: No Steam Loss Means No Heat Loss - Because there isn't a steady escape of hot steam, that means that much less heat must be put in. In my rice case, this meant that the only way to stay at the 8 bar level was to use the intermittent flame setting that one of my burners has. The flame goes on for a few seconds, and then off. That's how little heat was needed! At the steady flame lowest setting, the pot was staying at 15 bars of pressure, instead of the 8 that they recommend. Difference 5 - Silence in the kitchen. No noise. None. (If it does make any noise it is because the pressure has hit the upper limit and steam is being released for safety. Then you really need to turn down the flame.) The pressure valve lets off tiny wisps of steam. That's it. Difference 6: Fast cool down - With my old pressure cooker, there was a ball of hot steam inside the cooker, and you either had to let it all escape in a steamy show, or wait five minutes while it dissipated and continued to cook the food at some unknown rate. With this pot, I took it off the burner (or should I say "candle"), and put it on the granite countertop. I watched as the pressure indicator dropped down. In a minute or two, I opened the pot and the rice was perfect. There was no way it could burn. (Remember, though, that the rice at this point had very little moisture and retained heat. I'm sure bigger dishes will take longer to cool.) Difference 7: Cooking with it feels like driving a BMW, but you save $50,000. If you know someone who likes pressure cooking, this is a great gift that they will really appreciate.
