Please email me so I can send you a tip about setting up your new slow
cooker. There are ways to make it into more than it is.

Alex

"Chemiker" > wrote in message
...
> Please email me so I can send you a tip about setting up your new slow
> cooker. There are ways to make it into more than it is.
>
> Alex

well, share!

On Mon, 22 Mar 2010 18:31:18 -0700, "Wallace"
> wrote:

>
>"Chemiker" > wrote in message
.. .
>> Please email me so I can send you a tip about setting up your new slow
>> cooker. There are ways to make it into more than it is.
>>
>> Alex
>
>well, share!
>


'Kay.

Different brands of cookers have their own properties in terms of
temperature and rate of induction. LOW on machine 1 does not equate to
LOW on machine 2. LOW is typically in the 160-170 dF range. HIGH is
somewhere in the neighborhood of 195 dF. Give or take.

Time to get to the designated tamperature also varies. To understand
your own unit, it is wise to start from standard water (room temp, or
whatever you choose) and plot the increase in temperature over time by
using a digital or quick-read thermometer. In my experience, checking
every 15 minutes is enough to do the job. You may find that in YOUR
cooker, it does take itself to 165 dF on low, but it takes 90 minutes
to get there. Another may take only 62 minutes, but it stabilizes at
160 or less.

There is tremendous variation among brands, as these things are
supposed to be idiot-proof. Yet they are good tools for their
purposes. I merely suggest that knowing what *your* cooker will do
helps you to understand why somem dishes tuen out well and others do
not.

For more understanding about temperature and slow cooking, check out
sous vide cookery, which is absolutely manic about even 1-2 degrees
variation versus cooking time.

Questions accepted. Answers not guaranteed.

Alex, who has 5 slow cookers.

BTW: SLow cooking mimics the heat of wood stoves and French daubieres,
examples of which are visible on ASK or Google or Dogpile. It is NOT a
simple marketing ploy for an piece of junk, but a sophisticated
cooking vessel capable of great things. When Rival "inventd" the
CrockPot, they merely updated the daubiere.

The slow cooker is one of the most maligned and yet the most
misunderstood cooking vessel we Americans have. It is, in fact,
terribly sophisticated and capable of producing true gourmet viands.

HTH,

Alex