It seems that flame tamers are primarily for gas stoves. Would you recommend one for a stove like mine? If so - what brand?
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titan4 |
Flame Tamer - question |
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I have a Kuhn Rikon 7L top model pressure cooker and it does not quite get along with my electric stove for some recipes. No matter what I seem to try I still
scorch chili, Beefy Cheesy Mexi-Melt, etc. I have a glass top electric stove that is unlike most conventional electric stoves with the coiled elements in that
it appears to only have two actual cooking modes - On or OFF. The old style coiled elements were normally controlled by varying the amount of electricity
flowing through the resistive elements, so this allowed you to have great control over cooking temperature. My glass top electric stove either has the element
on or off at any given time. If you put it to HIGH it merely leaves the element ON for longer periods of time while it cycles on and off to maintain
temperature. Putting it to a lower temp apparently will still bring the elements up to the same glowing temperature, but it will be on for a shorter amount of
time. Knowing this I try to take this into account when I cook these scorchable foods in my Kuhn Rikon. My stove also allows me to use a small element
footprint or a large element footprint the two front positions. I have tried both modes and the scorching continues. I have tried to bring the pressure
cooker up to pressure by utilizing medium heat only, but the food still scorches. I have tried to periodically pick the pressure cooker up while it is coming
up to pressure and swirling the liquid around in an effort to stir it without removing the lid. No matter what I try the scorching continues.
It seems that flame tamers are primarily for gas stoves. Would you recommend one for a stove like mine? If so - what brand?
Last Edited By: titan4 03/25/09 10:54:00.
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emazingrace |
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titan4, I apologize for not responding sooner. This is a problem with the stove, and something that is likely to be a problem with other types of cooking as
well [trying to maintain frying temperature, for instance, or keeping food at a low simmer]. Do you suppose it is not functioning properly? I suggest you
contact the maker of the stove, describe the problem, and ask 1, if this is normal, and if so 2. ask if a flame tamer may be used. I have seen flame tamers for
electric [coil-type] burners, but I understand that they do not work on all kinds of electric cooktops.
Your Signature ... "The pressure's on...let's cook something!"
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titan4 |
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Thank you emazingrace.
The stove is only a couple of years old and this is the way it has always worked for all burners. As an electrical engineer I am convinced it is working properly. I am also convinced that its method of regulating temperature is ok for most applications, but not for pressure cooking certain foods. I say certain foods, because it really depends on what is in the pressure cooker. It seems that only the thick saucy type items are the ones that are likely to burn with this kind of temperature regulation. The cheesecakes, pot roasts, corned beef, etc. cook just fine for me. In theory a flame tamer would seem to be the answer, because it will store and dissipate heat more uniformly. I will give one a try and report back with my results. I may do some research on today's stoves so we can all understand their different methods of regulating temperature. |
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emazingrace |
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Titan4, I am interested in how you make out with the flame tamer, especially with the type cooktop you have. In regards to pressure cooking thicker sauces, you might need to add some additional thin liquid, such as wine, broth, beer, water, juice or even soda, in order to generate adequate steam without scorching. Miss Vickie suggests layering the thin liquid at the bottom, then ingredients, then the thicker saucy type ingredients at the top. Or, you might also bring the ingredients to the boil and giving it a good stir before putting on the lid. This will reduce the time it has to sit on the concentrated high heat before coming to pressure. Please share the results of your research when it is complete.
Your Signature ... "The pressure's on...let's cook something!"
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Miss Vickie Pressure Cooker Recipes |
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In theory a flame tamer would seem to be the answer...
Like Grace said, I've never heard of an electric stove that only had an ON or OFF option, so I don't know how to advise you. I grew up using
electric stoves, and my mother used them her entire life, but they all had knobs that corresponded to the different heat adjustments. Some only had low,
medium, high, but I remember others that had numbers that offered several more settings.
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titan4 |
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Here is the heat diffuser I ordered:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0001ZI01A It says that it is for gas and electric stoves. I shopped around until I found one that claimed to work on electric stoves. Decent reviews too. Let me clarify on what I mean by ON and OFF in terms of the electric stove heating elements. I too grew up with the standard heating coils that graced all electric stoves back in the day and even many today. Those stoves - as well as the glass top stoves - do have temperature controls that generally range from LOW to HIGH with complete variability in between. The difference though is that the old coiled elements had a varying amount of electricity running through them whereas some of the new glass top stove elements do not. In the old coiled elements you could put it on LOW and the element would not glow, because there was not much electricity flowing through it. It would still be warm, but not to the point of glowing. Turn it up little by little and you will notice that it starts to glow a little bit. Turn it up to HIGH and you see it glowing brightly. You basically throttled the old coiled elements much like you throttle your sink faucett to either flow a little water or a lot of water. Some of the new glass top stoves do not give you this throttling capability per se. You can put a new stove on LOW and you will see the element through the glass glow orange, but it will not stay glowing for very long. It will cycle on and off as required to keep the burner at a low temperature. Each time it cycles on it is flowing maximum electricity. Turn it up to HIGH and it will still glow orange, but it will stay orange for a longer amount of time. It will still cycle on and off, but it will stay glowing longer in the HIGH position than it will in the LOW position. Again using the sink analogy - imagine your faucett valve having only one position and that position being fully on for maximum water flow. You can manually open then close the sink valve at a slow rate or a fast rate. Each time you do it you are flowing the same amount of water at a given instant, but you are varying how long you keep the water flowing. So to put together the final analogy an old style coiled element stove operates much like your sink faucett. You can barely open the faucett and trickle the water out or you can open it all the way and have it come out forcefully. This is how your old coiled element stove works. In order to maintain a particular temperature you have to vary something. In the old stoves they simply varied the amount of electricity going through the elements. In some of the new glass top stoves they leave the flow rate of electricity constant, but vary the amount of time that electricity flows through the elements. Perhaps a better example would be a dimmer switch on a ceiling light where you "throttle" the amount of electricity going to the light. You can turn a light bulb on and off with the light switch or you can use a dimmer switch and vary the amount of electricity going through it. So in the end you have two different ways to maintain temperature. In some cases this can affect the way you cook some things.
Last Edited By: titan4 04/09/09 20:31:38.
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Miss Vickie Pressure Cooker Recipes |
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I completely missed that you had a glasstop stove, all I saw was "electric" and in my head that meant it had the exposed heating coils. Sorry for the
confusion. I'm certainly no expert glasstop stoves, and with so many differend brands out there, they all seem to work differently.
I can only relate to the models that I have used personally which function much like my gas stove with hobbs that respond instantly, so the pressure cooker works great. I can see your delimma, and I imagine a stove like you describe wouldn't be very easy to to cook on regardless of the cookware. I can tell you that the KR is an excellent product and it requires only the tiniest flame setting on the smallest burner to maintain pressure throughout the cooking cycle. The key to avoiding scorching is to rapidly pressurize the cooker over high heat, but this when the food is actualling boiling and there is the greatest risk of burning during this phase. Then immediatly reduce the heat to the lowest possible setting for timing, and this pressure is what holds the food at a high temperture without boiling so there is no scorching if you aare not over pressuring the cooker. If your stove doesn't allow that sort of control, I honestly don't know of a proven solution. I'm curious here: Does your owners manual, or the manufacter's service dept, actually approve the use of pressure cookers? Along the same line, I'd double check with them that you can actually use a flame tamer on your glasstop stove. It says "gas or electric burners", but I suspect that refers to the regular electric stove with coiled burners. If you read all the reviews, someone does mention: "Do not purchase if you have a glass cooktop. These are raised for coil burners. Not a bad product, but for coil only." Better to err on the side of caution and not damage you stove until you know for certain. |
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titan4 |
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You are correct. I went back to Amazon and saw that feedback someone left about it being only for coil type electric stoves. I then called Nordicware (the
vendor that makes the heat diffuser) and they too confirmed it. They admit that they should be more specific in their product description, but not sure they
are going to change it. I received it via UPS yesterday and nothing in the associated paperwork differentiates between the different type of electric stoves.
In any case I will send it back and more than likely take the restocking fee hit.
I looked at the owner's manual for my glass top stove and it does not mention anything whatsoever about pressure cookers or heat diffusers. |
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emazingrace |
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Well, titan4, it's too bad you cannot use a flame tamer as you had hoped. An alternative might be to get a single-burner hot plate to use with the pressure cooker. The type with coil burners are inexpensive, but they do work very well. The induction types cost more, but are also work very well.
Your Signature ... "The pressure's on...let's cook something!"
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titan4 |
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Well chalk this one up as a lesson's learned. I went to the Post Office to return the flame tamer's (heat diffusers). I bought them through Amazon
and the retailer was in Canada. I was stunned when the postage to ship them back to Canada was a whopping $24.25. Yes it was Priority Mail, but I did not
know it would be anywhere near that expensive. So by the time it is all said and done (including the 20% restocking fee) this has not been the most economical
endeavor I have undertaken.
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emazingrace |
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titan4 wrote: Oh....OUCH!!! That hurts me just thinking about it!
Your Signature ... "The pressure's on...let's cook something!"
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furbrick |
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I did some online research on pressure cookers (PCs) and glass top / ceramic top / induction stoves and found a rather long thread concerning induction stoves
on a general cooking site. There are many posts on temperature control issues using PCs or pressure canners with induction stoves, both for the reasons
identified by titan4 (induction stove cycling on/off have a temperature range instead of a constant temperature) as well as contact issues (warped or curved
bottom of cooker/canner). Some induction stoves work fine with PCs, others don't. A couple posters acknowledged that the manual for their induction
stove recommended against pressure cooker use. Only viable solution I found online was same as recommended by Miss Vickie - get a hot plate. If you get an
induction hotplate, make sure it's documentation does not recommend against pressure cooker use, the curvature of the plate and PC base match (ideally both
are flat or have matching curvature - apparently China makes induction stoves for woks!), and for best results match the burner size to the PC base size (base
of vessel should not be more than 1 inch larger than induction coil). Wish I could have contributed something useful to the discussion, instead of just
confirming everything and adding minor details.
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emazingrace |
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Furbick, welcome to the discussion boards. Some information is important enough to be repeated. Thanks for posting. I hope you will visit and contribute
often. Grace
Your Signature ... "The pressure's on...let's cook something!"
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furbrick |
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Hi Grace, Thank you for the warm welcome :) . Did some additional research re induction stoves, visited some manufacturer websites, read a few manuals, etc.
Not much to add.
Hi Stan, Have you tried * Adding more fluid to your recipes? * Drop power level part way through cook time? Re "shake the pan" moves, several sites recommend putting parchment paper (check the flash point - some parchment papers are better than others) between the stove top and the pan to avoid scratching the surface. May not be a good move, though, for a heavy pressure cooker on a fragile surface. Placing a metal plate between the cooking vessel and the cooking surface to eliminate hotspots is not recommended as it reduces the efficency of the heat transfer. However, with Kuhn-Rikon encapsulated aluminum layer, hotspots shouldn't be an issue unless the temperature gradient is really high. Does your KR PC have a flat bottom? Importance of this seems to vary with the stove manufacturer. Fagor induction stove manual says vessel bottom "...should not be overly deformed" while the Diva website says that when a ruler is placed against the bottom no light should be visible between the two. One website mentioned that induction stoves have a "heat retention" problem when the vessel base is much larger the the hot zone (i.e., more than 1 inch difference in diameter). I'm thinking this might mean the actual vessel temperature may be higher then the stove sensor is detecting. Best regards, Peter |
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titan4 |
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Hello Peter - apologies for the lengthy delay in responding. I have been away from the pressure cooker and subsequently this message board forum for a
while I guess.
emazingrace or Miss Vickie: I made your Beefy Spanish Rice tonight (Page 354) and ended up with a nice thick, black, charred mess once again. I am considering trying a portable gas burner to see how that does. What do you think of this one? http://www.amazon.com/Big-Bertha-Propane-Stove-Burner/dp/B000W8JNLC/ref=pd_sim_misc_1
Last Edited By: titan4 11/04/09 03:39:39.
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Jeffrey |
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titan4, have you tried "pan-in-pan" cooking. I've done this when I was concerned about possible scorching. I put the stainless tray/trivet thing
in the bottom of the cooker, add some water, and then insert a stainless bowl, into which goes the food to be cooked. The trivet keeps the bowl above the hot
bottom and the water buffers the heat. It works well for me.
Jeffrey
Last Edited By: Jeffrey 11/07/09 08:52:52.
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titan4 |
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Jeffrey - I have not tried the pan-in-pan method, but that seems like that would surely work. I did make this recipe again though - this time using a turkey
fryer base as the source of heat. Being in the aerospace business I learned long ago that when you want to find the root cause of a problem you only change
one thing at a time. Changing more than one thing will still leave you wondering which change actually did the trick. Of course I violated that when I tried
the recipe again. I used the turkey fryer base so that I could use gas instead of electric and I also did not lock the lid until I had the mixture boiling. I
kept it stirred until it boiled to prevent burning and then locked the lid on and finished up with zero problems. I think both changes helped, but I was
really impressed with cooking with gas! You have so much more control over the temperature as changes are immediate. You can get it up to pressure much
quicker too. I did order the portable camp-style propane burner linked above and will try it when I get it. For the record though I ordered it from a
different seller on Amazon and it was considerably cheaper. They are exactly the same thing though if you compare them. The one I ordered had a negative
review, but the other one (linked below) had decent reviews and it looks to be the same thing. Here is the one that I ordered:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000NGKK5G/ref=oss_T15_product
Last Edited By: titan4 11/08/09 14:47:49.
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