[HN Gopher] Mass producing the most expensive rice cooker [video]
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Mass producing the most expensive rice cooker [video]
Author : zdw
Score : 110 points
Date : 2023-11-04 16:33 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.youtube.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.youtube.com)
| zdw wrote:
| "most expensive": ~$1100 USD
| https://www.walmart.com/ip/ZOJIRUSHI-Pressure-IH-Rice-Cooker...
| albert_e wrote:
| seems reasonable description
|
| I have seen rice cookers selling for $7 and have myself bought
| and used rice cookers that cost under $20. they do a good
| enough job for a middle income household's needs.
| 1-6 wrote:
| Smokes, some people really take their rice seriously.
| judge2020 wrote:
| That probably includes shipping and importing from Japan:
|
| > Sold and shipped by want.jp
|
| Walmart has gone the Amazon route by allowing any seller to put
| stuff on walmart.com, leading to wild stuff like this.
| dieselgate wrote:
| walmart also recently started requiring login for online
| orders which is lame
| asutekku wrote:
| roughly $550 if bought in japan
|
| https://s.kakaku.com/item/K0001538484/
| edge17 wrote:
| how big is the market for $1100 rice cookers?
| asutekku wrote:
| big enough to manufacture them on a large scale
| 1-6 wrote:
| That's why there's so much hands and fingers involved. Low
| volume, high price items usually involve lots of short but
| concentrated spurts of human labor.
|
| I bet more mainstream rice cookers are built with more
| machines.
| wk_end wrote:
| It's pretty much impossible to overstate how important rice is
| in the East Asian diet: for a comparison to the west, think
| something like bread, potatoes, and pasta combined.
|
| Home chefs aren't necessarily going to want or need a top-of-
| the-line rice cooker, true - but considering how much rice the
| average Japanese home chef makes, they wouldn't necessarily
| _not_ want one. $1100 at the high-end is nothing compared to
| the price at the high-end of virtually any other kitchen
| appliance; if you can afford it, why cheap out on something you
| 're going to use almost every day, for almost every single
| meal?
|
| But maybe more importantly, think about restaurants! Although
| the stereotypes are somewhat overstated, Japanese apartments
| are often too small to cook in comfortably, and people often
| work long hours and need quick bites at all hours of the day,
| so people eat out a lot. And Japanese building codes are far
| more liberal than western ones, so restaurants can be tiny and
| individual buildings in Tokyo can have twice as many
| restaurants as entire city blocks in the west. Net result:
| Tokyo has among the most restaurants per capita of any city in
| the world - and considering the population of Tokyo, that's a
| huge number of restaurants. And almost all of those restaurants
| are going to need at least one or two (and some a whole fleet);
| if you're making rice on an industrial scale, it absolutely
| doesn't make sense to cheap out.
|
| Much of the above is true in many other places in East Asia too
| - most notably, China. That's a big market for high-end rice
| cookers!
| solardev wrote:
| Don't restaurants just use big rice cookers, not necessarily
| high end ones? Those things can make like gallons of rice at
| once.
| wk_end wrote:
| Depends on the scale, I guess. I've definitely seen some
| Zojirushis behind the counter at more than a few
| restaurants.
| gnicholas wrote:
| The Walmart listing appears to be a "marketplace" listing, and
| is apparently shipped from Japan. Presumably these cost a bit
| less in Japan, since shipping isn't an issue. Perhaps one of
| our fellow HNers who lives there can enlighten us?
| maxglute wrote:
| Don't live in JP but was looking to bring one back a few
| years ago, top of line Zojirushi _were_ ~$1000 USD, but with
| Yen depreciation are around $800 now. +200-300 for
| delivery/fees and 1100 looks around right.
| 1-6 wrote:
| Not big but Zojirushi is a big brand and not making a top-of-
| the-line rice cooker will slowly diminish its reputation from
| the likes of Cuckoo, Tiger, Aroma, or Midea.
|
| I bet margins are getting razor thin and Zojirushi only has
| their brand name and reputation to bank on.
|
| Fortunately for the Elephant-brand, their recipe for quality
| and name value is still strong.
| jseliger wrote:
| I have a lower-end Zojirushi and love it. I've used it at least
| a couple times a week for years. I've periodically debated
| getting one of the stupid-expensive ones, like
| https://www.zojirushi.com/app/product/nwjec, but realistically
| the one I have is fine. If I were going to live longer, one day
| I'd get one!
| wingerlang wrote:
| Every household in Asia probably have a rice cooker, so I'd
| imagine a fraction of that makes the market large.
|
| They even sell rice cookers at 7/11 here in Thailand, at least
| the slightly larger ones.
| bombcar wrote:
| Probably as big or bigger than the market for $1100 blenders:
| https://www.blendtec.com/collections/commercial-blenders/pro...
|
| (sure, the residential one is cheaper, but who wants _that_?)
| Exuma wrote:
| Wow I actually have just the model less. Man does it make good
| rice. It has an AI chip in it
| 1-6 wrote:
| "Neuro Fuzzy" was an AI marketing term that was built into rice
| cookers for ages. I highly doubt AI has gotten that much
| advanced in cookers since the 90's.
| Lukeisun wrote:
| I think these types of rice cookers are so expensive as they
| use induction. Honestly I don't know how much better it is
| but supposingly it allows for more accurate heating, allowing
| for more accurate cooking
| deckar01 wrote:
| I would imagine the reliability would be higher. A
| resistive heating element could degrade and eventually
| develop a fault, but an inductive circuit decouples the
| electrical circuit from the heating element. A fault or an
| impurity in the heating material wouldn't prevent the
| inductive field from exciting the surrounding conductor
| particles.
| Exuma wrote:
| Lol, I figured but given that it was like $800 I figured
| maybe it had to be doing something, even though I knew I'm
| falling for some marketing gimmick I had hope!
| veidr wrote:
| Luckily, once environmental factors and hardware variance are
| controlled for, it turns out making good rice really is a
| sentence-autocomplete complexity problem! :-D
| toddmorey wrote:
| Wow, I had no idea the internals of a rice cooker were that
| complex. Do all models have that many parts or just the high end
| ones?
| chongli wrote:
| No, the most basic rice cookers are very simple. They use a
| spring-actuated switch and a magnet paired with an alloy button
| in contact with the bottom of the cooking bowl that has a Curie
| temperature just slightly above the boiling point of water.
| When the rice has absorbed all the water the temperature can
| finally begin to exceed boiling and the button heats up with
| it, causing the magnet to lose attraction to it. When the
| magnet is no longer able to overpower the spring, the switch
| opens and cooking is shut off (usually into a low power keep-
| warm setting) [1].
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSTNhvDGbYI
| julianlam wrote:
| Simple, yes, but genius. The things inventors of old have
| thought up are just astounding.
| kibwen wrote:
| Technically, the most basic rice cookers are even simpler, in
| that they're a pot over a fire. :P
| thiscatis wrote:
| In that case it's a pot you use as a rice cooker, not a
| dedicated rice cooker ;)
| smnrchrds wrote:
| In that scenario, you are the rice cooker.
| bensecure wrote:
| Is this the same as one subject to a teardown by a popular
| youtuber? It seems familiar but I might be mistaken.
| bredren wrote:
| The screw feeder is pretty cool. There are a lot of these but
| this is the closest I could find to the model shown:
|
| https://www.kilews.jp/products/bsf-1450/
| bandyaboot wrote:
| I take an abnormal amount of appreciation for the simple metal
| funnel guide that allows the operator to quickly get the screw
| loaded onto the driver.
| bredren wrote:
| Ya, I immediately saw the scratches on the one early in the
| video.
|
| I wondered how the bit orientation and screw head were
| getting lined up. Is it the force and shape of the bit is
| enough for the screw to spin as needed and receive it?
|
| Also, it seemed like the driver almost had force feedback
| over the screw points.
|
| Because the worker's arm seemed to slow just a bit out of
| what I'd expect. Could be just great precision though, if
| possible, why not try to keep the lateral motion confined or
| even on a particular track.
|
| At that point it seems like robotics could be doing all this
| better.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > At that point it seems like robotics could be doing all
| this better.
|
| Robots still aren't at the same amount of dexterity that
| humans can achieve, at least not in a price-competitive
| way.
|
| Also, robots don't have the "automated QA" built-in that a
| human has - a robot will keep on placing screws and not
| notice something like a scratch or other imperfection,
| while a human can recognize this and yeet the partial
| assembly towards rework or recycling.
| jccalhoun wrote:
| Way back in the mid-90s I worked a couple summers at a
| factory and one of the jobs there was using a machine like
| this. Now things may have changed in the 30 years since
| then but it basically just vibrated to get the screws to go
| down the V. Sometimes one would get through misaligned and
| you just threw it back in the hopper. Sometimes it would
| get jammed and you had to spend a couple minutes unclogging
| it. The screwdriver just had a trigger on it to make it
| spin. The bit was magnetized so if you got it close to
| lined up with the screw then it would put the screw in the
| slot correctly.
| bemmu wrote:
| Nice, but I wonder if there are screwdrivers which could also
| automatically spawn screws (like a mechanical pencil) so you
| wouldn't even have to move back and forth from the feeder?
| potamic wrote:
| Why do only some stages use the feeder while others get a box
| of screws from which they have to pick up by hand?
| smiley1437 wrote:
| I suspect that some screws, depending on location in the
| device, need to be stainless due to moisture exposure
|
| Some types of stainless are non-magnetic and thus can't be
| picked up with a magnetic screwdriver, thus the need to hand-
| feed the screw
| bredren wrote:
| Another possibility is Some stages lack the time pressures
| needed for that assistance.
|
| Also, it could be in some stages if a single screw is not
| placed, it will lead to catastrophic failure of the
| product. (Hence the screw counter in that first stage
| shown)
| contingencies wrote:
| South Asia: 10x your rice by eating with your fingers and
| choosing long grain.
|
| Iran: 10x your rice by adding saffron.
|
| China: 10x your rice by frying it with leftovers and ensuring
| adequate gluten to support chopstick based consumption.
|
| Japan: 10x your rice by rolling it up in bamboo with sugar and
| rice wine vinegar.
|
| Southeast Asia: 10x your rice by picking glutinous breeds then
| steaming it in banana leaves or bamboo.
|
| All of the above after migrating to the west: 10x your rice by
| spending money on AI appliances.
| postalrat wrote:
| Are you implying that Zojirushi sells more rice cookers outside
| those regions?
| emptybits wrote:
| "10x'ing your rice" with expensive Zojirushi products is mostly
| happening in Asia. Here is the company's 2022 revenue, by
| region, from selling their expensive cooking appliances (the
| most expensive of which are their rice cookers & warmers):
| Japan: 68% China: 7% Rest of
| Asia: 10% Americas: 14%
|
| Approx USD$400M last year, which doesn't include their other
| excellent household appliances or travel mugs or insulated
| containers. (Aside: Their travel mugs are amazing.)
|
| Source: https://www.zojirushi-
| world.com/corporatedata/cfr_2022.pdf
| jumpkick wrote:
| 2 cups water, 1 cup long grain rice (2:1 ratio water to rice).
| Bring water to boil in a pot, add rice, stir and let return to
| boil. Immediately reduce heat to simmer, put on a lid and let
| cook for 20 minutes. Once the time is up, remove from heat and
| fluff the rice with a fork.
|
| I've been cooking rice exactly like this for 15 years. It's one
| of the easiest things to cook and it's always come out great.
|
| I really struggle to understand the reason for owning a rice
| cooker.
| judge2020 wrote:
| Maybe it's faster? Bringing a pot of water to boil can take a
| long time especially on some lower-quality/older electric
| ranges.
| kouru225 wrote:
| Rice cookers are actually slower in my experience. The
| benefit is that you don't have to pay attention to them at
| all.
| callalex wrote:
| The slowness is a feature. The "smart" or "ai" or "fuzzy
| logic" or "buzzword" cookers take longer to cook the rice
| than a simple cheap cooker or a pot on the stove. The rice
| comes out better that way.
| maxglute wrote:
| Induction Coil ones like in the video takes 2-3x longer
| for nicer rice. Which is pain in the ass for people use
| to 20m stove top rice. But fine if you make 5 cups and
| eat over multiple days.
| gcheong wrote:
| Not sure it's faster but at least for me I can start the rice
| then go off and do other things while it cooks and the rice
| cooker will keep it warm when it's done.
| asylteltine wrote:
| ... with my rice cooker I put the rice and water in and press a
| button
|
| Do you REALLY struggle to understand that?
| jumpkick wrote:
| I do. Usually I'm cooking rice as a component of a meal. So
| I'm already at the range cooking other things and I can't
| leave to do something else anyway. Since I'm already there, I
| may as well set a timer for 20 minutes to let the rice cook.
| notfed wrote:
| Try it... you're making things harder on yourself.
|
| - Rice cookers are like $10-$20
|
| - You save precious stovetop space
|
| - You can start cooking rice and leave the house, e.g., to
| pick up other last-minute groceries
|
| - Once it's cooked, it keeps your rice warm/wet until
| you're ready to eat it
| asylteltine wrote:
| I'm not saying that's bad, but it's a lot more work than a
| rice cooker. Set it and forget it is important to me as I
| already hate cooking. I also have a ninja foodi xl which
| perfectly grills meat using a probe, so it makes cooking
| faster, easier, and more consistent
| Lukeisun wrote:
| That and the consistency of the rice cooker. I try not to buy
| one use kitchen utilities as a frequent home cook. But I'd be
| hard pressed to ever give up my rice cooker
| adrian_b wrote:
| A rice cooker may be needed for cooking large quantities of
| rice, but perfect consistency and no effort is achieved by
| cooking the rice in a microwave oven, which needs only 10
| to 15 minutes, depending on the oven and on the amount of
| rice.
| tonyedgecombe wrote:
| >Do you REALLY struggle to understand that?
|
| I do. Cooking rice in a pan is so easy I'm struggling to
| understand why you would buy a gadget to do it for you.
| wk_end wrote:
| A rice cooker is even easier than that, but most importantly:
| you can throw the rice on in the morning, go to school/the
| office, and come home to hot rice, ready-and-waiting in the
| evening.
| zakki wrote:
| It is true that rice cooker make life easier, no need
| dedicated time to cook it. And we have always-warm rice.
|
| Recently a family member told me that eating a-room-
| temperature rice help in reducing the glucose* amount in the
| rice. So in that case always-warm rice is not a good feature.
|
| *) maybe it is not the correct term
| wk_end wrote:
| You should warn your family member that keeping rice at
| room temperature is a really, really good way to give
| yourself serious food poisoning - it's an ideal breeding
| ground for Bacillus cereus. Google "fried rice syndrome".
| implements wrote:
| Yes - it's important rice is either hot or cold, not kept
| warm for long periods (five or so hours) and then eaten.
| t-3 wrote:
| Rice cookers are inferior in flavor/texture and they take
| longer to cook, but you can safely leave them unattended and
| they also save space on the stove. Not every apartment has a
| range, and not every range actually works, so they can help
| there too.
| chongli wrote:
| Zojirushi rice cookers do not have inferior texture. That's
| why people pay so much money for them!
| trefoiled wrote:
| My Zojirushi makes rice with better consistency and texture
| than any rice I've had outside of a sushi restaurant - but
| then again it's possible I just don't know anyone who knows
| how to make good rice on a stove
| Bud wrote:
| It's totally understandable that you don't get it; I didn't
| either, until I finally bought one. First of all it's the
| amazing consistency of the rice you get. Second, it's so
| forgiving. Too much water? Not enough? Machine adjusts and your
| rice is perfect anyway. Not ready to use the rice yet, because
| the rest of the dinner is behind schedule? No problem. Leave it
| in there. For hours if you have to. Keeps it warm and ready.
| Need to leave the house for a while? Set the timer, it will
| have the rice ready when you get back. Even if that's 10 hours
| later.
|
| It's awesome.
| billfor wrote:
| Besides the timer there are settings for brown rice, which may
| take a while to attend to if done by hand. Also some models
| have pressure. Others let you give feedback as to the final
| product and will take that into consideration for future
| batches. I use mine for oatmeal. I put all the ingredients in
| at night and its ready in the morning. Steel cut or full groat
| would take a while doing it by hand.
| maxglute wrote:
| Rice is really easy to master, especially small portions like
| 1-2 cups of rice.
|
| Convenience of rice cooker life is if you have to feed family
| of 4+ and don't want to fuss or worry about water boiling over
| because you forget to check stove. Throwing in 4-5 cups of
| rice, and have keep warm feature preserve rice for 3-4 days.
| Extra perk with fancy induction rice cookers which gives bump
| in rice taste but takes 3x more time to cook - 50-60 minutes,
| which isn't worth the effort for small portions, but worth a
| little planning if you're doing multipe days worth. Slightly
| high end models are solid $300-400 appliance (msrp in JP)
| investment, steep if you're paying 500+ elsewhere. Super high
| end 800+ hard to justify. Especially when there's instant pot.
| But instant pot fussy with measuring. Beauty of dedicated rice
| cookers is you just dump in bunch of rice and eyeball water and
| it'll generally manage very consistent results. Easily worth
| the convenience if you're eating rice every day.
|
| Edit: ultimate lazy / easy rice for small portions is a $20
| microwave rice cooker with dialed in settings. Joseph Joseph
| has one that's very easy to clean - there's drain basket for
| cleaning rice, it's plastic so don't have to worry about
| accidental sticky bottom, and post cooking clean up takes a
| minute. Paired with my (lol) $700 inverter microwave, makes
| very solid cup rice in 13 minutes.
| ricardobeat wrote:
| Keep warm for 3-4 days? That's insane. Rice stored _in the
| fridge_ starts to go bad after three days. Not to mention
| you'd end up with a dry block of rice. Have you actually done
| this?
|
| They recommend the "keep warm" feature is used for no longer
| than 4-12 hours. You're exposing yourself to serious food
| poisoning going longer than that, especially if your cooker
| isnt very good at keeping the entire bowl at >60C.
| phil21 wrote:
| The rice cookers are very good at keeping things at a safe
| temp. The good ones will have power failure detection.
|
| I regularly make a (work) weeks worth of rice on Sunday
| night and eat through it until Thursday or Friday or so.
| Been doing this for well over a decade so far.
|
| The first two days you probably can't tell the difference
| unless you are a rice snob. After that the taste tends to
| suffer a bit, but infinitely better than reheating rice
| from the fridge.
| peteforde wrote:
| Keep in mind that the only good way to make good fried
| rice is to start with yesterday's rice from the fridge.
| harshreality wrote:
| Then again, a rice cooker with metal or ceramic-coated
| surface doesn't infuse your grains with microplastics.
| maxglute wrote:
| Purely convenience at expense of personal health. I don't
| feed others plastic cooked rice because it freaks people
| out.
|
| Hario (HARIO XRCN-2-B) has a $7 glass microwave rice pot in
| JP . Still has some plastic components that do not make
| contact with the food. But it's like $60 to import to NA.
| There's also ceramic versions which I've never tested.
| zajio1am wrote:
| Rice cooking is kind of complex, because you should boil away
| most water and not cook any longer, and you are not really able
| to inspect the level of water.
|
| 20 minutes works in your setup, but will it work on different
| stove with different power levels, in a pot with different
| geometry, or with a different kind of rice?
|
| Rice cooker solves that issue with a simple feedback.
| ChoGGi wrote:
| I do 20m as well.
| quacker wrote:
| Ultimately, a rice cooker is a small luxury, but:
|
| - A rice cooker frees up a burner on the stove, which is useful
| for those with small apartments or other situations where there
| are few or no burners available.
|
| - Rice cookers are very consistent and virtually foolproof,
| even the cheap ones. Add water and rice, set it, and forget it.
| I can say I've over or under cooked rice on the stove at least
| a few times, but not once in a rice cooker.
|
| - Decent rice cookers make far better rice than I've personally
| ever made on the stove (and I have cooked rice on the stove
| plenty).
|
| - More expensive models keep rice hot (at a food-safe
| temperature) for hours, so you can prep well in advance of a
| meal. I put rice on to cook and can leave the house for hours
| without worrying about it, and have rice for the whole day in
| one batch, if needed.
|
| - Rice cookers also cook other things and some handle different
| kinds of rice. Brown rice needs to be cooked significantly
| differently than white rice, for example.
| cynix wrote:
| > long grain rice
|
| Maybe you're not the target audience. Cooking short grain rice
| seems to require more care, and a high end rice cooker is the
| easiest way to get perfect rice.
| Bud wrote:
| We finally sprung for a Zojirushi a couple years ago. Not the
| crazy $1100 model, just one of their midrange ones that normal
| people buy. It's awesome. Set it and forget it. Absolutely
| perfect rice every time: sushi rice, brown rice, basmati,
| jasmine, anything you want to throw at it. From 1 cup at a time
| all the way up to seemingly metric tons of the stuff. :)
|
| Great product at a great price. They have a lot of models in the
| $200-$300 range. Reviews are consistently great.
| jmpman wrote:
| First time I went to Tokyo about 17 years ago, I specifically
| went shopping for the most expensive rice cooker. At that time,
| being dink's, it would have been a fun souvenir. What I
| ultimately discovered as the most expensive rice cooker in the
| highest end department stores at that time, was a rice cooker
| made by Mitsubishi, where the cooking bowl was a machined chunk
| of graphite. Ultimately I wasn't confident it would work in the
| US without a huge transformer, so I opted against it. Ended up
| buying a National (Panasonic) which has served me for over 15
| years. Loved it so much, that I started giving them as wedding
| presents. Only one couple asked to exchange it... they're
| divorced. Maybe a sweet rice cooker would have saved their
| marriage.
| grimborg wrote:
| What was the model of Panasonic you bought? Sounds like a good
| alternative to preventive marriage counseling
| jmpman wrote:
| SR-MM10NS
|
| I expect the Zojurushi has equal marriage protective
| qualities.
| maxglute wrote:
| I love me some high end Zojirushi, but this feels stupid over
| engineered. That retractable Zojirushi cord though. My family
| upgraded from a top end Xiaomi/Mijia IH pressure rice cooker
| ($150 USD) to top end IH pressure Zojirushi ($800 USD) and they
| performed comparable.
|
| Best rice is still... controversial... instantpot if one knows
| what they're doing, but it's definitely fussier than high end
| models that can figure out any arbiturary quantity of rice. I
| remember another friend with mid-high end Zojirushi scoff at
| instantpot rice until they tried some. Then a few years later
| Zojirushi integrated pressure cooking in their top end models.
| That said, from what I hear, there is something black magic about
| Zojirushi's ability to cook brown rice.
| steve_adams_86 wrote:
| I remember when I bought my zojirushi around 14 years ago I was
| annoyed by the retractable cord because I was certain it would
| stop working before the cooker itself broke down.
|
| Well, almost 15 years in (that milestone will be in July I
| think) and I can't say the machine is any worse for wear, and I
| rarely use it less than twice per week. It's a workhorse. It
| makes oatmeal at least once per week, rice usually twice per
| week, and occasionally some other grain. It does a great job on
| everything I throw at it. The retractable cord is doing just
| fine.
| knightofmars wrote:
| Turns out the bowl is relatively easy to replace via the
| Zojirushi website as well. I've done it twice and even
| contacted them once to ask if they had any in stock. They
| responded in a day and then updated their web store
| inventory.
| sib wrote:
| We use our Zojirushi about 5x / week. The cord was definitely
| the weak point of the design, having failed about a year into
| our ownership.
|
| The rest of the product works great.
| tivert wrote:
| Something about those screwdrivers is just satisfying.
| jiehong wrote:
| If you live in Europe, those aren't really usable due to the
| electric grid system being different in Japan, and most of those
| rice cookers aren't made for other markets.
|
| Instead, you can buy any Cuckoo rice cooker: being made in South
| Korea they use the exact same electric grid system and socket.
| They are of similar quality and can be bought in the US too.
| scrlk wrote:
| You should be able to use a Hong Kong or Singapore market
| Zojirushi in Europe with a UK -> Europe plug adaptor. HK and
| Singapore use UK plugs and 220/230 V 50 Hz as they were UK
| colonies.
| layer8 wrote:
| No need for an adaptor, the units have a standard IEC 60320
| C14 connector and are sold both with UK and EU plugs:
| https://yum-asia.com/eu/product-category/rice-
| cookers/?filte...
| Havoc wrote:
| They sell 240v ones. And they have kettle plugs so anywhere
| that has computers will be trivial to get right plug
|
| For uk it came with right one anyway out of the box
| p00dles wrote:
| Does anyone know why they put so many reflective stickers inside
| of the machine? Is it to dissipate heat?
| doubleg72 wrote:
| I would suspect that is exactly the case, cheaper than kapton.
| tuetuopay wrote:
| I would guess for EMI isolation. Their PCBs are not shielded,
| nor are the coils of the heater. So it's just simpler to put
| metal stickers on the case at select points to pass the EMI
| inspection.
| pmoriarty wrote:
| Is there a point to getting a rice cooker over an instant pot?
| jdblair wrote:
| They're different appliances, no?
|
| The rice cooker cooks at atmospheric pressure, and stops
| cooking when all the water is evaporated.
|
| The instant pot is a pressure cooker.
|
| In the end, it depends on your use case. If you cook a lot of
| rice, you will be disappointed with the instant pot. In my
| case, I don't have a rice cooker b/c I don't cook rice very
| often, and I use my instant pot or the stove top.
| lbotos wrote:
| Top of the line Zojirushi uses pressure as well:
| https://www.zojirushi.com/category/rice_cookers/systems.html
| thegeekpirate wrote:
| Absolutely, I've yet to see good rice from an instant pot. Buy
| the cheapest rice cooker instead (usually like ten bucks).
| hedgehog wrote:
| It works well for the three kinds of rice we make and has the
| benefit of being faster with even easier clean up. No doubt a
| high end rice cooker could do a slightly better job on most
| kinds of rice (not the sticky rice).
| jchw wrote:
| I'm sure it's possible to get good rice out of an Instant Pot,
| but the Zojirushi is going to simply be better at it, and it
| doesn't really take any "dialing in" to get there; you just set
| the kind of rice and go pretty much, and then you get basically
| exactly what you want, every single time. Another advantage to
| a dedicated rice cooker versus using something like an Instant
| Pot is the obvious fact that it frees up your Instant Pot.
|
| (Also, obviously, there are cheaper rice cookers than the
| Zojirushi, but there's definitely a reason other than cargo-
| culting why it's popular. I got one after the Walmart Made-in-
| China special I got crapped out on me. It is definitely, by a
| good margin, a better product with thoughtful design that
| produces very good rice.)
| kuchenbecker wrote:
| If you have neither a rice cooker nor an instant pot, get an
| instant pot. If you have one, the other compliments it well.
|
| My wife is Chinese and we eat a lot of pot roast over rice.
| markstos wrote:
| No. We got rid of our rice cookers and replaced them with
| Instant Pots. Instant Pots make consistently good white and
| brown rice, faster.
| tonyedgecombe wrote:
| Is there a point to getting a rice cooker over a pan of boiling
| water?
| wantoncl wrote:
| Not if your pan of boiling water automatically shuts off when
| it's done cooking.
| sib wrote:
| (1) Put rice & water in rice cooker, press start.
|
| (2) Leash dog, go outside for long walk to clear the head
| after day of Zoom / Google Meet.
|
| (3) Come home 60-90 minutes later to perfect rice and a non-
| smoke-filled kitchen.
| tonyedgecombe wrote:
| (4) Cook rest of meal in the same time it would take to
| cook the rice.
| sib wrote:
| (4) Eat wonderful food that Chinese mother-in-law has
| kindly cooked & packed into many different containers for
| you.
| veidr wrote:
| Only if you cook rice like, every day, or multiple times per
| week.
| rwmj wrote:
| Damn that non-replacable watch battery which keeps the real time
| clock going when unplugged. I've had to almost completely
| disassemble a couple of Zojirushi rice cookers to replace that.
| smiley1437 wrote:
| Yes, great machines but I shake my fist at whoever decided to
| solder-in the damn battery
|
| I've done two now and replaced them with Keystone1250 battery
| holders from Digikey, soldered on the reverse side
|
| They hold nice big CR2450 cells now and can be easily swapped
| but it's a real pain to have to do this at all
| mindslight wrote:
| It's great to know that this is a thing! I had hopefully
| assumed the real-time clock was on a supercap or something.
|
| It's almost forgiveable with RTCs, since they're generally
| not required for the main device functionality and RTC
| reference circuits invariably use coin cells. I've got an
| auto-darkening welding helmet, with its main power being
| supplied with the same planned obsolescence nonsense, despite
| having a solar panel on the front! It suddenly just stopped
| working, and my usual course of take-apart-the-broken-thing
| was thwarted due to its case being ultrasonically welded
| together. Only when I stumbled upon a random Youtube video of
| someone replacing the batteries in theirs did I get the oomph
| to pull the thing apart to _change the batteries_.
| smiley1437 wrote:
| > Only when I stumbled upon a random Youtube video of
| someone replacing the batteries in theirs did I get the
| oomph to pull the thing apart to change the batteries.
|
| Same for me and the rice cooker battery, a random video
| convinced me it wasn't going to be too bad, Youtube is a
| great resource and I'm so grateful to those willing to
| share their experience!
| rwmj wrote:
| You don't happen to have a link to that Digikey part do you?
| My solution was considerably more janky and I might try to
| fix it.
| smiley1437 wrote:
| I screwed up the part number, the correct part number is
| Keystone 1025, here's the link:
|
| https://www.digikey.ca/en/products/detail/keystone-
| electroni...
|
| It had the correct pin locations for my model of rice
| cooker
|
| Here's the video that helped me:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVege0o-quQ
| rwmj wrote:
| Thank you so much for the Digikey reference. That video
| was one of the ones I watched also!
| kevingadd wrote:
| I like how you can tell they optimized the assembly line in the
| places where it was most necessary - not all the stations have
| automated screw feeders, but the overall flow of the line seems
| fine, so they must have put them in the places where people were
| previously spending too much time fishing screws out of boxes, or
| where screws were frequently being forgotten (thus the counter).
|
| And then at some stations they put the product on a rotating
| platform (lazy susan?) so that the person doing the assembly can
| freely rotate it 360 degrees easily without picking it up. You
| can tell that most of the stations didn't need it by watching how
| they work, but it must have been a big improvement for the
| stations that did.
| lbotos wrote:
| If you are in the market for a high end rice cooker I went with
| Vermicular: https://www.vermicular.us/products/musui-kamado
|
| It's an induction "bowl" with fine temp control as well as rice
| modes. The tipping point for me was cast iron without a "non-
| stick" coating that would wear off. If you take the rice out of
| the pot quickly (30-60 min after done) you get almost no
| sticking.
|
| Unfortunately no Zojirushi song though.
| veidr wrote:
| That thing looks awesome! But also... isn't at least one of the
| -- if not the absolute primary and overwhelming -- points of
| the "rice cooker" device that it not only cooks great rice, but
| also that it keeps the rice hot, but still in great condition,
| for for 24 hours (or more, with diminishing yum factor)?
|
| Or does this mark me as "not high end" in terms of this type of
| device? (Highly possible (^_^) ... )
| lbotos wrote:
| I know many people (as I understand it most of asia who use
| rice cookers) keep rice in the rice cooker "warm" but for me,
| that wasn't a requirement so I didn't feel like I was losing
| out. It's also been great to cook many other things in, which
| a rice cooker can do also, but thats more a "hack" than
| designed to.
|
| I take the rice out, immediately put it in a container to
| trap the any moisture. When I reheat, it's great.
| whyenot wrote:
| It's interesting that almost all of the assemblers are women.
| solardev wrote:
| Can we talk about rice cooker UX for a second?
|
| I own a mid-level Zojirushi and it makes fine rice. No better or
| worse than the cheap Target rice cooker I had before, or the
| slightly less cheap Ninja pressure cooker that also made rice.
| Definitely better than stovetop, worse than good Asian
| restaurants.
|
| But the Zojirushi stands out to me in terms of how user-
| unfriendly it is to a westerner...
|
| First, it comes with its own rice measuring cups, because a
| Zojirushi cup isn't the same as an imperial cup. Which is kinda
| strange to begin with, because isn't it just a ratio of rice to
| water?
|
| But there's not just one mismatched measuring cup, there's two.
| One is green and one is white, and the green one is for rice that
| isn't pre-washed, but that isn't labeled in English anywhere. And
| what is rice washing anyway?
|
| Then there's the control panel UI. You have to choose between
| white rice, brown rice (that's fine), and also GABA rice and
| quick rice. What the heck is GABA and why would I want slow rice
| if there's a quick rice? And what if I want quick brown rice?
| It's not possible.
|
| Once you hit start, no timer is present. You have no idea how
| long it's going to take (turns out, about an hour). How is it
| that this brand, with its special measuring cups and precise
| water lines, can't tell me how long it's going to take, but the
| ninja multi function pressure cooker could tell me down to the
| second as soon as I hit start?
|
| As much as I appreciate good rice, using this appliance is such a
| cognitive burden that I keep wanting to replace it. I still use
| this thing every week, but it annoys me every time. I constantly
| think about selling it and getting a simpler Western model
| instead just because it's so complex and overengineered. I'd much
| rather suffer a 10% degradation in output quality if that means
| the controls could be simplified to just white/brown & start,
| with a built-in timer.
|
| Does something like that exist?
|
| Why does Zojirushi make it so complicated? Do the Japanese prefer
| having more options to tweak? (Reminds me of my old Casio
| watches). Is this a broader cultural preference, or just
| something special about this one brand?
| lukevp wrote:
| Not defending the UX, it's trash. But it starts showing you a
| timer when it's more certain (usually around the 6-8 minute
| mark). I switched from a zojirushi to a Tiger from Costco, and
| it cooks the rice in half the time, but it has the exact same
| issues since it's Japanese (separate measurement cups, no timer
| until it's almost done) and the seals collect a lot more water
| than the zojirushi did. The rice comes out better and quicker
| though. I do think my zojirushi was broken because the rice
| kept getting worse and worse before I replaced it.
| jhbadger wrote:
| >And what is rice washing anyway?
|
| There's an argument that you should wash your rice before you
| cook it to remove contaminants, particularly arsenic, which is
| a common soil contaminant.
| accrual wrote:
| It also removes starches from the rice, which can result in a
| cleaner/less sticky pot of rice where the individual grains
| are better defined.
| FrankoDelMar wrote:
| I would avoid any rice grown in the United States if you're
| concerned about arsenic levels.
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1892142/
| solardev wrote:
| Seems like organic rice grown in California is actually
| lower than the average levels in many other countries?
|
| https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Arsenic-levels-mg-kg-
| in-...
|
| https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S18785352
| 1...).
| russdill wrote:
| I don't think simply washing rice appreciably reduces arsenic
| levels. It's just to get rude rid of the loose rice flour
| that grinds off during shipping/handling
| mindslight wrote:
| Maybe it's your model? My Zojirushi came with a single clear
| measuring cup (which is actually just 6 US fluid ounces), the
| instruction manual gives a quick explanation of the various
| modes such that I don't find their presence burdensome, and the
| displays an estimated time right away (which is nice as some of
| the cooking modes take wildly longer). I'd never cooked much
| rice at home because I never got good results when I tried with
| the stove, and this turned it into a solved problem. I'm sure a
| $20 model could have gotten me 80% of the utility, but
| _gestures vaguely at overwhelming consumer abundance_.
|
| (edit: reading another comment, turns out that plastic cup is
| one _gou_ which is 6.10 fl. oz)
| solardev wrote:
| Maybe! I'd much rather have the simpler model, but their
| website wasn't very clear about what has what either,
| especially in terms of UX.
| dmoy wrote:
| Alternatively, as we do in our (mostly) Chinese household:
|
| Put rice in rice cooker. Rinse the rice and pour out water
| until it isn't cloudy. Add water to the depth of one thumb
| digit. Hit cook button, then ignore it.
|
| Brown rice, white rice, whatever, all the same.
|
| I'd have to check if we're still using a zojirushi or tiger, or
| are using a Korean cuckoo now.
|
| > How is it that this brand, with its special measuring cups
| and precise water lines, can't tell me how long it's going to
| take, but the ninja multi function pressure cooker could tell
| me down to the second as soon as I hit start?
|
| Well that one, cus they know people will just eyeball a thumb
| digit of water. So it won't know until it gets closer to done.
| solardev wrote:
| That's the kind of simple rice cooker I had growing up, too,
| and my parents used similar methods of estimation. It turned
| out fine and was much, much easier to use.
|
| I remember the first time we got a Zojirushi hot water
| dispenser, and even then it was like "Wait, you have to push
| these tiny buttons in what order again?" Whereas the previous
| cheap one we had a giant, easy to use button front and
| center.
|
| Maybe it really is a cultural difference...?
| dmoy wrote:
| To be clear, we don't have a simple rice cooker. We have
| one of these terrible UX rice cookers with a shit ton of
| buttons and settings.
|
| But we ignore all that and just do the thumb-level of water
| and hit the button that says cook (and also says like three
| other things too, but whatever). We ignore the other
| buttons.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| > Once you hit start, no timer is present. You have no idea how
| long it's going to take (turns out, about an hour).
|
| The rice cooker doesn't know either, it will take whatever is
| needed to take. Short of putting an extensive sensor array and
| ask you for the kind of rice you put in it, there's probably no
| way to actually predict it.
|
| On the quick/normal setting, they taste different. My best
| image would be on black tea: you can use 95C water or near 100C
| water, one is quicker than the other to fully extract the
| flavor, but won't result in the same profile (you might
| actually prefer the quicker one, your choice)
|
| On the UX...welcome to a world where you buy products of
| different cultures.
|
| If that helps, many people don't actually follow the dosing cup
| to the letter and adjust the amount of rice and water to their
| taste, relative the rice we're using at that time after a few
| tries (at least I do, and so does anyone I talked to), so there
| is no guideline that would help us.
|
| I'd perhaps compare it to coffee, there are machines doing it
| all automatically but they taste bland, and the better tools
| will expect you to know what you're getting into. Rice cookers
| are as serious business in Japan as espresso machine in Italy,
| you won't get a high end machine that catters to people who're
| not familiar with what's going on.
| solardev wrote:
| Hmm, thanks for explaining the profiles. I'll try a few and
| see how they taste.
|
| > The rice cooker doesn't know either, it will take whatever
| is needed to take. Short of putting an extensive sensor array
| and ask you for the kind of rice you put in it, there's
| probably no way to actually predict it.
|
| Why doesn't it know when it's so consistent every time? How
| does the ninja know? How does this one know when it's closer
| to 10 minutes? Seems like you should be able to estimate it
| down to a within a few minutes at start, then refine that
| estimate if need be. It's helpful to know whether something
| will take 15, 20 min or 45 to an hour.
| kelipso wrote:
| Different rice varieties have very different cooking times,
| also ratio or rice to water also influences the time, so
| the machine can't just estimate based on weight.
| robocat wrote:
| What sensor do high-end rice cookers have that varies the
| cooking dependent on the rice variety? Steam?
|
| Simple rice cookers have only a 100degC temperature
| sensor (or switch) that turns off the main element once
| the water is boiled.
| haswell wrote:
| On the one hand, I can imagine some estimation solutions
| that all make me think about software installation progress
| bars.
|
| But on the other hand, if this is a piece of equipment you
| use regularly, you'll learn pretty quickly how long each
| thing typically takes, and after that initial learning
| period, the fuzzy progress indicator is no longer very
| valuable, and doesn't seem worth investing the engineering
| and UX time (and resulting higher product cost).
|
| As a software-oriented community, I understand the impulse
| to throw code at the situation, but this seems like a
| situation where the cost of doing so doesn't really help
| very much. And it might actually make things worse, since
| most users are conditioned to trust/believe the
| sensors/indicators they see, and a countdown that keeps
| dynamically changing/jumping/slowing will confuse quite a
| few people who don't understand why it's a hard problem to
| solve.
|
| And I think it's worth noting that this is par for the
| course with most things related to food prep. I'm always
| looking up cooking times for various things until I
| memorize the things that I cook often, and this seems like
| just another case of doing a quick search for a timetable.
| kjkjadksj wrote:
| Imagine you are making rice in this for the first time
| and you have no idea how long its going to take. That is
| ridiculous when you think about it. How do you even plan
| the rest of the meal assuming you won't just be eating
| rice? Take the loss the first time and take 90 minutes to
| make dinner since the manufacturer didn't have actually
| cooking with the thing in mind I guess.
| Karellen wrote:
| > Imagine you are making rice in this for the first time
| and you have no idea how long its going to take.
|
| How many times do you use it for the first time? Seems
| like a bit of an edge case to spend engineering time/add
| extra parts for.
| solardev wrote:
| I don't think this is some insolvable problem. It's
| literally estimating the time it takes to cook rice, and
| many other rice cookers (including other Z models,
| apparently) do this just fine.
|
| It's not some edge case, it's literally the biggest
| question after you push start.
| haswell wrote:
| Imagine you're grilling steak (or making lasagna, or
| cooking chili, etc) for the first time. The same
| principles apply. It's easy to look this up, and once you
| do, the problem is solved.
|
| Expecting a cooking tool to hold your hand to this degree
| doesn't seem reasonable to me.
| callalex wrote:
| I'm almost certain that the manual gives an approximate
| time range for each mode.
| JohnBooty wrote:
| Well, because rice is inexpensive, you.... could do a
| test batch? Sure, it would add $0.25 or something to the
| cost of your $100.00 rice maker.
|
| Or you could just put the rice in extra early. It will
| get done early. But it will still be hot and perfect when
| you're ready to eat?
|
| It feels like you have a big misunderstanding of rice
| cookers.
| ilamont wrote:
| > Why doesn't it know when it's so consistent every time?
|
| Because rice isn't consistent.
|
| This is most apparent with certain varieties - a cup of
| imported Basmati "Royal" brand will take longer and require
| more water than the same amount of "Three Elephants"
| Jasmine rice from Thailand.
|
| Even the same varieties produced by different
| brands/countries will turn out differently in terms of time
| required. This relates to differences in climate, storage,
| processing, and other factors.
| newsclues wrote:
| It's not a timer function but a sensor that detects signals
| the rices is done.
|
| Depending on environmental conditions (temperature, etc)
| and amount being cooked, will vary but the results are
| repeatable quality rice, rather than a fixed cook time and
| variable quantity rice.
|
| More expensive but better quality rice.
| mook wrote:
| > Why doesn't it know when it's so consistent every time?
|
| They had a feature (that I believe it's just integrated
| into every model now) labeled as "neuro fuzzy", decades
| before the neutral networks boom. I believe it's really
| just describing hysteresis. So it's doing things based on
| feedback from whatever sensors they have, but there's no
| learning from run to run (based on how you actually use the
| thing).
|
| I also hate its lack of estimated times.
| faitswulff wrote:
| Zojirushi rice cups are a standard. It's just not a western
| standard: https://cooking.stackexchange.com/a/33033
| solardev wrote:
| I'm sure it is, but why didn't they localize it alongside the
| English buttons? At least print it in English on the cup, if
| not outright tweaking the corresponding water lines in the
| cook pan and the cooking logic to a more common measurement
| here.
| SECProto wrote:
| I think most of your points have been addressed, but this one..
|
| > a Zojirushi cup isn't the same as an imperial cup
|
| Indeed, a zojirushi cup is 180ml, while an imperial cup is
| 284ml. Perhaps you meant a US Customary cup, at either 237ml or
| 240ml? Then there's a whole mess of other measurements people
| call a "cup" (118ml, 227ml, 250ml...)
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cup_%28unit%29
| throw0101b wrote:
| A bit of history:
|
| > _The_ go _or cup is a traditional Japanese unit based on
| the_ ge _which is equal to 10_ shaku _or 1/10_ sho. _Back in
| the year 1891 it was officially equated with 2401 /13310
| liters. The_ go _is the traditional amount used for a serving
| of rice and a cup of sake in Japanese cuisine. Although the_
| go _is no longer used as an official unit, 1-go measuring
| cups or their 180ml metric equivalents are often included
| with modern premium rice cookers._
|
| * https://greedy-panda.com/2020/06/the-rice-measuring-cup-
| expl...
|
| > _Measuring rice correctly is the key to make delicious
| rice. For rice measurement, we use a traditional Japanese
| measure called_ go _or rice cup. A level cup of this
| measuring cup is 1 rice cup. 1 rice cup equals approximately
| 3/4 US cup or 180 ml._
|
| * https://toirokitchen.com/products/rice-measuring-cup
| solardev wrote:
| I had no idea this was the case! Yeesh, that's even worse
| than I imagined.
| SECProto wrote:
| Non metric units are a nightmare! I find them terribly
| interesting, but if you're looking for an unambiguous unit
| of measure, the metric system is the way.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mile#Comparison_table
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pint#Other_pints
| solardev wrote:
| I'm totally on board. Hard to convince the other 300
| megapeople living in this country though :(
| veidr wrote:
| > a Zojirushi cup isn't the same as an imperial cup
|
| Right, but a US cup isn't the same as a Japanese cup, or a UK
| cup, or even a US "legal cup" etc.. unfortunately the "cup"
| isn't a useful unit of measurement any more than a non-
| XKCD-1179[1] date is a useful expression of a date (T_T)
|
| > why would I want slow rice if there's a quick rice?
|
| Slow rice is better.
|
| > isn't it just a ratio of rice to water?
|
| Yes (and therefore, indeed, WTF (!!!(?!)))
|
| > what if I want quick brown rice? It's not possible.
|
| There are levels to this game.
|
| > You have no idea how long it's going to take
|
| Indeed. Nobody does.
|
| > As much as I appreciate good rice
|
| Do you, though?
|
| > I'd much rather suffer a 10% degradatio... if... controls
| could be simplified...Does something like that exist?
|
| Yes (but not in/from Japan)
|
| > Do the Japanese prefer having more options to tweak?
|
| Yes
|
| > Is this a broader cultural preference, or just something
| special about this one brand?
|
| The former; every Japanese rice cooker (and website) is like
| this, only more so[2]
|
| [1]: https://xkcd.com/1179/
|
| [2]: seems like an infinitely recursive statement, since "every
| Japanese rice cooker" includes the Zojirushi rice cookers under
| discussion; however, infinite recursion is actually an
| explicitly-supported feature of TRON (OS, but that's the O in
| TRON), which powers almost all Japanese rice cookers[3]
|
| [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRON_project
| eldaisfish wrote:
| many of your "complaints" seem easily solvable.
|
| Rice washing is a fairly common practice in cultures that cook
| rice. You are likely from a culture where rice is not common so
| the solution is to look it up. My ten year old zojirushi rice
| cooker came with instructions telling you how to wash rice.
|
| A "cup" is a horrible measure of volume because there are so
| many definitions. This is clearly not zojirushi's fault.
|
| If you don't know what GABA rice is, may i suggest you look it
| up? Seriously, if you do not understand what something is, look
| it up instead of dismissing it as "unfriendly to a westerner".
| solardev wrote:
| I think this sort of condescending attitude is what makes
| products hard to use. I did in fact look all of this up, but
| that doesn't make the rice maker easy to use.
|
| (Edit)
|
| Believe it or not, yes, I can RTFM too (and did -- it still
| wasn't very clear, and neither were the online videos). But
| that's not really the point. I was more curious about why a
| company that clearly values the design behind its products
| would make these design tradeoffs. Is it the result of
| careful user research? Japanese cultural traditions?
| Thoughtlessness (unlikely?). Etc.
|
| I find Japanese automobile dashboards easier to use than most
| American ones, for example. Japanese watches hellish to use.
| Sony anything pretty complicated. Is it a
| model/product/company/cultural/other factor?
|
| IMO the more interesting question here isn't "How to teach HN
| dumbass to use a rice cooker" but "Why does this famous
| Japanese rice cooker company design its interface this
| particular way?"
| ProfessorLayton wrote:
| >Rice washing is a fairly common practice in cultures that
| cook rice.
|
| In the US at least, many brands spray additional vitamins and
| minerals to increase the nutritional value of rice, and
| specifically state _not_ to wash the rice right on the
| packaging.
|
| Because of this, there seems to be a pretty wide split on
| cultural lines on whether one should wash their rice,
| especially online.
| tantalor wrote:
| > turns out, about an hour
|
| Um what? That's absurd. Cooking rice should take like 15-25
| minutes, 35 minutes tops.
| artimaeis wrote:
| There's more than one way to cook rice.
|
| A lot of the Japanese rice cookers cook it a bit lower/slower
| than you'd normally do on a stovetop in a pot. The result is
| usually rice with nicer texture and flavor, but if you're
| only ever buying the cheapest rice, or value the speed it can
| be cooked, it's probably not worthwhile. Just stick to the
| really cheap rice cookers that usually take around 20 mins.
|
| Here's a screenshot from the Zojirushi Fuzzy's manual, it
| generally takes around an hour to cook any rice.
|
| https://imgur.com/a/pyA6l27
| ethbr1 wrote:
| > _Reminds me of my old Casio watches_
|
| If you ever want a UX example, go out and buy the following:
|
| https://www.amazon.com/Casio-Classic-Core-DW9052-1-Wristwatc...
|
| https://www.amazon.com/Timex-T5E901-Ironman-Classic-Black/dp...
|
| NO NOT THROW AWAY THE CASIO MANUAL
|
| Begin using the G-Shock first, making sure to learn how to do
| common watch tasks. Use chronometer, change time, set
| timers/alarms, etc.
|
| Then, after doing that for awhile, trying using the Ironman.
| Just for kicks, don't read the manual. Attempt the same common
| tasks.
|
| It's mind-boggling how esoterically-unnecessary Casio UX is.
| Someone wrote:
| That first link mention this feature:
|
| _"Auto-calendar out until the year 2099, the watch does not
| have to be adjusted for the number days in month even leap
| year until 2099"_
|
| Amazing! (That they dare list that as a feature, not that it
| seems to have a bug for 2100, which won't be a leap year)
| maxglute wrote:
| Japan stuck in their ways. 150$ Xiaomi smart rice cooker that
| was comparable to highend Zojirushi had very friendly UI. You
| can get basics done fine with small on board oled, but a lot of
| it is behind smarthome app and appliance is soft region locked.
| An offline high performance rice cooker with good onboard UI...
| probably one of the Korean brands like Cuckoo but I've never
| used. SKR knows how to do decent hardware and software though.
| solardev wrote:
| Cool, thanks for the suggestions!
|
| The Xiaomi one looks beautiful and simple. I'll have to look
| for one next time I'm overseas.
|
| The Cuckoo ones still look really complex, though. Was there
| a particular model with simpler UI?
| Syzygies wrote:
| I have a midrange Zojirushi rice cooker, a Vermicular Musui
| Kamado cast iron induction cooker, and a Kamado-san double-lid
| donabe rice cooker, all from Japan.
|
| The Zojirushi makes respectable rice with minimal effort, as in
| we're about to walk the dog but we need to set up rice for
| dinner.
|
| The Musui Kamado is a dramatic upgrade over an Instant Pot for
| every use except pressure cooking, for which we prefer a stovetop
| Fissler pressure cooker. Carefully following directions, it makes
| better rice than the Zojirushi. We use it whenever we want a
| feedback loop for fixed temperature, not unattended flame, such
| as cooking beans or stews. For tacos, I have to remember to
| transfer the cooked nixtamal corn for fresh masa, in time for my
| wife to start beans.
|
| The Kamado-san double-lid donabe rice cooker takes the most care,
| and makes in my opinion the best rice, with a controllable bit of
| scorch as desired.
|
| At home, out of expediency we use the Zojirushi to make our rice.
| I find myself avoiding meals that involve rice, out of boredom.
| In my work apartment, I haven't touched the Zojirushi or Musui
| Kamado for rice since adopting the Kamado-san donabe, and I look
| forward to rice.
|
| If all sushi bar rice tastes the same to you, stick to the
| Zojirushi. If only food at the limits of your abilities
| captivates you, get a Kamado-san donabe. The Musui Kamado is the
| most versatile compromise. There's no novel physics here; its
| edge over both a Zojirushi and an Instant Pot can be explained by
| its precision-machined cast iron pot, of a better quality than Le
| Creuset or Staub (I have all three).
|
| https://www.vermicular.us/shop/musui-kamado
|
| https://toirokitchen.com/collections/unique-style-iga-yaki-d...
| porphyra wrote:
| I appreciate that there are higher end devices but as someone
| who can definitely tell the difference between different sushi
| bar rice, I'm still satisfied with my Zojirushi rice cooker.
| snapplebobapple wrote:
| #metoo
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| We are a Chinese family (well except me) and a low/mid-range
| zojirushi gets the job done. Rice is important, but beyond
| getting the dryness and fluffiness right (don't add too much
| water, use Thai longer grain rice), I'm not sure are eating
| habits would improve with much higher end rice cooking tech.
|
| I also appreciate sushi bar rice, but it is something to have
| out rather than eat in. I guess if I was cooking more
| Japanese rather than Thai rice it would be different.
| kjkjadksj wrote:
| I have a rice cooker function on my instapot and never used it.
| I still don't get why people buy these one off appliances like
| rice cookers. Making rice on the stove isn't a huge
| inconvenience, pretty foolproof in fact. Once its set up you
| can walk away and do other things too.
| mcny wrote:
| > one off appliances
|
| I have an instant pot as well. If I have to cook myself, I
| put everything I have got rice, lentils, chicken bullion
| powder, frozen chicken breast, frozen vegetables, cut pieces
| of carrot, red chili powder, ginger powder, garlic powder,
| black pepper, the works everything goes in the instant pot
| and I go to my MS Teams meetings. Food cooks and goes into
| "keep warm" setting.
|
| In fact, that's quite literally what I did almost every
| morning for a bit last year when I was by myself. However,
| "normal people" in my family refuse to eat this even though I
| assure them it is perfectly edible.
|
| It is perfectly rational to want to minimize the amount of
| time you spend cooking.
|
| Edit: the rice cooker inner pot that I have is non-stick and
| is scratched up beyond all recognition but still they prefer
| using that to cook rice over my instant pot (with a superior
| stainless steel inner lining).
| mmastrac wrote:
| Are they concerned about bacterial growth? As long as you
| hit the critical temperature and time during cooking,
| extended warmth should be fine, right?
|
| You might need an agar plate experiment to convince them,
| hah.
| ethbr1 wrote:
| It's probably more about texture.
|
| I'd assume at least some of those ingredients are
| overcooked, unless OP carefully chose that particular
| combination (and used frozen chicken).
|
| The "OG tv dinner" / "what can be cooked in the same
| time" problem has always fascinated me. I expect
| somewhere on the Internet there's a list of combinations
| and cooking methods.
| pfranz wrote:
| I had the same issue with crock pot meals and instant pot
| meals. The biggest culprit for me is a homogeneous
| texture (I have the same annoyance with making stuff in
| higher end blenders). You'll notice "high end" recipes
| suggest something to change up the texture; like add
| something crunchy after cooking. I think that makes a
| huge difference.
| lm28469 wrote:
| s/bullion/bouillon
| dclowd9901 wrote:
| 100% with you. I'm no pro, but my stainless pot rice is
| basically perfect. Only thing I'm not great at is seasoning
| it like sushi places do.
| radley wrote:
| > I still don't get why people buy these one off appliances
| like rice cookers.
|
| I can set a timer so the rice is ready first thing in the
| morning. My Zojirushi can cook a variety of rice techniques,
| like gaba brown which takes 3.5 hours. And after it is
| cooked, it will keep the rice warm for days, which is great
| for meal planning.
| roland35 wrote:
| That seems like a recipe for food bourn illness - does it
| keep it hot enough to keep the rice outside the "danger
| zone"?
| ethbr1 wrote:
| It should boil while cooking (I've never monitored exact
| rice cooker temps, but... boiling), which would sterilize
| the inside of the pot.
|
| For the primary worry of bacillus cereus, it looks like
| there are some interesting heat susceptibility chances
| introduced even to spores after initial heat treatment.
| See: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC239763/
|
| Instant Pot keep warm is at least ~40degC (?), usually a
| good bit higher, which should be in the 45degC+ range to
| kill weakened spores.
|
| So, maybe op isn't flirting with much danger?
| artimaeis wrote:
| I've been cooking regularly (3-5/wk) for 15 years and I hate
| making rice on the stovetop. Maybe I'm just secretly a
| terrible cook, but at best my success rate with stovetop rice
| is 50%. The other half the time it's either under or
| overcooked, and once I've opened the lid to evaluate I've
| never been able to "fix" it. Maybe all my stovetops have
| somehow been more irregular than yours.
|
| Thus, I've used rice cookers for most of those 15 years. The
| $15 no-name brand works great! Never under or over-cooks the
| rice! I have the Zojirushi Fuzzy now, and I love it. I find
| its rice slightly better than the bargain-bin rice cooker
| made, and I'm spoiled to it now.
|
| Generally I'm also somewhat dismissive of one-use appliances.
| But for me, a rice cooker is a must-have if I'm making rice
| with any regularity. It takes up maybe a cubic foot of space,
| stores really easily when it's not being used, and is pretty
| easy to use and clean. I wish all my small appliances were so
| convenient (where do people store such tall blenders?!).
| Centigonal wrote:
| I can make perfect stovetop rice 100% of the time, if I'm
| paying attention. If I'm cooking for guests, that's what I'll
| do. Thing is, I'm an extremely distractable person, and I've
| burned my rice more times than I can count.
|
| My little zojirushi lets me get some rice started, go on a
| bike ride, forget about the rice, watch a youtube video, send
| some emails, remember the rice in a sudden panic, and happily
| find that it still came out nearly perfect.
| tomcam wrote:
| Plus the Zojirushis last forever. We're about year 20 of
| ours.
| AuryGlenz wrote:
| Their batteries, however, do not. Apparently on the model
| we have it requires quite a bit of disassembly and it's
| soldered in. In Asia it's expected to just be plugged in
| all the time and so the battery is just backup for when
| the power goes out. We, however, don't make rice all that
| often and so it gets put away after use.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| I haven't figured out how to change the time on my rice
| cooker anyways, and I'm pretty sure much of Asia (at
| least surely in China) will unplug rice cookers not in
| use (we got power outlets with switches).
| zikduruqe wrote:
| And if you put in the correct rice to water ratio, it will be
| perfect. inner_pot_weight = input("How much
| does your inner pot weigh: ") RiceWeight = input("How
| much does your rice weigh in grams: ")
| water_amount = (int(RiceWeight) \* .19) + int(RiceWeight)
| total_pot_weight = int(inner_pot_weight) + int(RiceWeight) +
| int(water_amount) print(f'You will need to add
| {water_amount:.0f} grams of water, and your total pot weight
| will be {total_pot_weight} grams.') print("Set your
| pressure cooker to white rice, and do a natural release after
| 10 minutes.")
| niij wrote:
| Add water until it is one finger segment (the first bend
| point on your index finger) above the rice. No other
| weights or measures necessary.
| wodenokoto wrote:
| Maybe a rice cooker doesn't make sense for most westerners
| but for Asians it is typically a must. I wouldn't be
| surprised if many homes in Japan are using their rice cooker
| more than coffee machine - another one-off kitchen gadget
| that everyone more or less can agree is a kitchen stable.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| In Asia you wouldn't have a coffee pot but you would
| probably have an electric kettle.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| If you make rice everyday, you won't be able to convince your
| Chinese wife to ho with a stove top method. Besides, even a
| pressure pot would take up some counter space, so you aren't
| losing much.
| ornornor wrote:
| What works for me in the instant pot: 1 cup rice to 1.25 cups
| water, set it to pressure cook 4 min, then wait 10 min, then
| release pressure. I get consistently decent rice this way,
| it's not the parameters the manual recommends. If I follow
| the manual I get overcooked mushy porridge instead of rice.
| lukas099 wrote:
| That's a lot of nice kitchen gadgets you got there.
| jcmeyrignac wrote:
| Thanks for the advice! I wanted to buy a Zojirushi, but teflon
| is a big no-no for me. What are the options for a rice cooker
| without teflon/aluminum?
| JohnBooty wrote:
| _" The Musui Kamado['s edge over its competition is] its
| precision-machined cast iron pot"_
| Dowwie wrote:
| Zojirushi is among the few brands that have sustained high
| quality products over a very long period of time, and is now
| unique in that regard for consumer products. I've owned two
| zojirushi rice cookers over 20 years and the first remains fully
| functional. The water boiler is great for dispensing hot water on
| demand for tea.
| layer8 wrote:
| Tangential question: Is there a way, on mobile browsers, to see
| the length of a YouTube video without unmuting it?
| amelius wrote:
| Noob question here. What makes these things more than glorified
| water boilers with a thermostat and a timer?
| kjkjadksj wrote:
| I have this suspicion that they are more necessary in tiny east
| asian apartment kitchens to make a burner available, and
| westerners who have much more kitchen space and larger stoves
| in comparison have latched on to as the right or correct way to
| make rice simply because its commonly owned in the east.
| Ignoring why one might own one or the fact rice was
| traditionally cooked for millennia without plug in cookers.
| callalex wrote:
| A few things.
|
| 1) It's easier, you don't have to watch them, just fill them
| and turn them on while you do something else.
|
| 2) The nicer models will hold the rice at warm-but-below-
| boiling for a while before cooking because the rice comes out
| softer and tastier, especially healthy brown rice.
|
| 3) The thermostat isn't used to detect absolute temperature, it
| actually monitors the rate of change/first derivative to decide
| when the rice is fully cooked. This makes the required ratio of
| rice:water much more lenient and cooks the same amount
| independent of the rice type/size.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| I've gone through three cheap rice cookers in recent years and am
| back to doing it in a pot on the stove. None of them have been
| consistent in their temperature control. I replaced #1 (cheap
| from amazon) when it burned the rice. #2 (cheap from local
| walmart) came was "non-stick" but was actually just bushed
| aluminum. I used it once and needed a scouring pad to clean the
| thing. #3 is just too messy, spraying rice water all over the
| counter within a foot of the thing.
|
| After reading comments here I find myself hovering over the "buy
| now" button for a 300$ rice cooker but I have been burned too
| many time. Pots. Steel pots. They work. They are cheap. They
| last. They aren't e-waste.
| Simon_ORourke wrote:
| I'm firmly in the steel pot camp, for any marginal benefit you
| can get from a timer or auto start feature, it just takes five
| minutes to cook some rice in a pot.
| peteforde wrote:
| Strong recommend for investing in a Zojirushi.
|
| You will get consistently great rice and the devices are known
| to last decades when properly cared for.
| singingfish wrote:
| My household rice cooker is a Tiger (also a higher end brand,
| not as flash as the Z). The people here swearing that cooking
| rice on a stovetop is fine don't take their rice seriously
| enough (although if it works for them etc). I've had cheapies
| before but they can't do my favoured preparation of half and
| half white and brown rice properly.
| peteforde wrote:
| Unserious rice for unserious people.
|
| Joking aside, I'm genuinely surprised that nobody mentioned
| Uncle Roger's rice cooking explainers [at least as far as I
| saw].
| singingfish wrote:
| Oh man, when I spent 3 days in bed with covid earlier
| this year I managed to kill a great deal of time getting
| deeply into Uncle Roger's rice cooker based comedy. It's
| only funny because it's all true!
| singingfish wrote:
| To be honest, I should do a little bit of experimental
| steaming rice in my stove top pressure cooker and see how
| that goes.
| ta8903 wrote:
| Anyone know why Japan went all in on these electric rice cookers
| while in India everyone still uses a basic gas pressure cooker?
| It can't just be the economic disparity.
| callalex wrote:
| Until fairly recently (and sometimes still), electricity could
| be fairly unreliable in many parts of India.
| huhtenberg wrote:
| Zojurushi world-wide. Select your region: *
| Japan * The Americas * Taiwan * Korea
| * South East Asia * China * Hong Kong / Macau
|
| No rice for you, the Europas, Africas or Australias.
|
| [0] https://www.zojirushi-world.com/
| singingfish wrote:
| Nah mate, when it comes to rice, Australia is an honorary part
| of SE Asia.
| m3kw9 wrote:
| You want fluffy rice? Don't let the rice absorb the steam right
| after it's done. As soon as it is finished start flipping the
| rice so it cools/get as much steam out as possible. Don't
| compress/squish the rice though as that is opposite of fluffy.
| Rice absorbing steam will make it saggy as it will have too much
| moisture. Closing the lid after mixing is ok
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