Rice Cookers

[stranded]

Having sworn not to be seduced by the electric cooking opportunities of our new LifePo setup….

We have a little Yumasia Panda rice cooker at home and love it for rice, porridge, slow(ish) cooking, steaming. Oh and mulled wine. Haven’t tried baking cakes yet.

It is very compact but feeds 4 generously, 6 sensibly. It seems pretty economical - 0.124kwh to cook rice for 4. 0.7kwh to cook long and slow beef, pork and venison stews to perfection.
And all for 94 of your English pounds.

So seems a no brainer for the boat to me. But before I press Buy, is there an even better option? To be clear, we aren’t looking to replace our gas stove, just to take max advantage of the sun when we can.

 

[Slowboat35]

I have four or five rice cookers on my boat.
They're more often called saucepans...

 

[stranded]

Amazing.

 

[mjcoon]

I have four or five rice cookers on my boat.
They're more often called saucepans...

Watched pots just simmer? Compare and contrast pressure cookers?

 

[Sandy]

I use a Mr D slow cooker. Add ingredients heat simmer for a bit then seal up, go sailing and several hours later a piping hot meal. The rice is brilliant.

 

[Neeves]

Induction hob, air fryer, bread maker, toaster, kettle - and a bit of drift Kenwood Chef. We get by with a 1500 watt inverter - but a bigger one might allow use of more than one appliance at a time. If you check Chinese 'sort of' general stores they can do a whole range of electric saucepans
.
Mr D's thermal cooker does not quite reach Oz and we use the Thermos Shuttle Chef, great if you are doing watches, hot soup or stew ready at, almost, any time.

Jonathan

 

[Neeves]

Mr D's Themal Cooker and Shuttle Chef

Thermos Thermal Cooker Review - Practical Sailor

 

[st599]

I've got a heat bag I bought in South Africa - get your stew/rice/whatever good and hot on the hob or in the oven, then put the pot in the bag - slow cooks for 8 hours with no power needed.

 

[Neeves]

Induction hobs - We cannot run ours at maximum - our inverter is too small. But even with the 1500 watt inverter the hob works and is invaluable (for all the reasons people use indiction hobs). I believe the camping company Vango make a 'low power' induction hob more suitable for smaller inverters and it, the Vango Hob, has been the subject of posts here, or on PBO. I think there might even be a double hob...?

I'm sure we could buy a Vango hob (at considerable expense) here - but we just bought one from Temu (as they are all probably made in China anyway)

Maybe, surely, someone local, ie UK based, knows more than a distant colonialist of Vango products.

Jonathan

 

[stranded]

I use a Mr D slow cooker. Add ingredients heat simmer for a bit then seal up, go sailing and several hours later a piping hot meal. The rice is brilliant.

That looks really interesting. When you say simmer for a bit…?

 

[Sandy]

That looks really interesting. When you say simmer for a bit…?

I get everything up to a rolling boil then simmer for about 15 mins, that ensures that the food is hot all the way through and really heats up the metal ring on the bottom of the inner pot.

It takes a wee bit of practice at first, there is no evaporation during cooking and I usually reduce the amount of liquid in a recipe by a third.

If it has been a long day, I am usually single handed I give it a quick blast of heat before eating.

Having the 3L pot with the 'top pot' is good for rice. I've not baked in it, but will be experimenting with that in the summer.

 

[seafox67]

I use a Lakeland mini rice cooker which pulls around 260 watts. It works well with my ecoflow river 2.

 

[The Q]

We use a rice cooking pot made of plastic that goes in the microwave, works very well and quickly.

 

[stranded]

We use a rice cooking pot made of plastic that goes in the microwave, works very well and quickly.

But what about things that need low and slow cooking?

 

[The Q]

But what about things that need low and slow cooking?

We have a slow cooker for that, , if it's just veg and rice we use the uwave.

 

[Neeves]

Having sworn not to be seduced by the electric cooking opportunities of our new LifePo setup….

We have a little Yumasia Panda rice cooker at home and love it for rice, porridge, slow(ish) cooking, steaming. Oh and mulled wine. Haven’t tried baking cakes yet.

It is very compact but feeds 4 generously, 6 sensibly. It seems pretty economical - 0.124kwh to cook rice for 4. 0.7kwh to cook long and slow beef, pork and venison stews to perfection.
And all for 94 of your English pounds.

So seems a no brainer for the boat to me. But before I press Buy, is there an even better option? To be clear, we aren’t looking to replace our gas stove, just to take max advantage of the sun when we can.

Your ability to use any electrical device powered by LiFePO4 is contingent on the size of your house battery bank and critically your ability to harvest solar power (unless you are on shore power in a marina). You will have other uses for your stored power some of which are critical - fridge, lighting, entertainment, pumps, nav equipment, auto pilot, (desalinator) etc. Unless use of electrical galley equipment is a special occasion then you will need a substantial solar display and an ability to store that power for days, sometimes continuous days, of inclement weather.

Obvious stuff really.

But the underlying truth is - without a decent solar display investing in an air fryer or induction hob (needing compatible saucepans) is a bit of a waste. A rice cooker at Stg94 (seems expensive to me? surely you can find one cheaper) hopefully is not a major investment nor consumer - but maybe also consider investing in more solar to reap a bigger harvest.

I note you will have a fall back - you only want to take advantage of the sun (and your solar display) - and will retain your gas galley equipment.

There must be a simple equation: reliable amount of solar harvest over a week vs size of battery bank vs size of usage - but I have not quite deduced what the numbers are and the numbers will vary based on location, UK (north and south), Med, Caribbean etc


With a fixed location 300 watts of solar, a 200amp LiFePO4 battery we can reliably use one major item of galley equipment (say air fryer) cooking the main part of a meal ( say roast a chicken) every day in Sydney's summer sun + plus we have a 60l fridge permanently plugged in. Sometimes we can squeeze in another course, say lunch. But we need to be fairly strict - not profligate use - and its a terrestrial installation - no nav equipment, no desalinator. Winter is closing in - maybe the numbers will change. We need more solar and a larger battery bank to allow a more relaxed use of solar and LiFePO4 as a power source for a galley.

Jonathan

 

[stranded]

As you say, with different options we will base our use on the power that is available - we don’t need to engineer more power. We are happy campers, doing our best with what we have and not getting hung up on the science of it. If we can’t cook rice, we’ll eat lettuce. If we can’t have a hot shower, we’ll have a cold one. Or smell a bit.

know pursuit of perfection is a thing for some people, but there is no part of us that works that way, except as necessary to be safe. We have 600W of solar, an 50A dc to dc charger, an 150A shore charger, a 450AH LifePo battery and a 3000W (6000 peak inverter. But none of that is relevant to my question - the rice cooker seems a good way to make use of spare electricity. - i am confident that we will be able to electrically rustle up the odd pan of rice and a searingly hot chilli in southern Britanny in midsummer, it’s just which tool to use. The one I identified is very very good. I am sure there are cheaper, but so what - is there better?

 

[Neeves]

Its refreshing to see someone with such a relaxed attitude to power.

I'm surprised that you are not more ambitious, maybe wrong word, the rice cooker will hardly make a dent in your potential power and storage - especially as you are going to continue to use the gas galley. If the rice cooker is to use up the 'spare' (then you don't have much 'spare') - I'd be interested to know how you already use the potential power you harvest and store.

I had looked at instant hot water devices - but most of them are really big consumers, 5000 watts.

Jonathan

 

[stranded]

We certainly have very different attitudes to life Jonathan.

But you misunderstand. The purpose of the rice cooker would not be to “use up” spare electricity. It would be to have an extremely useful tool onboard which can take advantage of (not “use up”) available clean and free power instead of using gas.

As with my bank account, I feel no need to contrive ways to “use up” any balance left at the end of the month - life seems to take care of that all by itself, and i imagine it will be the same with our increased power storage.

The suggestions for alternatives were very helpful - definitely intend to look at Sandy’s D cooker for when the sun don’t shine - but seen nothing so far that clearly trumps the Panda for when it does.

 

[Neeves]

Panda

Explore The Features Of The Panda Mini Rice Cooker

??

Jonathan