Pressure cookers - a word of warning to the wise

[no_spam]

A couple of weeks ago I replaced the safety valve (AKA "ready to serve" indicator) in the elderly pressure cooker, but failed to look closely at the new part. Today I offered to produce stock from the Turkey carcass and some ageing veg and decided to use the pressure cooker. All was well, with the usual hissing, until a thunderous fountain of steam, turkey, fat and water erupted vertically, hit the extractor and spread-out horizontally across about a third of the kitchen - 'twas surprising how long it continued! Step-daughter's chap was frying some sausages at the time and will probably take several days to recover from the experience (fortunately the only damage was psychological). It took two of us to clean-up the mess and I have a nasty feeling that I'll need to dismantle the extractor to clean the fan. The cause: it seems that the design of the valve has changed and I had fitted it upside down. When looking closely, the top of the new one is cunningly and mischievously marked "top". Bu&&er!

Happy New Year to all.

[Nick]

I think you got away fairly lightly. I've heard far worse tales of pressure cookers. Very happy you were all unscathed.

Good luck and best wishes for the new year, Nick.

[Dave Liquorice]

Boston Marathon.

[Cursitor Doom]

Could have been worse. The Browning M1935 9mm High Power has a spring stop with no markings. It appears almost perfectly symmetrical, but if you put it back upside down following a strip-down, it will explode in your hand when next fired! Just be grateful you're only up for a clean up job!

HNY2U2

[Andrew Gabriel]

Long before it became popular, my mother used to make Banoffee pie from time to time. Part of the process was to boil a tin of cream in a pan of water for 2 hours. This would need topping up with water a few times over that period, but on two occasions, this got forgotten. I was not in the house either time. The tin of cream turns into toffee, and after the water boils dry, the temperature and pressure become high enough for it to explode. This leaves napalm-like toffee all over the ceiling and upper walls of the kitchen and adjoining dining room. You would never believe the quantity of toffee stuck to the walls/ceiling all came from just one tin of cream. Fortunately, no one was in either of these rooms, or they would have been burned. The rooms needed redecorating.

Nowadays, you can buy the toffee for banoffee pies already prepared.

My grandfather was always cranking up the pressure in his pressure cooker by improvising extra weights on the pressure valve. He got away without exploding it (I now have his one). My uncle is reputed to have blown one up by cooking something with barley in it, which blocked the steam vent. This was before I was born.

[Tim+]

I think you'll find that it's condensed milk, not cream that you cook.

Tim

[Thomas Prufer]

Boiling a tin of sweetened condensed milk can be hastened by doing it in the pressure cooker. Cook for 15-20 minutes after the thing reaches pressure, and the turn off heat and let cool naturally. Filling the pressure cooker with little or lots of water is enough to make the milk caramelize more or less.

Do not cool the pressure cooker with cold water, release pressure quickly and open, because the contents of the can are now a solid well over its boiling at the lower pressure, and the can may do the spewing napalm-like toffee thing.

Thomas Prufer

[Chris Hogg]

+1

Invented in 1972, apparently

[Andy Burns]

I'm only familiar with ye olde Prestige models, TTBOMK the rubber part on those always was marked "top" with the "T" shaped toggle bit of the metal bead inside ...

What happened, did the weights blow off, or the whole of the rubber safety valve eventually burst out (rather than just the metal bead)?

[News]

In message , Andrew Gabriel writes

I think it was condensed milk rather than cream, and yes, I remember doing exactly that, but, luckily, without the exploding part!

[Mr Macaw]

[googles] Cool!

[Nick Odell]

Very wise. For other examples of boiling being exacerbated by pressure, try jam-making. Sometimes, at the end of a batch, I can only partially fill one of the jars and as soon as the pressure drops, the jam starts to boil again and continues to boil as the negative pressure increases and the temperature decreases. Sometimes it's still been boiling with the temperature down to 40deg or less.

For those who eschew the risks of boiling up tins of condensed milk, Nestle make a ready-to-use toffee/caramel in a tin and call it Dulce de Leche.

For those who eschew buying Nestle products, it's pretty easy to make Dulce de Leche with just full cream milk, sugar, a saucepan and a wooden spoon. Making it yourself provides the opportunity to add just a dash of vanilla essence while the caramel is cooling down.

Nick

[Cursitor Doom]

Er, "horribly burned" more like. Home made Napalm!

[no_spam]

The whole valve departed, but the metal insert and rubber were several feet apart so at some point during the eruption they parted company. Once aware of the issue, with all brain cells cooperating, with a magnifying glass and with good light the "top" marking can easily be seen but, sadly, several of the pre-reqs were not in place when I fitted it.

[The Brain]

Contribution - zero. Benefits claims - lifelong. Fuck off Hucker you twisted little unemployable f*ck all.

[Brian Reay]

Until we got an induction hob, which our faithful Prestige Stainless Steel pressure cooker didn't like, we were keen pressure cooker users. Like yourself, the turkey carcass was transformed into stock and then soup within a day or so of Xmas.

My wife was always a bit afraid of the pressure cooker, although she did use it. My mother was much the same, she had a huge one in which the lid somehow fitted inside and pulled such. I enjoyed many a steamed pudding as a child and she made wonderful ham soup.

Now, I boil down the carcass in a large stock pot, it takes much longer, as does making the soup- the pulses used to cook in a fraction of the time in the pressure cooker.

However, I confess I can't justify buying an induction hub compatible pressure cooker, we've adapted to not having it for most things and the only real advantage would be for soup making.

[harry]

Bollix. Pressure cookers are fitted with deadweight pressure relief valves. Virtually impossible to go wrong. Or "fit upside down". If there were a steam explosion in a kitchen anyone nearby would be lucky to survive. So, an entirely fictitious story.

[Jaffna Dog]

I wouldn't have a pressure cooker, a heated pressure vessel that isn't regularly inspected is like having an unexploded bomb. Same goes for unvented water heaters.

[stuart noble]

IME most people under 50 have never heard of pressure cookers and yet they're so much faster. Ironic. Ideally they need to be dismantled and washed every time, otherwise the valve doesn't function reliably

[damduck-egg]

Snip

If that is so why does the manufacture of this part here

actually mark it with the words" Top", you can see it clearly on the above link if you enlarge the image.

To think you have boasted on here about being in charge of some hospital boilers yet we could not even trust you to maintain a pressure cooker ,letting you brew tea at a Village fete would open the organisers to prosecution under HSE rules for allowing such an incompetent to touch the Hot Water Urn. Paperwork Monkey I suppose ,bluffed his way into the job and was such a PITA that those who worked with you found it easier to leave you at your desk answering the phone and signing bits of paper rather than have you interfering with the serious work they were skilled in. Typical middle management. Spent your Winter Fuel Payment yet you benefit scrounger ? You must be old enough to qualify as senile dementia can be the only excuse for your apparent stupidity.

G.Harman