Seeking advice: repairing a rice cooker

Sorry to actually ask rather than answer..but

WTF is a rice cooker?

My rice cooker is glass bowl inside a microwave. Two cups of water, one cup of rice, one dob of butter and a pinch of salt, full power till it boils then simmer 18 minutes. Perfect rice every time and the fuse doesn't blow..

There is heat cycling though. Would insulated spade connectors be better?

Glassfibre sleeving?

Owain

Nah, pan on a store - boil then lowest possible heat aka absorption method. Get the timing right and it's easy to wash the pan.

It's a semi-common appliance, effectively a heater (often in the

Steam-cooking soft-boiled eggs on such a machine takes about seven minutes from switching the machine on to it switching itself off because it has run out of water. The amount of water actually used is just 40ml for this job, which can (on my machine when it's working) handle up to nine eggs. Boiling stuff takes more, but still a lot less than you'd normally use on the stove.

In message , The Natural Philosopher writes

Where do you find a *simmer* setting on a microwave?

Thermal fuses should always be crimped, or resistance welded. They're insta= lled on things that are assumed to be getting hot, and things that get hot = aren't a good place to use screw terminals, as thermal cycling tends to mak= e brass grubscrews back themselves out.

When you ignore this, at least use good quality screw terminals with closel= y fitting threads. Also crush the terminal slightly from the side beforehan= d (use a vice, you need a precision bludgeoning) to tighten up the threads.

Add a litre of water to a pan, bring to boil. Add 100g [1] dry rice, stir ONCE, turn the heat off and cover.

Eleven minutes later, drain rice, leave to stand for a couple of minutes, and serve.

Perfect...

Ah, OK, that makes sense. Thanks.

Does that mean that e.g. spade-type crimp-on connectors (assuming that the insulation is rated for the temperature) are also questionable? That is, will they creep? I found a source of insulator-free ( i.e. needs sleeving...) crimp-on connectors rated for continuous use up to 482 degC (900F), but on reflection, it's not clear whether these would be good for frequent on/off cycling.

This sounds way too much like some jocular "advice" I heard from my father once: "When in doubt, get a bigger hammer."

I used to do that. but the microwave does it better and nothing sticks to the bowl or pan.

you can get little gizmos that you put a little water in and then an egg, and pop into the microwave. The egg cooks in the steam. Perfectly. Small. cheap. Takes no cupboard space.

On mine just below half way on the dial.

And it keeps nice and warm until the rest of dinner is ready.

Terminal block is fine - but normal red insulated crimps will also work reliably.

Small length of heat shrink sleeving, silicone sleeving, PTFE sleeving or fibreglass sleeving.

On my Tesco Value one, it's called "HIGH".

Not the most oomphiest of domestic appliances.

Owain

Nah, pan of boiling water from kettle, bung in rice, gentle rolling boil for 10 mins +/-, lob into colander. Nothing stuck to anything. Used to use the absorption method but different rice needs different amounts of water. KISS.

A good cook can time everything correctly, no need to have things hanging about. B-) Also there is some nasty that likes cooked rice but humans don't like...

Bacillus cereus. And even good cooks can be interrupted.

'kinell, 18 minutes... 10 minutes.... pans/water etc, sod that.

Remove packet from cupboard, tear 2cm slit in top (it does make a nice bang at about 1 minute 40 when you forget this step :), bung in nuker, full power for 2 minutes, when it goes ping, or beep, remove from nuker, tear top off fully, swear as the steam scalds your hands, tip contents onto plate, job done.

And no washing up of the cooking container either, just lob it in the bin :)

I might give this a go for the rare occasions when mistress chef is away. On investigation we do have *medium* and *low* settings available.

I already do my porridge in the microwave but that is 3 mins, stir, 3 mins, on full power.