Slow Cooker - Pressure Cooker?

D

Davy27

The Force is Strong With This One
Hi all...

Been lurking and reading many threads. I wanted to ask what brand of slow cooker or pressure cooker you use and recommend? I have been reading things about lead etc in certain slow cookers leaching etc. SO I was curious which brands you may use ? I want to try making bone broth, so I need to get me a slow cooker, or pressure cooker asap.

Thanks much
:cool:
 
Davy27 said:
Hi all...

Been lurking and reading many threads. I wanted to ask what brand of slow cooker or pressure cooker you use and recommend? I have been reading things about lead etc in certain slow cookers leaching etc. SO I was curious which brands you may use ? I want to try making bone broth, so I need to get me a slow cooker, or pressure cooker asap.

Thanks much
:cool:
Click to expand...

Couldn't advise you on brands, as they vary from country to country, but there are a few points that should make your choice easy:
As to the slow cooker, I would recommend to buy a slow cooker with ceramic bowl inside. Many of the brands have aluminium bowls inside, which I wouldn't buy, as they leech aluminium and on top of that often are Teflon coated as well. Just make sure you can program it so that it runs at least 12 hours for bone broth, otherwise you might have to get up at night to restart it (I cook my bone broth for 24 hours).
Pressure cookers usually are stainless steel - so no problems from this side. If you come across one made from aluminium I wouldn't buy that either, for the same above reasons.
Pressure canners are usually made either of stainless steel or aluminium - but here aluminium isn't an issue, as you are canning stuff that is inside glass bottles.

Hope that helps!
 
Hi Davy27,

unfortunately I cannot recommend you any brand directly, but some things you may need to consider:

* a pressure cooker can be expensive compared to a slow cooker
* the advantage of a pressure cooker is you only need about 3hrs of cooking compared to a slow cooker (which can last for bone broth 24h?!)
* at this point I'm not sure: a pressure cooker and especially loaded with bone broth can be really smelly since it is always steaming. But I don't know if a slow cooker does the same or is leaking a bit of steam. Eventually something to consider if you are living in a shared flat.
* the size: the bigger the more bone broth you can make and bigger bones may fit it, which don't need to be chopped
* stainless steel is imo the best way to go and avoiding aluminium as I'm aware
* in case of a pressure cooker, make sure there is a "meat" program available, which means more pressure
* personally I use a Tefal (T-fal) pressure cooker, but I bought that one many years back without the intention making bone broth at the time


My two cents.
 
Hi Davy27,

Regarding pressure cookers, I'd follow what others have said and look for a good quality stainless steel one. As poorly built pressure cookers can explode (it happened with a family member in the past - no injuries, thankfully), I would look for a quality brand as to not have any problems with the lock attachment of the cover as well as the pressure valve. Mine is from Tramontina, but I don't know if it is available in other countries.

As Gawan said, it is good to have a pressure cooker with a "higher pressure" setting, which is the one usually indicated for meat. In mine the valve has just three positions: no pressure, normal pressure and high pressure. I always use it on high.

I would go for the larger pressure cookers. Mine is 6 liters and I regret not buying a 8 or even 10 liters one. The only disadvantage I can think of is that if you wan't to make a small meal with a small quantity of water in a very large pressure cooker it will take much longer to build up the pressure. But if you intend to use it for bone broth, I'd say larger is better.

Regarding the bone broth, I use a large cast iron pan (about 32 cm in diameter and 12 cm high) and simmer it in the lowest flame possible from 12 to 48 hours, depending on the type of bones. This pot cost me about 1/4 of what I paid in my pressure cooker.

I am yet to use my pressure cooker for bone broth but I do use it a lot to make stews with hard cuts of beef. I've read that pressure cooking reduces the final amount of unsaturated fat, which I think is the type of fat found in beef bone marrow. However, I haven't found reliable data on this, so I can't say whether it is a significant factor.

I have no experience with slow cookers, so I can't say how it would compare.

Good shopping!
 
Gawan said:
* the advantage of a pressure cooker is you only need about 3hrs of cooking compared to a slow cooker (which can last for bone broth 24h?!)
Click to expand...

Hi!
I use pressure cooker stainless steel. But, when I cook bone broth cooking time is 40 minutes. I'm surprised your bone broth cooking time in pressure cooker. My standard recipe is:
- Filtered water
- One old bone (pig)
- 1 chopped pig's trotter
- 1 piece of pork chop
- 1 turkey legs
- 1 piece of bacon
- 1 carrot
- 1/2 leek
Sometimes: 1 clove of garlic, some peppercorns.
It seems my cooking time may be insufficient, I learned from my mother in that way. Could I know why you cook bone broth 3 hours or more in pressure cooker? Depends on the recipe?

Thank you!
 
Ariadna said:
Gawan said:
* the advantage of a pressure cooker is you only need about 3hrs of cooking compared to a slow cooker (which can last for bone broth 24h?!)
Click to expand...

Hi!
I use pressure cooker stainless steel. But, when I cook bone broth cooking time is 40 minutes. I'm surprised your bone broth cooking time in pressure cooker. My standard recipe is:
- Filtered water
- One old bone (pig)
- 1 chopped pig's trotter
- 1 piece of pork chop
- 1 turkey legs
- 1 piece of bacon
- 1 carrot
- 1/2 leek
Sometimes: 1 clove of garlic, some peppercorns.
It seems my cooking time may be insufficient, I learned from my mother in that way. Could I know why you cook bone broth 3 hours or more in pressure cooker? Depends on the recipe?

Thank you!
Click to expand...

I fixed the quotes in your post.

I think that the longer, lower-pressure cooking time extracts the most "goodies" from the bones. What you are making is more like a stew than pure bone broth. We like to use fresh bones, not old ones, too. But otherwise, your recipe sounds very good. We toss in a tablespoon of dried onion and garlic instead of the leek.
 
Ariadna said:
Thank you, Laura! :) I'll prove your recipe. :)
Click to expand...

Fwiw there is also at least one bone broth topic on the forum:

Topic: The Importance of Bone Broth

With shared experiments from other members. Also when the topic itself started before the keto-diet time, just in case.

Some add also some salt to get to the nutrients and some others too just a bit vinegar to make it more digest-able.
 
Davy27 said:
Hi all...

Been lurking and reading many threads. I wanted to ask what brand of slow cooker or pressure cooker you use and recommend? I have been reading things about lead etc in certain slow cookers leaching etc. SO I was curious which brands you may use ? I want to try making bone broth, so I need to get me a slow cooker, or pressure cooker asap.

Thanks much
:cool:
Click to expand...

I have this pressure cooker:

http://www.amazon.com/Presto-01370-8-Quart-Stainless-Pressure/dp/B0000Z6JIW/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1376707657&sr=8-6&keywords=presto+pressure+cooker

It works great and haven't had any issues with it. It's decent for its price. Though lately I've been getting more use of our slow cooker. I can't remember the brand but it's one from the local department store (Canadian Tire). It has a ceramic bin and an auto shut off timer. It's nice since we just basically through some garlic/onions, meat and spices and leave it overnight - in the morning our breakfast and lunch are ready.
 
Wow thanks everyone.

Well I ended up purchasing a Proctor Silex Slow Cooker. A place I had a charge card with had all these other slow cookers but after looking at reviews on amazon.com many of them had poor ones. But The Proctor Silex was a great price had good reviews, and hopefully big enough for lil ol me.

Now just gotta get my bones. But I was watching a video over at Grassfedtraditions, they were using I believe bison bones with marrow on them still, and they stated how they used this one batch of bones over 12 times. It was my understanding bones are good for 1 batch only. But my info could be incorrect. Not sure if you can post links to websites but the Bison page near the bottom they have 2 videos the second stating how they got 12 batches out of one group of bones.

I'm coming from a raw food background for 9 years so it's all new and bright. ;)
 
Sorry for the typo it was 5+ from a group of 1 pound of bones from grassfedtraditions bison page. Not 12 lol.
 
Davy27 said:
Now just gotta get my bones. But I was watching a video over at Grassfedtraditions, they were using I believe bison bones with marrow on them still, and they stated how they used this one batch of bones over 12 times. It was my understanding bones are good for 1 batch only. But my info could be incorrect. Not sure if you can post links to websites but the Bison page near the bottom they have 2 videos the second stating how they got 12 batches out of one group of bones.
Click to expand...

If you are not sure regarding websites (if it is eventually disinfo etc.), just put an _ before the link to deactivate it. I.e. _http://sott.net And then it should be just fine posting any other website.
 
Davy27 said:
Sorry for the typo it was 5+ from a group of 1 pound of bones from grassfedtraditions bison page. Not 12 lol.
Click to expand...

I guess it would sort of depend on how hard the bones are. You could reuse bison bones more times than, say, a chicken bone. I don't think there is any definite cutoff for the number of times you can reuse a bone. I think that noticing the bones getting crumbly is a good way to know that the bones have had it and are ready to be tossed.
 
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