Instant 7-in-1 Electric Multi-Cooker, 6 Quart

Last night, I finally had the chance to use my new Instant Pot for the first time after having it for about a month. I took my time familiarizing myself with various articles, how-tos, and recipes from different sources. Among the suggestions I came across was the water test, which proved to be beneficial in gaining confidence using the pressure cook function. Starting with a simple recipe that required natural pressure release also helped ease me into the process.

I opted for the RIO 6qt. model, and so far, the control panel seems fairly intuitive. While the user manual isn’t the most user-friendly, I found plenty of excellent resources online, making it less of an issue. I’m still in the learning phase, but I’m thoroughly enjoying exploring this new and exciting way of cooking.

An update after nearly two months of owning the Instant Pot: I discovered a couple of things related to the slow cook function that I thought would be helpful to share. For slow cooking, the IP’s low, medium, and high settings correspond to warm, low, and high on a Crock Pot or slow cooker. So, when following a slow cooker recipe that says “cook for 8 hours on low,” set your IP to slow cook for 8 hours on medium. Additionally, it’s essential to have at least one cup of liquid in the pot when using the slow cook function, making sure not to exceed the fill line on the inside of the pot. These tips have made my slow cooking experience more enjoyable and efficient.

Es súper práctica y rápida !
Súper fácil de usar

So my Instant Pot Duo Plus started getting burn alarms a lot (like preheating on saute with just oil in there) after about 3 years of heavy use so I decided to get a new Instant Pot. I’m a travel nurse and move every 3 months so the more package features (slimmer, disconnectable power plug, no nob) sold me on this one… and I’m supremely disappointed.

First off, I’ve had it for 2 months – don’t use it as much during warm weather so wanted to make sure it wasn’t user error. I’ve done about 8 meals now and it’s miserable to use. Here are the primary issues so far:

1) It takes a forever to heat up. Going from saute to ready to use takes easily 2x as long as my previous old one – over 10 minutes to reach “ready” status but I’m having smoke from avocado oil before that (high smoke temp). If you throw your stuff in early it cools expenontially and doesn’t get back to temp. It took me 20 minutes to brown 2lbs ground beef (after waiting 10, minutes for it to heat up and oild started to smoke).

2) It takes absurd amounts of time to reach pressure. This is something every new user has a learning curve with – I’m a vet user so trust me when I say a long time – 30 to 45 minutes average. I’ve had it take over an 1 hour a few times. You might as well slow cook because this combined with issue 3 make trying to pressure cook tedious and useless.

3) Equipment failures. So far the “steam bobber” (not sure of the real name) has stuck 2x requiring me to jiggle it loose so that it would pop up and it would actually start to build pressure. This initially happened on my second cook. This makes you have to constantly check on the thing on this already crazy long heat time and when you have to “help it” the stream is blasting out so hard you are at hight risk of burning yourself.
…Additionally, when using quick release it blasts out sauce/food from the vent requiring me to cover it with a paper towel to save the walls. These are the same recipes I used in the same quart size Duo Plus and never had this happen a single time.

Basically I waited too long now to return it so as mentioned above this thing will likely be relegated to a glorified slow cooker and I’ll be looking to Ninja for my next pressure cooker because I can’t support a company that puts trash like this in the market because there is no way they didn’t know about these issues.

This is my 4th instant pot I’ve purchased. I got this one because I thought my old one had died but it turned out to be fine, this one was bigger so I kept it. My only issue with it is that 80% of the time when we use it, it won’t come to pressure and I get the c7 error. It says you only need to use a certain amount of water but I’ve found if I use less than 4-5 cups it just won’t seal no matter what I do. Never had an issue with any other one I’ve bought, and when it seals it works perfectly, just not sure why it needs soooo much more liquid.

Was able to use my InstaPot immediately . No complications. Instructions are very clear and consise. Highly recommend

We bought to make yoghurt but it is great for rice (better than our trusty rice cooker because, like with the yoghurt, we make it in a secondary container inside the pot = no mess at all + easy to keep the leftover; rice cooker now on standby now), pressure cooking anything (stovetop pressure cooker requires much more attention, standby too) and various grains we bake into our bread. Cleared up the kitchen counter.

The first one we got had a pinhole in the pot cladding or somehow otherwise started to discolor. No hassle for the prompt exchange.