Presto 8-Quart Aluminum Pressure Cooker
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Kitchen and Housewares Reviews of Presto 8-Quart Aluminum Pressure Cooker
Customer Review: A nice effective pressure cooker
Summary: 5 Stars
Pressure cookers in general are great, they provide a wonderful way to quickly obtain a meal that would otherwise take hours and hours of cooking time. This both saves you time and reduces the energy required for cooking.
This Presto 8 quart aluminum cooker is a nice size, not too large for cooking meals for 2, and not too small to prevent cooking a larger meal for a family. It's also reasonably priced and feels quite solid in its construction.
I would say the highlight so far in its use has been the creation of split pea soup with a ham bone. Previously I've made the soup in a pot and just let it cook away for a couple of hours. This generally results in a soup with peas that retain some individuality, like lentils, that after being refrigerated combine into that large split pea mass I love. In the pressure cooker after half an hour the split peas literally fall completely apart and form into the semi solid mass that I usually don't attain until I'm eating it as left overs. Fantastic. Not to mention quick corned beef, speedy stocks, and delightful beans and brown rice.
If you like to cook and are thinking about adding a pressure cooker to your arsenal, this is a great tool to have.
Customer Review: Cans Five Pints
Summary: 5 Stars
Does not can quart jars, only pints. This model allowed me to try out canning at a low entry cost. Have successfully canned cabbage and sausage, tomato sauce, tomatoes, garbanzo beans, and apple butter in this interesting device. Also have cooked whole chickens and other foods. Canning meats requires an hour under pressure, and the Presto takes it all in stride. Being a pressure cooker/canning novice, it was a little unnerving getting it hot enough to get that top valve rocking. Apparently idiot proof, the cooker does not blow up, is easy to use and clean. Just turn down the burner to medium once the valve starts rocking. The aluminum does discolor inside during some pressure cooking and canning, although putting a little vinegar in the water keeps this to a minimum. I have found that five pints is perfectly adequate for canning projects so far. For example, six pounds of homegrown apples turned into 5.5 pints of apple butter. And it's not like you can't load it up again. At first I didn't tighten lids enough -- the canning jars boiled over a little. Finger tight means just that and the glass can handle it. You can can with an eight quart Presto!Customer Review: Presto 8-Quart Aluminum Pressure Cooker
Summary: 4 Stars
I bought this item several months ago, and so far it has been worth the money. Most cookers follow a basic design, and though there are no frills here, this cooker preforms as it should. Being aluminum it has stained some what on the inside, but that was my fault as I burnt a block of corned beef in it once after I fell asleep after a hard days work and failed to hear my timer go off, but it cleaned up pretty well. I use it for making stews mostly but also for sterilizing caning jars. The rubber seal is still good, and is expected to be the only part to wear out over time. The handle is a high temperature hard plastic and the locking lid has a simple pressure relief valve. The steam pressure regulating weight doesn't make that nice slow n' gentle "ssshh ssshh ssshh" sound like the one my grandmother's cooker did when I was a kid - I love that sound, this one is much more rapid, higher pitched, and louder so when I'm watching TV I have to turn up the sound a bit to drown it out. Other than that its perfect and with good care this cooker can last several years.Customer Review: The biggist problem with the old pressure cookers
Summary: 5 Stars
My Presto pressure cooker is about 40 years old, and I love it. It seems that they never wear out, except for the rubber seal in the cover. I recently had to buy a new one, and it cost about $12.
I think I have bought 3 seals over the years. I don't use the cooker very often though, maybe twice a month, only because I use other methods of cooking for a change.
Presto says that one should remove and clean the seal after each use, but each time you do this, it stretches a little, and fits less, and less into the lid. My seal doesn't wear out, it stretches out.
Now I just leave it in the lid, and wash it like that.
I do spread some cooking oil around the contact points on the seal, and the pot each time I use it, so the cover can be removed easily after cooking. If the seal sticks when you remove it after cooking, that also stretches the seal somewhat.
Again, I wouldn't be without a pressure cooker, it's great to have, and Presto is a top brand.
Bighunk
Customer Review: Can't beat it for the price
Summary: 5 Stars
I'm a complete pressure-cooking novice, never owned one or cooked with one until I bought this. First day I had it I decided to make the pot roast per the instructions in the booklet. Browned it in the pot, added the liquid, some onion and one of those pot roast seasoning packets from the store, brought it up to pressure, and 45 minutes later it was done. I have made roasts in the slow-cooker and my oven before, and never ever have they been as good as the one from the pressure cooker. Fall-apart tender, absolutely perfect. I'll sheepishly admit it was even better than my grandma used to make and she made a roast every Sunday for 40+ years. Once the meat was done I removed it and added some cut up carrots and potatoes and they cooked in less than five minutes. You'd never know they weren't cooked all day in a slow-cooker. I told myself that if I really liked pressure-cooking that I'd eventually upgrade to a more expensive one but I like this one so much I don't see that happening any time soon.