Customer Reviews

Presto 01362 6-Quart Stainless Steel Pressure Cooker

5 star:		(397)
4 star:		(88)
3 star:		(11)
2 star:		(11)
1 star:		(19)

 

 

I bought this cooker 6 months ago from amazon for $35, and frankly, although the reviews I read on this product all said that it's great, I was very skeptical about the $35 price tag and was not expecting much. On top of that, both my mother and my mother-in-law warned me that cheap pressure cookers are dangerous, and I *must* buy something more expensive for safety reasons. I am just very glad that they were both wrong!

This is definitely one of the best purchases I have made on amazon. I still cannot believe they sell this for $35! The pot does not feel cheap at all. It has very sturdy handles, and a thick, heavy bottom, which holds in heat well. I like this pan so much that sometimes I use it instead of my skillet to sautee meat, because of the deeper pot + the cover, less cleaning up for me :-)

I love making soup and stock, but it usually takes up so much of my time when the stock is simmering. With this pressure cooker, I can make a meat-fall-off-the-bone soup in an hour!

Some might find this pot to be a little on the small side, but this pot works great for my wife and I. Although we have guests over regularly, I find the capacity of the pot to be very good. I would guess that this pot would work well for up to a 4-person family.

Pros:
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- Cheap, at $35, it's hard to beat
- Sturdy, I was afraid that the plastic handles would break easily, but they are in fact quite strong
- Stainless steel makes it great for browning meat pieces for stew or stock, and it heats up fast and holds heat well.
- Safe, you cannot open it when it's pressurized.
- Dish washer safe, though I prefer to wash it by hand.

Cons:
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- The handle can be tricky to hold with one hand. My hands are small, and when you've closed the top, the handle is kind of big. Luckily, I don't need to do this very often, and when I need to move it around, I just use both handles.
- The top cap can be tricky to clean. I usually soak it in hot soapy water, and then clean it thoroughly with Q-tip.

Watch outs:
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- The handle curves in a way that it catches any dripping liquid, I've hurt myself once when I wasn't careful at opening the cover.
- Do *NOT* remove the cap while it's blowing! The steam from inside is extremely hot and as soon as you remove the cap, the hot steam will shoot up faster than you can move your hand(s) away.

Tips:
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- I keep some water bottles in my freezer, and when I need to cool this off in a hurry, I can make a bath of cold water in my sink, put the hot pot inside, and throw the froze water bottles in. This usually cools it down very fast, great when I want to refrigerate it overnight to skim off the fat, and didn't want to wait too long for it to cool down.

This is nothing fancy, but it works wery well. Replacemenat parts are easy to buy. You can't open it if it's under pressure because it has a lock by the handle (safety feature). Actually I think it's very safe as it has other features as well.
I think one of the most important things to look for is what it's made of (after safety of course!). This is stainless steel which is good because you don't want aluminum (aluminum will stain and get eaten away with acidic food such as vinegar or lemon juice...).
Another thing to consider is that it takes time to heat up and cool down so even though all pressure cookers say it takes a lot less time to cook, they don't take the heat-up cool-down time into consideration, even though they are correct about the actual cooking time.

Good pressure cooker.

EDIT

In 2007, I bought a Kuhn-Rikon pressure cooker and I'm even more pleased with that.
It's quite a bit more expensive (4-7 times?) but a *lot* quieter as it relies on an internal spring to maintain pressure as opposed to gravity for the Presto. The Kuhn-Rikon also allows less water to escape. I keep both of them but I haven't used the presto for 4 months now. Considering I bought the Presto in 1999, it's amazing that it works perfectly even though it got heavy use. I even put the rubber seal and the lid in the dishwasher every time and it still held up. It's my backup cooker now as I can't let go of something that still works fine.

This is a no-frills pressure cooker. It could be a little bigger, but it does the job very well.

When 'boiling' food in a traditional pot, the food cannot exceed 212 degrees F (the temperature at which water boils). Under pressure, the boiling point rises... in this pressure cooker to about 250 degrees F. This means, of course, that food cooks faster (the reason people normally think to buy a pressure cooker), but the higher temperature also allows other 'reactions' to take place while cooking... For instance, the tougher fibers in meat will convert to gelatin, making the meat more tender. As a result, pressure cookers are great for braised dishes with tough meats, such as chili. For these purposes, this pressure cooker rocks.

Larger pressure cookers can also be used for canning (because the higher temperatures can kill more bad things. This pressure cooker really is not large enough for this task. If you are not a canner though, compare the prices of this against those larger models... I think you will be back looking at this one.

Get the Presto. They're all the same. It's a simple design, a pot and lid. I've been using them for 20 years and the expensive ones are no better than the Presto- Only an amateur cook would believe different. The Prestos cook just as good and just as fast as the Rikons. My kitchen is filled with the best and most expensive equipment money can buy, but when it comes to pressure cookers, it's not like other cookware where you "get what you pay for." They're all the same (although I don't recommend the electric ones as they have a tendency to break down). Save your money for the good espresso maker... don't waste it on expensive pressure cookers. Get the Presto.

Tips from many years of using pressure cookers in our family:

1. Hand wash - dishwashers tend to dry out sealing rings and make handles brittle. They become expensive to replace, and these parts are sometimes hard to find

2. I take a paper towel and wipe sealing ring with canola oil, after cleaning. Keeps rubber from drying out.

3. Never open pot while still steaming (contents will explode). Let steam decompress until no sound and no steam comes out when regulator is removed. My grandmother depressurized steam sooner by setting pot carefully in plugged shallow sink of water and making sure steam dissipated. (sound/regulator) before opening. (Disclaimer - I advise anyone against doing this, I am just stating an historical fact. Do not transport a hot pot, especially pressurized; extremely dangerous-what if you dropped it:O).

4. Do not overload beans (even pre-soaked) in pressure cooker.

5. I buy meats/poultry/seafood in bulk, wash, season and put in zip lock bags, and toss into freezer. When ready to cook, I put in pressure cooker (still frozen solid) with a small amount of water/broth (8 oz or less is fine for me, gravy-wise) and let cook for 40 minutes (or less) on mid to low heat. Frozen and tough cuts are soon ready to eat and are tender like butter.

My mother bought me this nearly exact cooker many years ago, and it got lost in a move about 5 years ago. I just now replaced it. I had used my old one for about 7 years and it was fine. No problems with my old one with the stainless steel either.
I got this NEW one today, and washed it and peeled about 3-4 lbs potatoes and sliced 3/4 in thick, and added 2 cups water, two tbsp dried onion flakes, pepper, and garlic powder. 16 minutes later, drained the water off and used my handy dandy mixer and had the best creamiest fluffiest mashed potatoes ever. I DON'T KNOW HOW I GOT ALONG WITHOUT IT THESE PAST FIVE YEARS!! I CAN'T WAIT TO USE IT OFTEN!!
THE BOTTOM LINE:
Inexpensive,
functions very well,
looks nice,
parts easy to order, (Walmart sells parts for it I heard)
easy to clean,
has two handles,
AAA+++ for price and function.

I've owned 3 pressure cookers over the years, and all of them suffered from locking mechanisms that wouldn't actuate and let steam blast through until you shook the pots or pounded them with spoons to get them to actuate. But this cooker has a responsive mechanism that vents the air out and then actuates reliably as soon as the pressure begins to build up.

Beyond that, it's well-built, with a thick bottom to distribute heat and resist heat distortion. I expect this cooker to last longer than I will.

If you're uncertain about whether you should own a pressure cooker, here's my opinion: pressure cooking is the best way to cook vegetables, including potatoes, and the best way to cook rice, beans, or rice-and-beans. It's good for cooking hamburger for meat sauce, because there's no smoke and the grease drips into the cooker where it's easy to clean as long as the cooker is warm. There are some cool things you can do with chicken and it's an easy way to make puddings. I prefer the cooker for heating leftovers because they come out as if they're freshly cooked instead of dry and unevenly heated like you get from microwaves.

Thank you, Presto!

Oh,how I wish I hadn't waited so long to try Pressure Cooking! My mother instilled so much fear in me about using a pressure cooker that I didn't even want to try it until a friend finally convinced me. Now I'd absolutely hate to be without this fast and safe way to cook.

My first experiment was a recipe for Chicken Cacciatore. Three pounds of chicken cooked for 10 minutes (at 6000' altitude) and was fork-tender and delicious. My next endeavor was a ham and bean soup, which cooked for 35 minutes without having to presoak the beans, and it turned out perfectly. Beans were completely cooked but not mushy. Next came a pot roast with potatoes, which cooked for 45 minutes starting partially frozen, and was perfect. Then tried a chicken with plum sauce--again a nine-minute success. Most recently we tried pasta with meat sauce, which was a delicious one-pot meal ready in 7 minutes cooking time.

I love this Presto model cooker, because it has all the safety features, but still allows careful monitoring of the"jiggle top", and allows me to judge how fast the dish is cooking. This is a heavy and well-built unit. The safety precautions are easy, and are fully described in the accompanying manual.

I also recommmend Lorna Sass' book "Pressure Perfect", for beginners. This book is a well-written primer on pressure cooking, with recipes that are reliable and carefully written. The recipes have a degree of creativity, but are all things that "real people" eat.

Happy cooking!

It does what it needs to especially for the money we paid for it. We use it about 4-5 times per a week and it works just fine. The only thing we noticed different than our old one is that steam comes out of the handle and the black dot (both relief/pressure valves) until it reaches the max pressure. Then it seals itself off to prevent steam from coming out. First time we used it, it worried us but now we know that is what it does.

This is a great addition to the kitchen. If I'd known it was so easy to use, I would have gotten one years ago. The instruction manual is good, and the ladies at Presto are good to explain what "rocking slowly" looks like. I made mashed potatoes and green beans the first night. Best ever; tasted garden fresh. The potatoes weren't all mushy from having to boil them -- really turned out fluffy. Did a roast and gravy with mixed veggies the next night (did the roast first and let it sit while I pressured the veggies for four minutes). This pressure cooker is going to keep my kitchen cool this summer. I'm very pleased with it. Can't wait to try pinto beans. . . . . . . . UPDATE: The pintos turned out great. No gas.