Rice Cooker Eco-Hack

[AC_Hacker]

Originally Posted by Clev

How long does it take to cook, and how much is cooked? I can do a little over four cups of rice in a microwave rice pot in 18 minutes @ 1,000 watts, or about 300Wh.

I don't think that my cooker will hold that much.

From your brief description, I suspect you're cooking white rice.

Tell you what, Why don't you cook up 2 cups of brown short grain rice and let me know what kind of cooking time you come up with.

Don't know if you've cooked brown rice before, but it cooks differently than white rice.

Here's a recipe I found:

Cooking Directions - Brown Rice In the Microwave

1. Combine 1 cup brown rice, 3 cups water in a 2 ½ quart microwave-safe dish. ( I suggest microwave glassware, see below) Microwave UNCOVERED on HIGH for 10 minutes.
   
2. REDUCE power to 50%, microwave uncovered 20 minutes. After the Brown rice is completely cooked, allow it to sit for 5 minutes.

Let me know what your results are...

I'll do the same.

Regards,

-AC_Hacker

[Clev]

Sorry, didn't realize you're cooking brown rice; we usually cook Basmati. If the above recipe actually works, it would be about 20 minutes total cook time (about 333Wh) plus 10 minutes of running just the turntable, light and fan. (I'll hook up the Kill-a-Watt and see how much juice it pulls running just those.)

[AC_Hacker]

Originally Posted by Clev

Sorry, didn't realize you're cooking brown rice; we usually cook Basmati. If the above recipe actually works, it would be about 20 minutes total cook time (about 333Wh) plus 10 minutes of running just the turntable, light and fan. (I'll hook up the Kill-a-Watt and see how much juice it pulls running just those.)

Perhaps a moment of perspective is in order here...

The amounts of energy we're talking about here are very small. in fact we're probably talking about an advantage of one method over another, that in terms of money is worth less than a penny.

But in terms of a percentage of energy consumed, it is worth taking note of, because what we learn could apply to another instance where the power is significant.

As an actual exercise, where two people took action and did a physical experiment, it is really pretty valuable. It is good that you actually put a kill-a-watt on your microwave and actually know that it draws 1000 watts when it runs. My microwave is rated at 1500 watts, but when I measured it with the kill-a-watt, it measures 1376 watts. I trust my kill-a-watt.

I know that when I cook white rice in a pot on top of the stove, it takes 20 minutes, and when I cook brown rice on top of the stove, it takes at least 45 minutes, which is over 100% different, and not to be overlooked. So it's also good that you have actually cooked the brown rice to see that the recipe really works in your microwave, so that you know your measured power is actually valid.

So my cook time was about 71 minutes... the rice cooker shut off when I wasn't looking, so the time is approximate.

But what we're really after is power, and the actual power consumed during cooking was 260 watts, data captured by the kill-a-watt.

BTW, I measured the amount of water volumetrically, and verified it with a digital scale. The amount of rice was carefully measured by volume, Using the same cup I used for the water.


Regards,

-AC_Hacker

[Jetfin]

I would like to try this hack with a cheap rice cooker. But this rice cookers cooking temperature and "keep warm" temperature are too hot. The rice cooks in 15-20 minutes and the keep warm setting starts burning the rice after about 15 minutes. Any input from you pros how I could go about lowering the default cooking temperature a bit in addition this hack?