Zojirushi SS Vacuum Cooking Pot

[andiesenji]

A long time ago I signed up for Zojirushi's monthly email newsletter and yesterday's edition of "Zojirushi 101" featured these Thermal Cookers.

Last year I was doing some "research" into these cookers but at that time the Zo was not sold in the U.S. and the only web sites I could find had only Japanese text.

A friend who lives at Mammoth just got one and is going to try heating the inner chamber in his solar cooker to save on gas for cooking things that need extending cooking times.

(While they have had a tremendous amount of storms and snow, they do have sunny days and at altitude the solar cooker is very efficient.) Propane has become very expensive in the area, part of the reason is the transport fees added onto the cost of the propane.

After reading about the rolling blackouts in Japan, and the possibility of that happening here, after a big quake, I thought that this type of cooker might be of significant use when sources of heat were limited.

Has anyone had any experience with them. I did an advanced search for "thermal cooker" and did not get any results.

[Dianabanana]

Interesting! Looks like a modern version of the fireless cooker. Not too long ago I was looking at old cookbooks on Google Books and ran across frequent mentions of the fireless cooker, as here, and wondered why we didn't have anything like that today. Guess we do!

[emannths]

Well, if you don't mind cooking everything sous vide, and you don't mind boiling water in a separate vessel, the beer cooler sous vide cooker is basically the same idea. Even if you didn't want to cook sous vide, you could always used heated rocks or decoction(to steal a brewing term) to periodically add additional heat to the food.

More to your point though, I have never seen anything similar marketed. I suspect that part of the reason is that large, covered pots don't actually lose heat very rapidly, so unless energy is extremely scarce (as in your example), it won't make much of a difference. And if energy is scarce, money usually is too, which would preclude the purchase of an insulated SS cooker. When we had a boil water order here last summer, I boiled about 2 gallons of water and left the pot covered. I think it was still over 150F the next day (I took its temperature).

[natasha1270]

Do you recall the Air Core infomercial cookware line? It was a similar concept but probably not all that well executed. Just did a search on Amazon and there are a few similar items available by Thermos & Sunpentown.

[andiesenji]

Thermos did market something similar a few years ago but it was quite expensive, as I recall and I don't think it was widely distributed.

[andiesenji]

I just found a 6 liter one made by Supentown and very inexpensive - one reviewer noted the bottom of the inner pot was extremely thin. Probably the reason it is so cheap.

I've also found a couple of older blogs about thermal cooking with mentions of the

Nissan/Thermos Shuttle Chef Thermal Cooker

The Tiger Thermal Cooker

Endo Thermal Magic

Mr. D's

and in Australia the "Eco Pot"

There are cooks who make everything from soup to cakes and breads in these thermal cookers - with the caveat that breads and cakes do not brown. Interesting.

Thermal Cooking Weblog

Thermall cook blog

[thock]

I've got one by Thermos Nissan (from safety points earned from a previous job). The inner pot has a disk bottom, similar to my 8-qt stockpot, but I've never put the vacuum part of it to the test. I'll have to check out your links.

Edited April 3, 2011 by thock (log)

[helenjp]

Yes, the bottoms on some brands can be very thin. I have a very old Shuttle Chef, which doesn't have a thicker plate on the bottom. I just use a flame-tamer underneath it.

I use mine a lot, and am debating getting a smaller second one.

They save energy and space on my cooktop (since I only have two burners), but the main benefit is having meals "ready to eat" without heating up. Ideals for households where people come home at different times, especially when somebody need to come home, eat, and run out the door again within 30 minutes. No futzing with plastic wrap and microwaving while precious minutes slip by, and no increasingly crusty pots from multiple re-heatings. Younger home-alones don't need to negotiate heat sources, they can just serve up and eat. The fact that they don't need a power source makes them excellent for tailgate picnicking.

Obviously, food that likes a slow, gentle heat does best, but for some items, I prefer a pressure cooker (e.g. pulled pork, cowboy beans...anything where I want to really hammer the flavors in). Soups, foods with a delicate texture (poultry, fish, fruit), are particularly suitable. There is no evaporation, so a stew can be insipid if you don't brown it well and maybe add flavor later. Small amounts will also obviously not keep hot as long as larger amounts of food. Oatmeal is OK if you use

There is a drawback - they will keep food hot for say 4 hours, and warm for 5-6, but you cannot set them in the morning and come home to a hot dinner at 7 pm - that is a job that only a slow-cooker or an oven/rice cooker with a timer will do.

[andiesenji]

Thanks Helen. That is very helpful.

I'm thinking that it would be handy if and when we have another power crunch, like back in 2001 when we had rolling blackouts here. I've got a gas stovetop but my ovens are electric and a lot of folks in my area have only electric.

We did have warnings of when the power was going to be cut and it was possible to work around it.

Something like this, where the food could be started on the stove or in the oven and finished without power, would be a boon in an emergency situation.

I've got a slab of steel boilerplate that once heated, will stay hot for a very long time. I'll have to get it out of the shed and see how long it takes to heat up with an auxiliary heat source, i.e., a blowtorch.

Edited April 3, 2011 by andiesenji (log)

[Syzygies]

Now available from Amazon: http://www.amazon.co...duct/B004P45ZB6

I'm intrigued from many possible sous vide angles.

[gfweb]

Now available from Amazon: http://www.amazon.co...duct/B004P45ZB6

I'm intrigued from many possible sous vide angles.

$200 for an insulated pot? No heating element or anything? You could do the same thing with a beer cooler, no?

[GlorifiedRice]

Something similar was sold in the USA some 20 years ago by the comedy duo "The Mommies"...

It was offered by Infomercial. The one Mommy put the pot in the Freezer and it supposedly

still cooked the meal.

It was called Aircore Cookware

http://giftfindonline.com/air_core_cookware.html

[Syzygies]

You could do the same thing with a beer cooler, no?

As with pretty much everything Zojirushi, the specs are better than a beer cooler. (One of the few compensations of age is only really being afraid of commas.)

[gfweb]

I'm sure that the specs are great...and it would look better on the counter than a beer cooler. But $180 better?

[Syzygies]

But $180 better?

This is all relative, there are threads here where people sweat 0.1 degrees sous vide where 5 degrees might do. Or not. I'm still traumatized by a date 30 years ago where I wanted to stop to get coffee filters and she looked at me exasperated, can't you just use paper towels like a normal person?

[gfweb]

I'd consider that date a blessing. Imagine the horrors she would be capable of.

[lemniscate]

I just discovered the usefulness of the thermal cooker (I have a Tiger brand, induction friendly, which I bought off Amazon Warehouse for a significant discount).   I transported sauerbraten to another home and it kept the meat and sauce at a perfect temp for quite some time.   I did a pasta meat sauce and it held it at piping hot for 6 hours until service. 

 

I just have to get used to thinking about using it for what I plan to cook.  I've never been a fan of slow cookers due to the vagaries of the temperature control of them. 

Edited July 31, 2019 by lemniscate (log)

[EatingBen]

Thermal cookers are great while camping or sailing. You bring the contents up to a boil (usually it's the inner sleeve) and then you put it into the insulated container close the lid and come back in 8 hours or so and it's all hot and cooked. 

 

It works great for things that you can slow cook, it retains heat all day and well WELL into the night. The great thing about some of them is you heat the contents to boiling and then put the lead on and take it with you. 

 

I've used them while sailing which is really really good especially in rough weather and limited cooking capacity while underway. They also do alright making rice but takes a little practice otherwise it turns to mush from being overcooked (But, the rice doesn't get scorched)

[lemniscate]

I just had a "well, duh" moment regarding my Tiger thermal pot.  It's not huge, it's 4.5L capacity, but the Joule fits in there nicely with smaller food bags, maybe few pieces of chicken or a nice sized steak.  This makes me not shove it back into the forgotten shelf that I had stowed it on for the last few months.