Agree. Also basmati and risotto for us.
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For yogurt there is too much button pushing for something compared to the simplicity of using a pot. Why take something easy and make it unnecessarily complex? It’s easier in a pot.
For rice, again I prefer a pot. If you specifically want an appliance a dedicated fuzzy-logic rice cooker is easier. For specialist rices like risotto a stove-top pressure cooker will be about 15% faster.
Then there are short-term and long-term failure modes that apply to everything you make, and the sheer size of the thing.
Does the IP alert you when your milk is heated to 180 degrees and then again once the temp comes down to 110? (And then holds it there until you add your starter?) If so, I would buy it for that feature alone.
What I remember from reading the instructions is that you set it to reach 180F and then you have to fiddle with it more for cooling and then fiddle with it more to add starter and then fiddle with it more for fermentation. I’ve made a lot of yogurt in pots with fermentation in a lot of creative places. The IP attempt at automation takes more work than making it in a pot.
I stick milk in a pot over medium or medium-high heat while I do the dinner dishes. When it just starts to steam (that’s 180F when unwanted bacteria are killed and protein chains shift) I shift it off the heat and let it start to cool. When I can stick my finger in without burning (around 110F, cool enough not to kill the yogurt starter bacteria) I stir in the starter. Decant into a couple of quart Ball jars and stick in a cold oven with the light on to ferment overnight. In the morning there is yogurt. I’ve used IPs for yogurt as a challenge. The contact time is higher.
Yes it beeps.
The only thing is that when you heat the milk in the steel inner pot, it takes a bit longer to cook to 110/115 - you can remove the pot to accelerate that, but cool down time has to happen even stovetop or microwaved milk.
If you prefer individual servings (I do), you can pasteurize by using the Steam function instead, then use the Yogurt function to incubate. But I actually pasteurize those in the microwave (individual bowls take 45-60s) and then incubate in the IP instead of my usual fiddle with the oven or mug of boiling water in the back of the microwave.
It’s just a question of what you find most convenient to your own kitchen process.
For a larger quantity, I might only use the IP. For individual servings, IP makes the incubation simpler, but it’s a wash.
I should send this in to IP customer service or somewhere else probably.
To me the #1 improvement - mainly to the Mini - would be to invert the height / width proportions for more “floor space.”
Most of the food burn or similar issues occur because the pot is taller than it is wide - solids get stuck at the bottom and have to be stirred occasionally.
It’s like using a stock pot for everything you’d otherwise use a saucepan or chefs pan for.
If they made the bottom wider (at least on one model) I might never need my other (non-CS/CI) pans again. Plenty of floor space to brown, add a bit of liquid, close and switch to PC mode. I already have that in my stovetop PCs, but the convenience of electric shut-off and the beep alerts are very useful additions.
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Ok, so it beeps at 180, then automatically cools down to 110, beeps, and holds it there for incubation. It’s up to me to come by and add the starter, but since it’s holding at 110, I can take as long as I want to add the starter. Then it’s up to me how long I want to incubate for at 110 after adding starter. I never need to check with a thermometer. Is that correct?
Can you transfer the stainless steel pot with lid to the fridge like with a crockpot?
When I was testing yogurt making in the IP I found these two the most interesting.
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From reading these two links, there are two issues for me. First, you must cover with the lid while heating and it doesn’t hold at the target 180 temp. (I forgot about this step in my earlier discussion.) Second, it doesn’t automatically cool and hold at 110. Possibly if you hit the incubate setting and the milk is already higher than 110, it will wait for the temp to come down and then hold it, but I couldn’t find a definitive answer.
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You have to wait for temp to come down to 110/115 in any method for yogurt, right? So yes, same thing in most IP models - it’s not automatically switching the temp to 110 - it boils, beeps, shuts off and waits.
Once milk has cooled, you hit the yogurt setting again to start incubation.
The extra step is necessary anyway because you need to add starter.
Here’s a manual - page 17-18 is yogurt.
One of the earlier fancy models actually has/had fuzzy logic you could program - so you could write a custom program that went
Set temp to 180 -> Hold 5 mins -> Set temp to 110 -> Hold 6 hours -> Off
Most people didn’t need / want that much granular control. It did appeal to me, though.
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The small instant pot we have makes perfect rice. I do have a large neuro whatever rice cooker and prefer the instant pot for rice. So far I’ve only used it for rice or beans.
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Reading the manual, it seems like you don’t need a thermometer when heating the milk to 180, but you do need a thermometer to check when the milk has cooled to 110. Is that correct?
Yep
Argh! That fancy model @Saregama described is super worth it for everyday yogurt making since it allows you to set a cooldown temp. I’m sure there’s a special purpose appliance out there that will do this , but it would’ve been convenient to get all the other feature of an IP.
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Or your finger
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This is the answer. Really. If you’re uncertain, heat a liquid to 110F using a thermometer and stick your finger in it. Now you have calibrated your finger. It is accurate but not precise (homework: look up the difference). Recalibrate every five years as temperature sensitivity changes with age.
I still think a pot is faster, easier, simpler, and more elegant from an engineering point of view than the IP.
I make a lot of goat milk yogurt. There’s very little margin for error. Goat milk proteins don’t behave exactly like cow’s milk. For cow’s milk yogurt, finger test is fine, I never use a thermometer.
Hmm. Really? I learned to make yogurt from Tibetan Buddhist monks with yak milk. It wasn’t hard and about the same as cow’s milk. What is different about goat’s milk?
Apparently, the proteins in goat’s milk don’t set like in cow’s milk. Solutions to this issue usually involve adding gelatin or straining. I now have about a decade’s worth of trial and error with goat’s milk yogurt. As soon as you bring home goat’s milk from the farm, you’re on the clock. For whatever reason, it won’t set as thick the longer you keep it. Also, I hold it close to 180F for 45 minutes before cooling it. It’s still not quite as thick as cow’s milk, but it’s very close, and tastes better, too. (Although that could just be the milk quality.) If you have a Root’s supermarket close to you, they carry goat’s milk from Vermont. Try making yogurt with it and you’ll see it comes out thin. Still delicious and usable, but not close to cow’s milk.
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The nearest Root’s is an hour away, beyond my normal distance for shopping or much of anything. grin Interesting that goat’s milk is fussy. Yak milk isn’t. Cow’s milk isn’t either. I’ve had good results with both UHT milk and powdered across the spectrum of low fat and full fat.
