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How
an Electric Rice Cooker Works!
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The electric
rice cooker is an ingenious device that is actually
as simple as a toaster. It’s quite amazing how
this simple kitchen equipment does its magic and cooks
rice, almost any kind of rice, perfectly every time.
How is it that a rice cooker “knows” when
to switch from the “cooking” mode to the
“keep warm” mode automatically?
Please see our How to Choose and Compare to compare the features available with our many models of rice cookers. Also see Frequently Asked Questions for more questions you may have about rice cookers.
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Here
is how rice cookers actually work. |
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| Pressure Rice Cooker |
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| Pressure cooking is a method of cooking in a sealed vessel that does not permit air or liquids to escape below a preset pressure. Cooking rice with pressure helps turn beta starch into alpha starch, which makes the rice softer and easier to digest. (The starch in grains is beta starch. Raw rice is hard because beta-starch is rigid. Beta-starch resists digesting by any enzyme, to protect the seed from germinating when conditions are unfavorable. When rice is cooked, the starch loses its rigidity, and turns into a soft pasty alpha-starch.). |
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| IH Rice Cooker |
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| The heating method known as Induction Heating (IH) occurs when a magnetic material is placed in a magnetic field. In our case, coils within the bottom of the rice cooker create the magnetic field. When the special 2 ply inner cooking pan (nonstick coated aluminum with stainless steel outer lining) is placed into the rice cooker and the unit is turned on, a magnetic field is generated to create instant heat. Through this technology, the whole inner cooking pan itself becomes the heat source utilizing both high heat and finely tuned heat adjustments to control the cooking process. The results? Higher and quicker heat response that's more evenly distributed for perfectly cooked rice every time! |
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| Micom
Rice Cooker |
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| In more
advanced models, computer chip technology
is introduced and the rice cooker automatically
makes adjustments in temperature and cooking
time depending upon the program entered.
These cookers are called micom rice cookers
because they are fitted with a microcomputer
chip. The top-of-the-line Zojirushi micom
rice cooker is the Neuro Fuzzy®,
a registered trademark name coined by Zojirushi
to indicate a rice cooker which utilizes
“fuzzy logic” through a micro
computer chip to cook rice. |
This computer chip is the brains of the
unit and instead of simply switching on
and off reacting to temperature, the rice
cooker now makes small adjustments in temperature
and cooking time according to what the thermal
sensor senses. So you can program your rice
to be hard or soft, dry or watery, as in
the case of making rice porridge, the Asian
comfort food. You can also program for cooking
white, brown or sweet (glutinous) rice. |
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| Conventional Rice Cooker |
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| If you take out the inner cooking pan and look inside the main body of the rice cooker, you will see a small round disk, about 1-1/2” in diameter, in the center of the heating plate. This is a thermal sensing device, known as a magnetic thermostat, and it sits on a small spring. |
When rice and water is placed into the inner cooking pan and then put into the main body of the rice cooker, the weight of the inner cooking pan depresses the thermal sensor. With the rice cooker plugged in and the cooking switch turned on, the heating plate begins to heat up bringing the liquid in the cooking pan to a boil. Water boils at 212 degrees F and no higher, so as long as there is water in the pan the rice cooker will continue to cook. When the rice absorbs all the water, the temperature will begin to rise since there isn’t any water left in the pan. When the thermal sensor senses that the temperature has risen above 212 degrees F, the machine turns off the heater automatically and switches to the “keep warm” cycle. It’s as simple as that! |
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