Topic: Slow cooker advice needed

[tempest63]

I have a large Swan slow cooker that I use for winter soups and stews etc, but most recently for making bone broth. There are two problems with the slow cooker
1. It isn't very slow. The food is cooked through and falling apart way earlier than the recipes state. The heat seems too high and even on low heat the liquid seems to reach a low boil rather than a gentle simmer.
2. The lid doesn't seal very well. When making bone broth the fluid steams off very quickly and over a two day period the cooker has to be topped up three or four times. Tried sealing with foil etc without success.

So who has a slow cooker that gives a gentle simmer and has a tight fitting lid? What makes and models are the best out there?

Thanks
T63

[Stephen Lindsay]

I have a Morphy Richards slow cooker (red) that I bought in ASDA, it has low, medium and high heat and it is slow as you describe tempest.

[tempest63]

Thanks for the heads up Steven.

Do you lose much fluid when using the slow cooker?
T63

[chewytikka]

I have a Morphy Richards too,  ;D 6ltr works a treat!

If your having trouble with the lid, just stick a heavy weight on top, i.e wrap up an engineered house brick
that will keep it from leaking too much steam. Easy fix

You could knock up a simple throwaway dough and go down the Indian Dum Pukht route.
With the dough and the extra weight, you should have no problems at all.

You could always save a lot of time and energy and use a pressure cooker
all done in a couple of hours, instead of a couple of days. food for thought.

cheers Chewy

[Stephen Lindsay]

My Morphy Richards is smaller than Chewy';s 3.5 litre I think and I've mainly used it on the low setting for chilli, casseroles etc with no loss of liquid.

[tempest63]

Thanks for the advice guys. I think that my one just cooks at too high a temperature, even on the low setting. I may try the dough seal, something I had already considered but given the high simmer point I could see the pressure build up blowing the lid off.
With regards to the pressure cooker, all the stuff I have read on the health benefits of bone broth call for the long slow method to extract and break down all the good stuff in the bones. However I will do more research.
T63

[tempest63]

Thanks for the advice guys.
I bought a Morphy Richards slow cooker at the weekend and knocked up a batch of bone broth.
It cooks at a much lower temperature than my old Swan, doesn't boil and no noticeable loss of fluid.
Looks to be a valuable investment.
T63

[Tommy Timebomb]

So glad I spotted this thread.
I was trying to educate my friend the other day on the slow cooking in the pot method of cooking a base gravy.
He then asked 'Well whats wrong with a slow cooker then' and apart from me explaining that i like to do 4kg of onions at a time I was a bit stumped on any other explanation to give? 
Ps...... Just looked at other threads re using a slow cooker and one of the things mentioned is it stews the onions which is not the object.
Some people it seems have no problem with this method.

[Donald Brasco]

In my opinion, making curry base sauce requires the onions to be cooked hard.  A good rolling boil or pressure cooker breaks down the bitter compounds in the onions and converts the natural sugars which are a component of the bir flavour. Slow cooking should not feature in base gravies and I've never seen a BIR cooking their base slowly. Cooking for a long time, yes, but not cooking low and slow.