Remoska cookers (merged)

msb5262

Anybody around here using their Remoska? I have just been reunited with mine after a house move...and it's still fabulous!

Ben84

My mother has one of these cooker, which she likes cooking with. Recently however it was instantly tripping the circuit's RCD the moment it was turned on, so I took it apart to fix it. I was surprised by what I found inside. The electrical insulation is very minimal throughout the cooker, and it's barely waterproof. Which is a bad combination. The element is basically a coiled up live wire, much like the ones in toasters, sat in a ring around the outer edge of the lid. It doesn't touch the metal lid because it's inside lots of little ceramic beads. However, if any water gets inside the large gap which is also running all around the edge of the lid, it easily shorts out the exposed element to the lid, as it had in this case. The wires from the element are also bare metal, pushed through some small ceramic tubes running through the metal lid in to the plastic handle. This too has lots of gaps water can get in through and short things out. Inside the handle, the wires are soldered to the switch with just a couple of mm between the bare live and neutral. It's a tiny gap, and solder is a poor choice for a heating device as solder melts when it gets hot.

Overall, there's a lot of live metal wires in very close proximity to the metal case (millimetres at most), and generally in locations where water can easily enter. The ceramic beads/tubes would also likely break if the lid were dropped and short something out too. If/when the element burns out and break, it will become loose inside the metal lid too as it's the element holding the ceramic beads in place. So, it's quite easy to short out with water/impact or age, which at the least breaks it. Fortunately the RCD cut out almost instantly, but in a house with an old fuse box, or worse a faulty earth or two pin sockets (still used abroad often), this cooker would be quite dangerous during normal use. It's the least safe modern era device I've found.

If they'd just used a tubular element, like the ones in kettles/grills, it would be much safer and more reliable. Screwing/crimping the cables to all terminals would help too. Making more effort to waterproof it around the handle/edge would also help a lot. So, I'm disappointed with the safety of the design. I'm not sure I would recommend using one, but if someone does, then they should be very careful how they clean the lid as it doesn't take much water to short it out, and I would only use it with an RCD and earthed socket.

One other thing, if you do take one apart, they're extremely hard to put back together again! The flexible wire element in ceramic beads is really difficult to get back in the right place while lining up the screw holes.

Angelina-M

Thanks for that Ben.

To be honest i'm not the least bit surprised. I have a love hate relationship with mine. I worry about the flimsy cheap quality of it and lets face it, I hardly think they have put a good quality teflon into it. I try and only use stainless steel or cast iron for my cooking.

However it is an amazing beast! It cooks wonderfully, is portable enough to take in my motorhome and doesn't cost a lot to run.

If I could find the same kind of thing in cast iron I would be over the moon. I do have a stainless steel electric cooking pot but the heat just comes for the bottom so doesn't do the same kind of thing as a remoska.

Helebore

Is it worth resurrecting this thread as I have just bought a remoska after wanting one for a L O N G time! Would be interested to know if anyone from earlier in the thread has still got theirs in use!

imho

I still have mine but have not used it for a few years. I have been using a Halogen oven but I might get the Remoska out now as I liked it when I was using it.

[Deleted User]

I use mine daily and its the second one I have owned,absolutely brilliant and I hardly use my main oven at all

juliettet

I love mine too. I reckon I have saved so much not putting the main oven on. I would buy another. I bought a second dish.

annab275

I have had mine for about 4 years and love it. I use it for soup, baked potatoes, meat balls, mince, frittata, stews and casseroles and for heating up pies etc.

soba

I want to get a dish to use in the Remoska for doing fish or meat pie in. I don't want to cook them directly in the base of the Remoska. I've only got loose-bottom baking tins so they wont do the job if I'm making something with a lot of liquid.
Mine is a standard size remoska , what does everybody else use?

Living_proof

I managed to find a second hand standard with window in a CS over the weekend. It came with quite a nice cookbook and we are going to attempt a few things over the coming week to see what works best.

I do have a large oven but never use it - it is simply used for storage of trays etc. I have a ss panny combi oven which is brilliant and used daily but sometimes we have to cook components of a big meal separately so I am hoping that the remoska will sort this out. Like Soba I am already considering items which will fit in the cooker, and thinking of lining it with the non-stick oven mesh when I do use anything metallic. Also trying to work out which dishes would be better in the slow cooker or air fryer - I am quite spoilt for choice now!