650 watt Slow cooker !!! to stay or to go ??

pagan705

I bought a tefal 3 in 1 rice cooker, slow cooker & steamer (3.2 litres) but now I've discovered its 650 watts the Morphy Richards 3.5 litres is only 150 watts

I don't mind cooking rice for 15 minutes with it but cooking meals over 8 hours is something else. I'm really torn since I only have a small kitchen & having a rice cooker etc in one is useful but the idea of buying it was to save money ..... & try out all of the yummy recipes posted on here so.... should I get in exchanged ???


Wish it didn't look so nice :rolleyes: ...& it was reduced from £49 to £29.99 :rolleyes: :mad: :mad:

comping_cat

Do you know how long you have to cook your meals in the slow cooker? the beauty i think with most SC's is the fact you can put a meal on in the morning, and not have to do anything again until you are ready to eat it later in the day. For me, a SC that cooks in an hour or so is the same as a saucepan, which is how i cook my rice anyway.
Catherine x
Also, argos do some excellent SCs at a good price, mine only cost about £15 (cookworks) and ive had no problems with it.

squeaky

I suspect that it will not use the full 650 watts when in Slow Cooker mode. Your instruction book might be able to tell you if this is true or not.

HTH

pagan705

yes well thats another thing ...there was no spec. sheet (which the tefal helpline said was normal ) The slow cooker option has no high low etc ...it says 6-8 hours for most dishes & it has a 1-9 hour timer. so I presume it will only cook 'on slow'. Someone mentioned the cooking temperature as being 84 degrees on another thread... but I couldn't find the post. I don't know what temp most slow cookers cook at

pagan705

squeaky wrote:

I suspect that it will not use the full 650 watts when in Slow Cooker mode. Your instruction book might be able to tell you if this is true or not.

HTH

Thats what I thought before I rang the helpline they said it uses 650 watts in all cooking modes :eek:

[Deleted User]

I had the tefal cooker mentioned in the OP and I didn`t like the fact that there was no low setting and a max of 9 hours and I didn`t think it worked that well anyway

I have managed to get rid to my DD and her DH. I have bought myself 4.5L MR SC and I think it is wonderful and it runs on 150 watts

Michael_K

This is too late for the OP, but maybe useful in case somebody else is worried about the power usage when slow cooking with their Tefal 3 in 1.

The slow cooker is thermostatically controlled. The cooker cycles on and off once it's got up to its cooking temperature. You can hear the thermostat click on and off. I once timed it to get an idea of its power usage. Just from memory, it turns on for about 30 seconds every 10 minutes or so (varying with how full the cooker is and things like room temperature). That could be the equivalent of something like 35W, which is quite low.

If anybody had the cooker and one of those energy monitors then they could say with more certainty.

calleyw

Well one thing the OP could do is to take a reading of the meter on day that they are not using the slow cooker. So 1st thing in the morning. Take one once they get home.

And then use the slow cooker all day again while being out and again taking readings before and after use.

Would allow some sort of idea. Mine is a 130-190w. So I get 5 hours worth of cooking time for 1kw but I only make rice pudding a couple ot times a week and cook a joint once or twice a week. So I would use about 1.5kw per week.


Yours


Calley

pagan705

Thanks for all the reply !!!

I took it back this morning & got the 3.5l Morphy Richards SC ..but with a heavy heart & I very nearly kept it, It really looked good but the crockpot in the MR is better than the metal tefal bowl.

Now I just to make sure I start using it ...instead of it decorating the inside of my kitchen cupboards just like my steamer ...which I never used before since its quite old, but I have decided to start using it and if I use it often enough maybe

... just maybe I'll go out & buy another tefal 3 in 1 as I could justify having it as a steamer, rice cooker & spare SC I'm sure it will be on 'special' again.