The Prepping Thread - A Newer Beginning ;)

Floss

I think it's more along the lines of none / insufficient water that can cause an exploding pressure cooker 

GaleSF63

My mother loved her pressure cooker and had one all her adult life. It never exploded but almost every time she used it when I was growing up, I expected it to. She had a habit of putting it on and then going and doing things upstairs or outside while it was whistling loudly and I lived in fear. I've never had one and never will.

That doesn't mean my kitchen ceiling has escaped. In my case it was a pierced can of tomato puree. 

Si_Clist

wondercollie said:

... I won't even can because of my fear of the water bath process and scalding myself.

Given that in the water-bath method the water doesn't come to the boil and you take the jars out with a jar-lifter, I reckon you have far more chance of scalding yourself by using a kettle

mothernerd

GaleSF63 said:

My mother loved her pressure cooker and had one all her adult life. It never exploded but almost every time she used it when I was growing up, I expected it to. She had a habit of putting it on and then going and doing things upstairs or outside while it was whistling loudly and I lived in fear. I've never had one and never will.

That doesn't mean my kitchen ceiling has escaped. In my case it was a pierced can of tomato puree. 

My mother used to do her this to me when I was quite small. I was in charge of my little brother (2 years younger than me ) who was very fond of poking sticks through the fireguard, eating earwigs and all manner of mischief. She would go upstairs to make all the beds (and do all the other upstairs cleaning one day a week). The worst thing was when she would tell me to 'watch the chip pan' - I was always on tenterhooks wondering what it would do and what I was supposed to do when 'it' happened. I've never had a chip pan at my house (on a prepping note most household accidents are down to stairs and chip pan fires although there are all sorts of statistics about how many accidents are caused by things like tea cosies).

Effician

mothernerd said:

GaleSF63 said:

My mother loved her pressure cooker and had one all her adult life. It never exploded but almost every time she used it when I was growing up, I expected it to. She had a habit of putting it on and then going and doing things upstairs or outside while it was whistling loudly and I lived in fear. I've never had one and never will.

That doesn't mean my kitchen ceiling has escaped. In my case it was a pierced can of tomato puree. 

  most household accidents are down to stairs and chip pan fires although there are all sorts of statistics about how many accidents are caused by things like tea cosies).

I wouldn't say it was the fault of the household items as long as they are maintained, some folks though couldn't be trusted with a knife & fork.

Wraithlady

littlemoney said:

Perhaps I am missing something, but what is it that people do which makes pressure cookers exploded.

The main reason iirc is that the cooker needs to be able to vent pressure over a certain level - old-fashioned cookers had only 1 valve (modern ones have a main one and a fail-safe) which means if the valve gets blocked or stuck, the pressure will build up until the internal pressure is greater than the strength of the metal surrounding it - and bear in mind that the pressure is meant to be very high.

If you're really lucky, the gasket will give way first, meaning the lid will blow off (hence all the various foodstuffs decorating kitchen ceilings). 

boultdj

Now I want to hear about how the tea cosy caused an accident........

MrsCD

With my dear departed mother in law, it was rice pudding all over the kitchen. I think she released a valve at the wrong time or something. I've never found the need for a pressure cooker in our 43 years of marriage.

littlemoney

I think pressure cookers were seen as useful as they very much shortened cooking times, long before microwave ovens.

My mother used one so I grew up with them. The Christmas pudding didn't take hours to cook or heat up on Christmas day. I don't remember seeing one in my grandparents house so who got her started I don't know.

Serendipitious

Ah, memory lane. I hated pressure cookers, was terrified of them as a child, then when my grandmother died I was given hers, I was all grown up by then but still scared so I just put it in a cupboard right at the back. When my mother died I had hers as well, so for a while I had two of them lurking in there until I finally found them a new home.

I also remember my mother's triple saucepan from the 50s, three heavy but separate triangular pans that could sit together on one electric ring. And another heavy pan had three metal baskets inside. All very economical with fuel.

These days, it just being me, I layer up the veg in one pan, start the carrots off first then add the greens and when it's all cooked use the veg water for gravy.

I do miss my divided frying pan though. It had to be thrown out last year after many years of service. Haven't replaced it yet.