Slow cooker & cold temperatures

Katiehound

Looks like slow cookers don't cope well with very cold weather!

yesterday I cooked chicken casserole & it was on for hours. Started with hot veg, chicken & liquid.
About 8 hours later I ate some of it: first time ever the meat didn't fall off the bones, it didn't seem that hot, chicken was cooked but not that tender..

Today started from cold. A couple of hours on high, it was hot, turned to low. No longer hot!!

my kitchen is cold & temps outside now are barely 1 degree.
Looks like with weather like this the sc needs to be on high.

just check yours- yours might cope better!

Farway

What a coincidence, I used my SC yesterday for beef stew and my results were very similar to yours, started on high, then low for about five hours, cooked but not fall apart tender

My kitchen sounds the same, cold except for gas stove / oven / hob cooking

Luckily, I have a cast iron Dutch Oven and a gas stove so in future I'll use those, low & slow in gas oven

Katiehound

I put the remainder of the chicken ( a bit more than half) on again yesterday- on high for some hours and it is now cooked- as it should have been before! luckily no additional cost as I have solar panels and am trying to use them to the max.

it's clearly a problem when the ambient temperatures are so low. I guess if it had been on High all the time it would have cooked fine. really glad that I discovered what was happening

Toonie

I cooked beef stew a couple days ago in my big slow cooker (outside temps were 0 most of the time and kitchen temp was 15c) and it cooked fine. I normally do 2 hours on high and 4 on low and the beef was meltingly tender and the dumplings cooked in an hour as usual. Guess different models react differently.