Crock pot question

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billmac

Assistant Cook
Joined
Aug 31, 2005
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32
Generally speaking, how hot should a crock pot heat the food on the lowest setting? The last few crock pots I've had seem to be too hot, even on low. Anyone else notice anything like this? What is the best way to test the temp?
 
I found out that all of the newer crockpots are hotter. I'm glad that I still have a couple of old ones (pre-1990).
 
I think there was a thread a while ago about buying a crock pot. There was a comment about the newer ones running hotter than before. You could search on 'crock pot' to read it.
 
If I remember correctly what I read somewhere about this ...

The older crock pots ran about 120-150 F. They were designed for "all day" (9-10 hours) cooking. The newer ones run about 160-180+ F (in anticipation of a shorter work day?).

To test your pot ... put about 4-cups water into it, put the lid on, turn it on, and check the temp of the water after 2 hours.
 
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The increased temperatures may be because a temp of 120°F is just right for extremely rapid bacterial growth. 150°F is a perfect holding temperature, although it will cook. The newer models with higher temps are not as likely to develop bacterial growth in the food as it cooks.

Some models of crockpots, according to my old "Crockery Cookery" cookbook, will actually exceed the boiling point. To measure how hot a crockpot gets, you might want to use some oil instead of water.
 
This is interesting to me because my crockpot cooks "hot" too. I find that I have to cook things on low rather than high otherwise they dry out. I just use the low setting for the amt of time reccommended in the recipe for the high setting and it seems to work fine.
 
AllenMI said:
To measure how hot a crockpot gets, you might want to use some oil instead of water.

I politely disagree, Allen. Crockpot recipes and instructions that come with, tell you to trim the fat, most times sear the meat, & almost always call for skinless chicken breasts. Adding oil/fat/grease imo, would be a disaster... particularly testing the temp in the unit by pouring in oil.

Newer units get hotter. Compensate by cooking on low for longer lengths of time. Keep in mind, it is not a deep fryer. Foods cook mostly by steam... not oil. Rather than 'test' the temp, cut the fat, use lean ground beef, remove the skin from poultry, sear a roast first... all of these fatty factors raise the temp and cook faster.
 
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Mish:

I don't believe AllenMI was suggesting cooking with oil. The original discussion was around what temperatures crock pots reached.

Someone suggested using a thermometer to test the temp of water in the crock pot, then AllenMI suggested that if a crock pot temperature was enough to make water boil, you wouldn't be able to measure how hot it got because the water would never get hotter than 212F. Using the oil simply allows you to measure higher temps.

Of course, then you'd empty out the oil and use the crock pot in the appropriate way.
 
IMO, I would not put oil in a crockpot.
 
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