Thermal vacuum cooker?

[Esteban]

JonW, I have no experience, yet, cooking in a thermal cooker. If you want to cook a smaller portion you can fill one pot with the ingredients for your meal and the second pot with hot boiling water. Or prepare your main dish in one pot and a side dish or desert in the other pot.

I look forward to learning how to cook well in a TC. I think I'll enjoy cooking in it, eat better, and save $$ because I will not buy pre-prepared food or restaurant meals as often.


first edit: some people make a lunch sized meal in a smaller thermos. Amazon has reviews with ideas for them too. I think someone wrote about that idea earlier in this thread too.


second edit: I'm going to IRG 5.0. I plan to use my new thermal cooker there and to bring it to the pot lucks. Maybe, by then, there will be some more TCs there too. I searched Joanne's Camp-CooK web site a month or more ago. There were no results I could find for a thermal cooker from the users of her site. Maybe that will change.


third edit: I did not think to look for a discount code for SaratogaJacks. Ooops. I usually look for them when I am planning to buy something online. Retailmenot is usually the best place I have found for current discount codes. chefbrad.com/Saratoga_Jacks_5.5_Liter_Thermal_Cooker has a 10% off discount code.

[desertmoose]

Assuming our application got in in time, we are going to IRG also.
Hopefully by then I'll have a bit more experience with the TC.
We'll have to compare results,

Sam

[Esteban]

Jon,

Are you crossing the country to come to IRG? If so we three, Jon, Sam and Steve can have a little space, surrounded by black iron, on the potluck picnic tables that may draw some surprised looks. And spoons.

[S. Heisley]

Does anybody have information on what the tops of those units are made of and if they are heat resistant? If not, I'd plan on keeping them separate from the cast iron. I would worry that your investment might get damaged by some hot cast iron....dunno. ...Just a thought.

[desertmoose]

The outer container is molded plastic. Saratoga Jacks isn't a vacuum one either, it has insulation instead.

The inner pans are stainless with a stainless lid. That's all I would take to the potluck, I'd leave the outer insulated container in camp.

Sam

[S. Heisley]

...Good Thoughts.

[jonw]

Jon,

Are you crossing the country to come to IRG? If so we three, Jon, Sam and Steve can have a little space, surrounded by black iron, on the potluck picnic tables that may draw some surprised looks. And spoons.

Yes, and I agree w/Sam on bringing only the inner pot(s) to the potlucks...

And good idea on filling unused space with boiling water.

[Esteban]

It Arrived! My new "baby" is home all safe and sound.
The SaratogaJacks 5.5 liter thermal cooker was on my entry porch when I came home today. It arrived quickly. Yippee!

My initial impressions: It was double boxed and well protected for shipping. It seems well made. The bottoms of the two inner pots are heavy duty. It took me a few minutes to figure out how to open the top. You have to press down on a button and twist the top. It looks unlikely to easily spill food. It's kinda pretty In a stainless steel and black plastic way. The size will easily fit in my galley. The carrying handle makes it easy to move the cooker. The inner pots will fit on the burners of my Camp Chef stove/oven, so they can do double duty.. They can take the place of another pot I might have brought with me in the camper. The thermal cooker is easy to carry. It is much lighter than a dutch oven, probably about the width of a 10" Lodge. A one page brochure simply explains the five steps to use the cooker. There is a full color recipe booklet with maybe at least a half dozen recipes that seem good ones to begin with. I like it. It is not a vacuum thermal cooker. The outer shell has foam insulation, not a vacuum insulation like a thermos, according to the instruction booklet. That is probably why it costs 1/2 to 1/3 the price of many vacuum cookers. This seems like a good starter set. I may never need one of the more expensive sets. Time will tell. The recipe book says it can keep food hot, in the safe temperature zone, for up to 8 hours.

I need to wash the inner pots before I cook in it. I'll soon begin cooking and share feedback about the cooker and my meals. I'm optimistic.

I think this will be a very useful cooker for home use and for camping. Or to take in my car for a long day away so I can have a hot meal I prepared myself instead of buying fast food or a sit down restaurant meal as often. I have a project coming up that will fill my days working away from home. This may become my "lunch box." Or a new "meals on wheels."

EDIT: I made chili and Spanish/Mexican rice and both turned out well. The rice was moist and fluffy when I opened the lid after two hours of cooking. The chili was steaming hot. Nothing was overcooked or burned. I took samples of each and then put the lid back on (which let out some of the heat) then let the food cook for another 4 to 6 hours. When I again opened the lid the meal was still very hot. The only downside was that I didn't add quite enough spices to my chili. The textures and color of both the rice and chili was very good. Not bad at all for my first time preparing a meal in a thermal cooker. I had enough leftovers for several more days too.

I liked it well enough that I bought two more SaratogaJacks 5.5 liter thermal cookers as gifts. Learned how to get a 10% discount (chefbradbyu was a current promo code) on each of them. To my pleasant surprise the shipping cost for two cookers was the same as for one. They should arrive soon. It will be fun to see the reaction when I present the gifts.

[bdosborn]

I wonder how these compare to the metal thermal cookers?



Wonderbag

Seems like it would be much easier to pack and you could use your own pots.

Bruce

[Esteban]

I wonder how these compare to the metal thermal cookers?



Wonderbag

Seems like it would be much easier to pack and you could use your own pots.

Bruce

Bruce, that seems like a viable alternative.

As I wrote above I am so pleased with my thermal cooker that I bought two more as gifts. My first meal cooked in it turned out well. I made Spanish Rice and chili. It was easy and stayed hot after 6 to 8 hours, even though I opened the lid and pots after two hours to sample the food (which is kind of a thermal cooker no no unless you reheat the pots, which I did not do - bad Steve). I think the thermal cooker is ideal for home use and for cooking on trips in my teardrop camper. The lid fits on tightly with a twist locking feature so it seems spill proof. At worst, I think, the foods might mix together inside the thermal cooker if it was entirely turned on its side which is very unlikely unless you roughly misuse it.

Found a good series of photos of the cooker as it is unboxed at utahpreppers.com/review-saratoga-jacks-thermal-cooker

[Esteban]

Discovered Amy from Saratoga Jacks has YouTubes of her recipes

I will try Mexican Chicken soon. It looks simple to make, delicious, and may be a good meal for me to perfect for pot lucks.

[jonw]

Hi all - I've been having fun experimenting with my 5.5 L Saratoga Jacks thermal cooker.

Definately try her Mexican Chicken Surprise recipe - super easy and tastes good.

I've been experimenting adapting other recipes and so far everything has come out great. I've done Arroz Con Pollo (where the rice cooks in with everything else), and vegetarian chili with cooking rice in the top pot. I'll probably do the chili for the IRG potluck as it made a lot (ie. full pot).

Here's what I've learned so far:

• The max amount of rice you can cook in the top pot is 2 cups rice with 3.5 cups water (after boiling for 4 mins.). That proportion seems to work well. When I tried a little less water the rice was not fully cooked.
• When making something that doesn't take up the whole bottom pot and not using the top pot to cook anything in (like with Arroz Con Pollo), I filled the top pot with boiling water so there was not excess air to suck away the heat. Worked great.

[desertmoose]

Haven't used ours much, but when we went out earlier this month I made "baked" potatoes in it.

Didn't want boiled taters, so I wrapped the whole uncooked spud in aluminum foil with a bit of butter and salt. Then I poked the wrapped spuds inside zip lock baggies and squeezed out as much of the air as I could.

Around 10 am or so, I poked the bagged spuds inside the outer pot full of water, brought it to a boil, and let it simmer for about 20 minutes. Longer than normal maybe, but I thought it wouldn't hurt to get the heat into the spud through the bag and foil.

Was real chilly and windy there, so I put the cooker on the floorboard of the truck. Out of the way there also.



After cooking the steaks on the grill around 5:00, I opened up the cooker. One bag had leaked slightly, with a bit of water inside it. The other one was dry. Couldn't see any difference between the spuds from the dry and wet bags.

They were cooked to perfection. Too hot to hold, soft and tender. Only drawback was the skin wasn't crisp like a spud baked in an oven.
Will be doing this again. Prep at home, boil water for a bit. open and eat hours later. Waiting to open the cooker until the steaks were done insured everything was hot at the same time.

Sam

[Wolffarmer]

Sam, Kat.

Where is that camp at? Looks like a great place for camping.

Randy

No, really I like those kind of places

[desertmoose]

Randy:
That's 20 mile beach at Walker lake. We go there about once a year.
It's not as secluded as that picture suggests though. It's located between Fallon and Hawthorne, right off US 95, the main road between Reno and Las Vegas.

The highway is just a couple of hundred yards from the beach, so you can hear a lot of traffic. Mixed vehicles all day, and a LOT of truck traffic all night.

You can see the highway behind camp in this picture.



Sam