I used my Instant Pot for the first time yesterday. Beef stew. I'm trying to understand the "10 minute natural release". I thought this was some sort of "resting time", or letting the pressure gradually subside.
However, after 20 minutes off cooking, the timer starting counting back up to ten. I expected it to stop at ten, and perhaps get a beep alert, but instead the minutes kept increasing, another 4 minutes until I checked, so I did a "quick' release, and was kinda surprised at the volume of steam, which lasted what seemed like over 30 seconds.
Even with the extra 4 minutes, the stew was cooked beautifully, but am I missing or not understanding some procedures?
I’m by no means an IP expert, but that sounds… not right. I have a Duo and it’s never done that. What settings did you use? If you used the Meat program, it should have just turned off and stayed off when the cook time ended. If you used the manual mode (which mine just calls “pressure cook”), you may have accidentally left “keep warm” selected.
If you’re a Facebook user, this group has pretty good advice and the authors of some of the more widely respected pressure cooker “bibles” occasionally answer questions about their recipes.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/IPCoo...
If the IP started counting up, the "keep warm" setting was on. The counting up time tells you how long "keep warm" has been running.
When the Instant Pot is cooking the timer counts down to zero and beeps to let you know the cooking is done.
After that, the Instant Pot automatically kicks into "Keep Warm" mode which starts from zero and counts up. The timer just lets you know how long the food has been at "Keep Warm". According to the manual, Keep Warm is 145F to 172F.
Pressure release is up to the user and you have to manually turn the value to release the pressure. There is no automated pressure release or an added beep.
In my experience, natural release is about 20 minutes.
I think some recipes call for a resting time to minimize the volume of steam released during a quick release. A safety measure so people don't get scalded?
Please clarify. When you say 'After that, the Instant Pot "automatically" kicks into "Keep Warm" mode', that's if you turn "keep warm" on before cooking?
As far as natural release goes, does that means the IP will gradually release pressure as the temp drops, or the pressure will naturally decrease due to the decrease in temp? Like I said initially, even after being in the "keep warm" mode for 14+ minutes, I was kinda startled by the tremendous amount of steam released.
Will the float valve eventually drop by itself in the "keep warm" mode?
For the model I have, I don't think there's an option to turn off the "Keep Warm" mode. I'd have to check to be sure. I might learn something new about the Instant Pot.
In regards to natural release, as the temperature decreases the pressure decreases. PV = nRT (The Ideal Gas Law) where Pressure is directly related to Temperature. With stovetop pressure cookers, one trick is too run the cooker under cool water to get the lid off faster.
Yes, the float will drop by itself in the warm mode.
It is amazing how much steam is built up. It takes about 45 seconds to a minutes for the button to drop. How high the steam plume shoots seems to depend upon "resting time".
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