01264 6-Quart Aluminum Pressure Cooker

This pressure cooker is the best. I must say it works amazingly. First of all, this is the perfect size pressure cooker, it cooks super-fast, the flavor of your food is on another level. It is easy to clean (very important for me). I have cooked beans, meat, potatoes and several other items in it with excellent results. This 4 quarters size works perfectly for 4 people. Price is affordable and it's last long, I used it for long period of time. I am extremely pleased with this pressure cooker and would definitely recommend it !

I have had the 6 quart version of this cooker for 8 years. It continues to make excellent food, even 8 years later. I finally replaced the rubber ring recently (should have done this a while back) and it cooks like the first day I bought it. I bought the 4 quart version to have as a backup and also to take with me as a healthy option when a kitchen is available when we travel. Highly recommend.

Didn't know what size to get but careful reading of instructions and what I make I determined this was the best size for me. Couldn't decide between a 4qt and a 6 qt. I wanted a 6 qt but Amazon forced you to buy Amazon Prime if you wanted the 6 qt and I didn't want that FORCED on me as I don't want Prime Membership right now and didn't want the hassle to quit later. But as it turned out the 4 qt is more than enough for one or two people or even if you have a small child. It's well and simply made and very cheap compared to others out there. Was not sure about the crude rocking cap but it works, is reliable and simple to see if the pressure is correct by it's gentle rocking. One decision to buy this was the gasket and other rubber seals are cheap to replace. The other one I looked at and really liked, the gasket and rubber replacements would cost me nearly $18 dollars a year to upkeep paying for another of their Pressure Cookers in only 3 YEARS!! The aluminum used is soft and scratches and stains easily and is not hardened i.e anodized. I wish it was but the cost would go higher too. But the manual gives a way to remove stains. Have not tried it as the light stains don't bother me. I also did NOT detect any aluminum taste with dishes that contain acidic ingredients. A well-known site tested for aluminum and said it leeches .0025 of aluminum, but said when you take an antacid, one tablet contains 250 mg of aluminum! Drinking from soda cans can give you 1 or 2 mg of it. If that still bothers you go get a stainless-steel one. But the shape changes compared to the aluminum one even though they have the same capacity. I think the SS model is flatter and not as tall. I bought it mostly to cook beans in it and it excels at that. I tried their bean recipe and it's good as any. Completely satisfied. I also use it to cook soups, stews and am still experimenting. I don't know which is better at the moment for doing the latter as I only had this for a few months. Whether traditional cooking, i.e. Crockpot (failed at beans unless you buy it canned) or traditional stove, coil or gas. I can't seem to get the full flavor nuances on the latter when using the Pressure Cooker, however, strangely, we did gobble up everything made by it. Cabbage in soup gets overcooked, though, as this is powerful and and has only one setting at 15 lbs. Perhaps delicate herbs and flavoring get smothered by the extreme pressure? Maybe not either, as I'm still experimenting in amounts and may take me a year or more to determine the truth, as I don't use fresh herbs and tend to customize my recipes on the fly. I might add, also, it has a strangely very comfortable handle. See you in one year. ;)

Overall the product is great. It works well, but does require a quick glance at instructions to get it right. The main thing is that a lot of pressure cookers don't actually continuously release steam, it only happens in bursts. This one is different and once it starts releasing, it doesn't stop and that's how it actually cooks. You'll have to reference either the manual or online documentation to understand how long things take. Overall, it makes stuff very quickly though. The main reason I'm docking a point is that I find it hard to believe that they still haven't figured out how to prevent water or foam from escaping directly. There's got to be a way. Directions mention something like aluminum foil or some stuff, but I'm not convinced. There has to a proper mechanical solution to this problem some day.

I bought this about a year ago, and for the vast majority of that time, it sat in my cupboard waiting to be used. I really wish I had used it sooner. I'm the family cook and time in the kitchen is always a hot, steamy affair. Considering I hate to sweat, the less time I spend sweating in there, the better. We've started going to stews and lower quality cuts of meat (gotta love food-for-fuel-caused increases in prices!) for our dishes and that involves way too much time sweating. So I finally decided to check out the pressure cooker laying fallow in the cupboard in the hopes of making my time in the kitchen both shorter and more productive. And boy did it deliver! If you look at my other reviews, I almost never gush. I'm a hyper-critical son of a female dog (sorry, Mom!) and can find fault in just about anything. But this thing is amazing. The 6qt bucket cooks 3-5 pounds of meat in under an hour. With the right spices, the meat is extremely flavorful, and it's always falling apart tender. The spice combinations can be complicated, or as simple as salt and pepper - it's up to the cook. Use is simple, with the only real consideration being the amount of water in it and the cooking time (in general, if you want it to cook longer, use more water, less if cooking for less time), the charts for which are freely available on the Internet. It makes cooking rice, barley and meats - usually things that can take a lot of time - insanely fast. That the results are generally more flavorful and aromatic only adds icing to the pressure-cooker cake. Instructions included are kind of rudimentary, but the idea is to heat it up on high until the top knob starts to dance, then turn the heat WAY DOWN, to a point just enough to keep the dance going. If you've ever simmered anything in a covered pot, you have an idea of how low that heat may be. It depends on your stove, of course, and some fiddling to find the "sweet dance spot" may be required. Once you know the SDS, you can walk away for the requisite amount of cooking time until it's time to take it off the burner. Once you get the hang of it, you will wonder why you ever lived your life without one. We're converting toward pressure cooking (it uses a lot less electricity cooking due to the faster cooking times on lower heat) because you can take inferior products and make gourmet-tasting meals. Now, least you think I'm shilling here, some down-sides to the 6qt model I got. -Learning curve. If you cook a lot, you'll learn how to use this quickly. If you don't, chances are you're going to have a lot of overcooked food. Note cooking times and water to avoid that. -The screw holding the handle to the pot comes loose occasionally. A screwdriver fixes that. -It's enormous, so if you have an older dishwasher, likely you'll be washing it by hand. Finding storage space in small apartments for that size may be an issue as well. You might want to consider your actual use needs before getting one this large (I needed large). -It can be a bit "loud". My wife hates the sound of it, even if she loves the results of what it cooks. I don't find it that annoying, so your mileage may vary there. And that's pretty much it as far as negatives go. I can easily deal with all of them, and even with my hypercritical, ready-to-objectively-bash-everything attitude, I can't find any credible reason not to give this thing less than the five stars it deserves. An absolutely stellar product.

Absolutely love this pressure cooker—it’s such a practical, everyday kitchen workhorse! First off, the size is perfect for small families of 2 to 3 people. It’s not too big and bulky to take up tons of counter space, nor too tiny that you can’t cook a decent full meal. It hits just the right sweet spot for daily home cooking. Another huge win is how much gas it saves! I used to spend a full two hours slow simmering a big pot of beef stew on the regular stove. But with this amazing pressure cooker? The same beef only takes 10 to 20 minutes to get tender, fall-off-the-bone delicious. It cuts cooking time down drastically and saves so much fuel, total game-changer. Cleaning it is also a total breeze, no hassle at all. All you need is some warm water and a little dish soap, then just simply wipe it down gently. It cleans up spotlessly in seconds, no stubborn stuck-on food or hard scrubbing required. The steam release function works incredibly smoothly and efficiently too. Overall, this is hands down a must-have kitchen essential for every housewife and small household. I highly recommend it to everyone!

A good product

I should have purchased the stainless steel one but let me tell you this is amazing to cook with. I have a few instant pots and I will keep them for slow cooking. This is so easy to clean; much easier than the instant pot. And it is fun to cook with also. I have a 4 qt and an 8 qt. The 8qt I got for free but it was missing a handle and the regulator. Luckily the regulator for the 4qt works on the 8qt one! I am thrilled! I cooked a 7 lb ham butt in the 8 qt recently.

I thought that 6Qt would be big enough, but it turned out to be so tiny! The flat portion of the inside bottom is just 7 inches wide whereas the inside top is 8.5". It is made of stamped aluminum but the aluminum is thick. It is as thick as some of the cast aluminum pieces of cookware that I own. The bottom of the pot looks thicker from the outside, but it is the same stamped aluminum protruding, the same thickness of aluminum at the bottom. It does sit perfectly flat on our ceramic stovetop when new although I am not sure if it will change its shape and spin due to heating. The useful capacity for cooking rice and beans, soups and stews, or meat and chicken roasts of this 6Qt pot is just 3Qt which is not that much, closer to 2.5L so buyer beware. Should this cooker prove itself fully functional in time, I will get myself an 8Qt Presto, this one is really too tiny both in volume and in its bottom area diameter. P.S. I got the 8Qt and it has just right looks, proportions of width to height and size. The aluminum is brushed aluminum both inside and outside and it is so full of aluminum dust that my hands got black at the time of unpacking and assembling it. This must be cleaned not just with water and soap but scrubbed with cream of tartar powder and a damp non-abrasive sponge to get rid of the aluminum residue from the surface or else the food will get stained. The instructions for care and cleaning are excellent, simply top notch, and include advice on how to treat discoloration (blackening) of aluminum due to hard drinking water used during cooking or cooking certain vegetables.

Best cooker ever!

Estoy muy contenta con esta olla express, aun no he podido comprar el sello de repuesto, pero ha funcionado de maravilla para dos personas o hasta tres, en mi caso cocino mucho sopa de verduras y pollo, por lo que cabe una olla pequeñita para complementar el espacio para baño maría. aproximadamente para 3 piernas de pollo y verduras. fácil de lavar y en la misma caja trae un código para buscar la compra del sello o refacciones extras. considerando comprar otra mas.

Nos agrada q este producto sea tan ligero y para la proporción de alimentos adecuada para nosotros, buen cocimiento en poco tiempo

Good size for small family