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Comment by grenoire | Hacker News Reader

I don't quite get why people think that pot rice on the stove is somehow difficult. Measure your rice and water, and set up a timer. That's it.

We've been cooking rice for millennia in this way, a rice cooker is just plastic waste in the end.

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It's a simple robot. Allows you to delegate and time-shift a set of tasks so you don't have to be interrupted while focusing on something else. For many of us, that is more than worth a bit of 'wasteful' product design, and can lead directly to increased productivity in several ways.

For a long time, I would have said something similar. For me, the big advantage of a rice cooker is timing. I can start it before the rest of the dish and no matter how long it takes to cook up everything else, the rice is ready to go. And it is ready to go if someone else in the household eats an hour or two later. And when I go to put leftover rice in the fridge, it's still palatable, so when it comes out of the fridge it's also palatable if properly stored.

It's about convenience and freeing up a burner on the cook top. I love the hold warm feature on mine in particular. It'a a zojirushi that's pushing 12 years now, and I've never had a single issue with it. It's far from being plastic waste for me, and I wouldn't be surprised if it lasts another decade.

100%. The proper measuring of ingredients and timing is all that's required.

Take a look at the first line of the article:

    Cooking rice on a stovetop can be fraught. Add too much water and you end up with porridge.

Then take a look at this line shortly afterwards:

    These devices can seem all-knowing. So long as you add water and rice in the right proportions, it’s nearly impossible to mess up

So in other words, the device doesn't actually solve the most important problem... The timing isn't particularly important, as long as you remember to turn down the heat as soon as it starts boiling.

> The timing isn't particularly important, as long as you remember to turn down the heat as soon as it starts boiling.

The timing is never important on anything as long as you always get it right.

You have to get the water and rice in the right proportion in both rice cookers and pots.

However, a rice cooker frees you from having to watch over it while it cooks. It'll stop cooking automatically once it's done. Not so for the pot, which you have to keep an eye on or time, and turn off when it's done.

This difference makes a rice cooker much more convenient for those of us who want to do other things while the rice cooks, and not have to worry about it.

Also, a rice cooker will keep your cooked rice warm for a long time after it's done, but a pot won't.

Most of the time that I cook rice, I also need to cook something to go with it. So after I turn on the rice, I then start preparing for the rest of the meal or just tidying up the kitchen a bit. Usually by the time the rice boils, I’m still around. Once you turn down the heat, it doesn’t really matter if you leave it on for 20 or 30 minutes. (40 minutes would be kind of crunchy, but if you’re going to forget about it that long you probably weren’t hungry and shouldn’t have put rice on)

Also I use a glass pot which will stay quite warm for at least an hour after turning it off.

I used to have a rice cooker. But I gave it away to free up counter space. My stove has 4 elements, but counter space is precious.

The original article describes rice cookers were invented because cooking rice over a wood fire is very difficult. I’ve no argument with that. But cooking rice with a generic pot on a modern stove is trivial, and most people buy rice cookers because they’ve been taught to.

For a family that eats a lot of rice, the keep warm function is essential. I routinely leave rice in the rice cooker on keep warm for up to 48-72 hours after cooking.

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