I bought the identical but 6.5l version.

I found this cooker simple to use because it has all the features. Any fear you may have of pressure cookers (and believe me I was very wary as I have never had one before) is dispelled by the simple green/red LED light that tells you when it is safe to open, as well as the usual rising plunger. Plus you can't open it until you unlock the lid, which vents the cooker anyway, and well away from you. The long handle which has the open and pressure control knob at the end means you are always well away from the hot parts when you are using it, which I find comforting.

It has the unusual feature of an automatic timer (Only one Tefal one has this as far as my research has told me) which kicks off when it knows pressure is high enough to be cooking, so there is none of this waiting for a certain hissing sound or amount of steam, or watching the rising ringed pressure knob (which is present anyway as well). The timer will start without you if you happen to be looking away, which is good, and a beep tells you to turn down the heat, a second set of beeps to finish cooking.

While you wait for it to heat up you can set the timer. Watch the pressure knob rise past 2 rings and wait for the LED to go red indicating pressure is up, the timer will then start and it beeps. You turn the heat down to simmer and wait until the timer beeps again to indicate your required cooking time is done. Take it off the heat and wait until the whole thing cools slowly and the LED turns green, or cool it in cold water, speeding the process, again until the LED turns green, or if you are in a hurry you can vent it slowly or rapidly using the knob on the end of the handle. What I liked about this is that you have one hand on the handle, one hand on the release knob, and therefore the exit vent for the steam is facing away from you and well away. If you choose to release it slowly then just turn it and the steam issues gently away from you. If you really want some excitement you can pull after turning and the steam will again issue away from you, but this is not for the faint hearted as it is very fast and you will quickly fill your kitchen with steam - I love it. This is in fact the worst that can happen as you cannot twist the lid off the cooker until you have pulled this knob right out, it is the lock as well as the steam venter, so anyone accidentally forgetting to let the thing cool down will simply get a LOT of steam at that point, all out of the proper vent, facing away from them. I don;t suggest anyone is careless with pressure cookers but this really made me feel well looked after as it is well interlocked.

You also have two ways of seeing is pressure is up, one is the LED which goes from RED to GREEN. The other is the usual knob with rings that is flat when there is no pressure and rises gradually as pressure does until two orange rings show.

You can take the handle, which includes all the functional parts, off by depressing one clip inside. You can rinse this handle all over and wash it inside by hand. You can put the rest of the lid, which is merely the stainless steel pressing, in a dishwasher if wanted, together with the main pan.

I was advised to buy a slightly bigger one than you might think. I am glad I did. You can only fill pressure cookers up half way or thereabouts. A big pan is as small in the bottom as a small pan, just like the edge of a big paintbrush is as small and fine as the edge of a small one. Pressure cookers seem to get taller with size first, not fatter (though they do get fatter if you go really big) If you wanted to get say 4 lamb shanks in a 4.5l cooker it might be a problem. I have just cooked a chilli in my 6.5l one and using 1lb of meat, 250g dried kidney beans, and a tin of tomatoes, it is "full", and I bought the medium sized pan. I would add that a chilli that normally simmers for several hours (in my book) cooks in rather under an hour. I did a medium piece of bacon in cider in 50 minutes. It was a supermarket one, rather tubular and of a sort I would not normally entertain buying, but it came from a friend who got it heavily reduced. It came out astonishingly tasty and the fat turned spreadable, the higher temperature of pressure cooking brought out the flavour and broke down the collagen. Again I was glad of the extra height of the slightly bigger 6.5l cooker. Another reason for a higher cooker is that some things foam and that can clog the pressure vents, which sounds a bit scary, so a tall pan lessens that. Apparently rice pudding is a great dish to pressure cook, but it does foam up apparently and the gloopiness is very cloggy.

This is a great cooker for a beginner with pressure cookers as its cleverness protects you a bit. For a second cooker I might well buy a huge one, and I might not need the sophistication, but then again, I might miss it.

It is clearly the result of a lot of experience on the part of WMF and any user of it instantly becomes spoilt by the apparent simplicity borne on sophistication.
(Posted on 11/02/2010)