No affiliation, but I got a good (and now heavily used) rice cooker from this company; apparently it’s the same manufacturer as the Cuckoo models: https://www.yumasia.co.uk/sakura-multifunction-rice-cooker-w...

I was told by a rice cooker salesperson (in Asia) that Korean brands should be avoided if you plan to cook brown rice. Apparently brown rice isn’t eaten in Korea so the machines don’t have a brown rice setting.

I don’t know if the former is true but the latter seemed to be on the ones I saw.

Korea here. Brown rice is fairly common, and every rice cooker I've seen (except the very cheapest) has a setting for brown and/or mixed rice.

If the salesperson wasn't lying, he was probably referring to other cultivars of rice, not just brown rice. For example, long grain rice obviously requires different settings than short grain rice. Southeast and South Asia have much more diversity of rice than Northeast Asia.

Funny cause I got a cuckoo based on an Amazon review that said it cooked the best brown rice. YMMV I guess.

My Cuckoo definitely has a brown rice setting. It works pretty well fwiw

i’m no rice expert but i really don’t think you need a special cooker for brown rice in my experience. just a different ratio of water to rice. it isn’t special

Brown rice takes significantly longer to cook, so the rice cooker might not be programmed to do that.

Why would the rice cooker need to be programmed for it, though? For any given quantity of rice, the two variables during cooking is the amount of water and the power of the heating element[1].

It is known that brown rice requires a different ratio of water, but this is something that can be replicated with any method. Does the special brown rice setting change the heat output of the rice cooker?

[1]: Fancy rice cookers use non-constant power, or so I've heard. Not sure how much it influences the taste, though.

With the simplest rice cookers, there's no programming. When the water is gone, it is gone.

yep, i just add more water and the brown rice turns out fine. though i’m sure fancy 200 dollar zojirushi ones probably do it better, i’m happy with simplicity

Panasonic makes good ones as well.

Going on twelve years here. One thing I can't make is Japanese pancakes though. If anybody knows what kind of pots are best for those, I'm interested.

Mine is a Panasonic and I’ve been using it for thirteen years now. It’s bulletproof and cooks rice like a champ.

We have a cuckoo rice cooker in Sweden (purchased in Korea). It is great!

Our cuckoo is a preassure cooker, and the rice it makes is the best I’ve had.

We currently live in Tokyo, and the Panasonic we got here is not as good as the cuckoo. Maybe because the power here is weaker?

The Japanese Kamado referred to in the article is related to Korean Gamasot [1][2], with one crucial difference. The Korean version has a heavy, close-fitting, holeless iron lid that helps maintain a higher-than-atmospheric pressure inside the cooking vessel.

Higher pressure = higher boiling point = higher cooking temperature = different taste.

Korean rice cookers modeled after the Gamasot are basically autoclaves. The good ones maintain a pressure of about 2 atm and a cooking temperature of 120C. Unpressurized rice cookers are more common in Japan, and Japanese people are more used to the texture of rice cooked at 100C. Your sushi probably won't taste right if you cook the rice at 120C.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamado

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamasot

How would you describe the difference in taste?

It's subjective, but I'd say that rice cooked under pressure is more chewy and has a stronger flavor of its own. The higher temperature produces a more pronounced Maillard reaction, which not only increases flavor but also turns the rice slightly yellow as if it had been toasted. This is exactly what you want in a strongly flavored Korean dish like stone-bowl bibimbap.

Rice cooked without pressure comes out light and fluffy. This is more appropriate for sushi where you don't want the flavor of rice to overwhelm or collide with the subtle flavor of the other ingredients.

Good info! I didn’t know this :)