Advice and Tips
Could a rice cooker be an underappreciated survival tool?
It recently occurred to me that a small rice cooker could be a valuable survival aide, if paired with a battery pack and solar panels. Specifically, rice is a high calorie food, and one can cook meat over the rice in the rice cooker (using a steamer tray). The rice cooker is quite energy efficient, only about 200 watts for 20-30 min of cooking time, so a solar panel could provide enough energy to a battery pack to run it at any time (collect the solar energy during the day, then run it from the battery at night). They are light and durable and easy to clean and are efficient with water use (since most of the water is contained and not lost as steam). Lastly, it does not require making a fire (which is something to avoid since the smoke from a fire would alert other people of your location and compromise your safety). Have you considered this? Am I missing anything?
In an emergency when your resources are limited to what you already have on hand, a rice cooker is not a bad thing to use compared to, say, trying to operate your electric stove with stored power. But if you’re looking ahead and trying to plan the best things to use, a rice cooker is not going to be top of the list because it has to be kept hot for a comparatively long time using electric power. Anything that heats up is going to be a very large draw on your limited reserves of power, power that you are likely to need for other things. Look into retained heat or thermal cooking for a super-efficient way to cook things like rice and beans for little power. Basically you heat it all to boiling and then put your lidded cooking vessel into a ton of insulation and just let it sit for a long time. The heat stays with the pot and cooks the food with no additional energy use. If you get a thermal oven or wonder bag ahead of time, it’s probably going to do you a lot more good than an uninsulated small appliance of unknown efficiency.
A stove (grill) top pressure cooker is a good option here, especially if you have dried beans.
Of course it all depends on your personal situation and what you have available. Generator with fuel and backup battery will only go so far especially with things that draw a lot of wattage like a stove, coffee, pot or rice maker., but I’ve got lots of firewood and charcoal.
If you have a decent actual AE system (not a power boombox) then yes these things are LABOR SAVERS.
I was loathe to get a rice cooker for years and we always cooked it normally. About 20 years ago when we expanded our solar system, the wife made a good point- cooking rice on the LP stove was using fuel we couldn't RENEW. Meanwhile cooking rice in a rice cooker used electricity that we renewed DAILY.
We use our rice cooker 3-4 times a week or more and our bread machine 3X a week, the energy is renewed daily via 7.4KW solar. Will at some point add an electric water distill-er- NOT for water "purification" but for our battery bank.
All you need is a spare lid with a hole in it, + a refrigerator water connection kit (a copper compression flare to MIP fitting, couple nuts to secure the fitting to the lid, and some copper tubing).
Edit: or use a cheap stock pot and an electric hotplate.
This, and also a breadmaker (cheap at thrift stores), a countertop ice machine, of course a microwave, countertop induction element, and also an Instant Pot. GREAT prepper appliances that use batteries more efficiently than classic methods. Edit: And yes, I also have tools for the classic methods as well. It need not be either/or; we can have both, especially when the energy-saving tools are cheap like that.
It wouldn't be bad to also have a waffle iron / panini press, ice-cream maker, air fryer, a juicer, a dehydrator, and maybe an electric tabletop hibachi (maybe with a grill pan?).
I mean, you could go through an emergency without ice cream and home-made Korean BBQ, but why would you want to?
Sure. I’ve got some buckets of wheat berries, and enough solar for a $20 bread machine I picked up at a thrift store :) Beats kneading it by hand, and the energy use is negligible compared to an oven. Edit: And yes, I also have tools for the classic methods as well. It need not be either/or; we can have both, especially when the energy-saving tools are cheap like that.
I've never understood the prepper mentality of trying to have "backup" systems that are just as complex, technology-dependent, and aimed after soft creature-comforts as regular modern living. Give me a wood cookstove and cast iron any day. All it takes is a single mouse-chewed wire, a cracked battery, or a bad solder joint for all your gizmos and gadgets to become just another pile of plastic junk. But suit yourself and good luck. You'll need it.
Well, sure, like I said, you could set up a Korean BBQ for the apocalypse if that's what floats your boat, it just seems kinda silly and impractical to me. But if that's what you want to prepare for, more power to you.
Nice. When I'm dying from the lack of a bluetooth-enabled solar-powered massage chair during the next natural disaster, this convo is surely what will flash before my eyes.
I knew I was forgetting something. But it doesn't need to be either/or. Sometimes a microwave is better for certain foods, and everyone has one. Updated my comment.
I agree, I want to throw more options out there because small electric appliances paired with a battery backup is seriously underrated, especially when the majority of us will be bugging in if SHTF.
Toss the rice cooker and get an instant pot instead. All the benefits you mentioned plus a lot more. We have four of them, one of which is a mini that we use overlanding. Our four primary cooking methods for emergency use, prepping, overlanding and daily use are instant pots, inductive cooktop, Saratoga thermal cooker and a good ol German made kettle. We’ve got camp stoves, stuff for open fires, a rocket stove etc etc, and hardly ever use any of them largely due to all the restrictions on firewoods and constant burn bans we’ve encountered traveling about the country.
We live off grid and Overland for our travels. So efficiently is important. Yes, all of these methods are excellent for prepping when paired with solar. Our Overlanding power unit is a Pecron E3600 solar generator paired with a 300w folding panel set and a WEN 4800w dual fuel inverter generator.
And the instant pot has the extra benefit of being stainless steel (no nonstick coating like rice cookers or the Ninja version) so you dont have to worry about it flaking/scratching with any utensil/heat or having to baby it when cleaning.
My first instant pot was a huge mistake. I had just heard about them, decided I wanted one, saw “instant pot” in a store around the holidays and grabbed one….it was the “zest” I believe….an overglorified rice cooker, with that lovely shit coating. I still have the thing and use it for cheese dip. Since then I’ve added a duo, pro crisp and most recently added the rio mini to our overlanding setup.
It'll work just fine. Many can even be used for beans, or just add precooked meat and seasoning or sauce after the rice is done.
Rice cookers, slow cookers, and pressure cookers are all good options that don't need special tools or skills. I've used my Instant Pot with a glass slow cooker lid, and a towel over the lid to insulated it. It spends a lot less time cycling that way.
There's another method with an insulated container, either heat everything up and dump it in, or boil water and add ingredients. It might not stay at 200°F, especially if heat gets used to break down connective tissue like smoking meat.
A couple stovetop 9qt pressure cookers are where its at. Sailboat bluewatwr cruisers swear by them. You could use a hot plate if you got pixies to spare or a grate with some dry twigs.
Using electricity to make heat is generally very inefficient. Boil water in heavy pot,, cover, remove from heat. Rice will be cooked in about 30 minutes. About one finger knuckle of water above the rice
That’s helpful-thx—the main concern is heat for boiling the water—how could I do that in an electrical manner that is as energy efficient as a rice cooker? Yes, I could use a fire, but the smoke would alert others to my presence. I’m thinking that induction heat, to get water to boiling, is about as much as a rice cooker would use unless I had a thermally sealed pot to retain heat
Using electricity to make heat is generally very inefficient.
Compare to what? An electric resistance heating element converts nearly all of its consumed power into heat. If we're talking the actual energy that goes into heating the cookware, gas stove is usually 30-40 percent efficient while a electric coil stove is around 70% in practice.
I've done some tests with my Bluetti with a microwave and hotplate and the results were less than spectacular. Even a small dorm size microwave eats the power up fast. I think a better option than a rice cooker is a small butane or propane stove and a makeshift thermal cooker. You can just about get rice to a boil and put it in some blankets and let it go for an hour. The thermal cooker (I use a dedicated one like Thermos for stuff that takes long periods) does great with beans with very little use of fuel. It just takes 5 or so hours. You can get the beans going in the thermal cooker then cook the rice before the beans are done. Rice cooks so fast I am not sure you really need to put it a makeshift thermal cooker unless you really are in a bind for fuel. It is totally insane to try to cook beans unless you have a lot of fuel for do it over a campfire.
The insulated container cooking method is underrepresented. Easiest way to get dried beans cooked (some you have to make sure you boil them afterwards anyway) and is a highly efficient method of cooking.
The rice cooker at our place gets good use though. Definitely a worthwhile purchase.
A pot and a butane stove would be fine. Or a donabe. I like a donabe because after the 20 min pre-soak, it cooks super fast, and you don’t have to do anything else except put the lid on.
It really comes down to your setup. Solar is great for quiet, indoor cooking, but propane has way better energy density. For me, the rice cooker wins just because it's foolproof and doesn't put on a heat signature.
I think you’d be better off learning to cook rice on an open flame. Even maybe a hiking stove like MSR dragonfly that can run on just about any liquid fuel.
There’s nothing magical about a rice cooker other than it has a thermal cutoff when the water is gone.
Yes it is a solid choice. I took my jackery 2000 and rice cooker on a road trip & an electric kettle. It worked great. Get yourself an electric kettle too.
While you are there , get an air fryer too 😄 . You can save on cooking oil and there are plenty of quick recipes on tiktok if you manage to download them offline.
Your typical rice cooker uses 700-1000w so ....
I might not be popular but there is a concept called energy density . A typical bbq gas bottle connected to a 4 burner stove lasts more than 1 month cooking every day for a family ( where I came from they are still using them in some places connected to normal 4 burner kitchen stoves). And we are talking about dishes that require 3-4 hr cooking.
You can boil a big pot of water (for drinking maybe) and do rice in 20 min with 200-300 ml.
Used in SHTF situations you can stretch 1 bottle to 2 month easily. You can use it indoors and even heat the room with it. And then is the price, 5-6 gas bottles are way cheaper than a 4-5 kw solar + battery setup and you're set for 5-6 months.
You are writing about not making a fire that will alert people . Are you planning moving/travelling with 1-2 kw solar panels + battery + rice cooker ? 😄
How big are those gas canisters? Because I have the opposite experience when I used them for camping. The 1lb propane canisters you can go through in a day or two.
If you are staying in a battery backup & solar panels is the way to go. Its way more efficient. Canisters may be more energy dense but they are not more efficient. You lose most of that energy to the environment.
Sure. Surviving and saving the Earth in the same day.
If you really want to play fancy/modern, get a EV car or better PHEV (Super hybrid) with a 30kw+ battery with V2L, V2H capability and use it as a storage battery with home solar panels. With the new generation of hybrids you can charge the battery in the parking lot while running the generator ( If situation requires it) + that most have camping modes ( you can survive for days (temp wise) and cook with V2L on the move).
I live in Europe and I've just ordered one of the above PHEV . With full tank + 2 x 25l gas/petrol canisters I can do 2000 km+ , cook on the go at 6.6 KW anywhere and sleep at 20 C at night in the winter for days. Bonus 30kw mobile home battery + solar panels on the house.
I meant this type of gas canisters. There are generators that use that kind of canisters/gas as an extra backup.
The small camping ones you mentioned are also good for portable stoves but you need 10-20 on stock. Just got a camping stove with grill last week . Need to stock up on small gas.
P.S. Depends where you live . We get like 4-5 hr of daylight (mostly clouds and snow/rain) in the winter so the solar is tricky. I would not base my survival strategy on : we eat only when sun is shining 😄
Not sure about a rice cooker, but I think you’re on the right track with rice for how calorie dense it is for how much storage it takes, plus how well it stores (just not brown rice).
I think it’s a really solid idea to think of storing some rice while growing your own vegetables to supplement as prep.
How you cook it… imho getting a Sun oven will be the most energy efficient way unless you have electricity, but I have not yet tested cooking with the Sun oven on rice, just mostly baking. I guess that’ll be the next experiment to try.
A typical rice cooker will be way higher power than that, and they typically just switch the heater on and off. Yes, it could be useful, but in general you'd do better with a generic slow cooker, which typically has analog-switchable power input. And yes, they do fine at making rice.
Practice cooking rice in a plain regular pot. It's really not hard once you get a feel for how much water you need for how much rice in that particular pot.
They can be a real bitch to clean depending on the one you get. They all vent steam and it usually has starch in it which will gum up the port and grow mold if not thoroughly cleaned after every use.
The benefit to a rice cooker is convenience. You set it and forget it, you set it for long grain, japonica, basmati, white/brown/parboiled, etc and it does the rest. Having had numerous rice cookers over the years, I usually use a pot on the stove instead OR an instant pot instead. They're easier to clean and they do about 90% of what a rice cooker does.
I suppose it is a cultural thing, but Asians wash their rice to get rid of starch, dust, etc. Obvious drawback is the intense water usage for it if you have limited water supplies.
Maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t think washing like most Asian folks do really reduces arsenic content significantly. I’ve always read that you need to boil it like you would pasta to significantly reduce arsenic. Not saying it does nothing, but if arsenic is a major concern, washing it isn’t your best strategy.
Using solar energy to make electrical heat is extremely inefficient. Usualy 15-20%. Don't worry about smells from cooking as everyone will have a fire, there will be no bathing, there will be spoiled food, dead unburried bodies and everyone will be using the toilet outside.
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u/ExtraplanetJanet 5d ago
In an emergency when your resources are limited to what you already have on hand, a rice cooker is not a bad thing to use compared to, say, trying to operate your electric stove with stored power. But if you’re looking ahead and trying to plan the best things to use, a rice cooker is not going to be top of the list because it has to be kept hot for a comparatively long time using electric power. Anything that heats up is going to be a very large draw on your limited reserves of power, power that you are likely to need for other things. Look into retained heat or thermal cooking for a super-efficient way to cook things like rice and beans for little power. Basically you heat it all to boiling and then put your lidded cooking vessel into a ton of insulation and just let it sit for a long time. The heat stays with the pot and cooks the food with no additional energy use. If you get a thermal oven or wonder bag ahead of time, it’s probably going to do you a lot more good than an uninsulated small appliance of unknown efficiency.