What happens if i open the crock pot

Stephanie O'Dea , who has written four slow-cooker cookbooks, says that if, for instance, a recipe suggests a six-hour cooking time, you're likely okay checking the dish after five hours; since, by that point, the majority of the cooking is done, and the flavors are just deepening and melding. We've seen this advice in countless slow-cooker recipes, and O'Dea explains why: The cooking time is partially determined by how much food is in the pot.

A standard slow cooker holds six quarts, so if you're only making enough food for two people, the ingredients will probably only fill one-third of the pot—and they'll cook a lot faster than they would if you had more in there.

So, it's not a problem to turn the appliance on with a small amount of food in it; just adjust the cooking time. Or, O'Dea suggests, put the ingredients in a smaller, one- to two-quart oven-safe casserole dish such as CorningWare or Pyrex and set that inside the slow cooker. The idea that you can throw a bunch of raw ingredients into the pot, clamp the lid on, set it and, yes, forget it at least for six hours is awfully appealing—which is why we sometimes shy away from recipes that tell us to brown the pot roast or chicken thighs on the stove first.

Can you get away with skipping this step? Yes, says O'Dea, especially if you're just trying to get dinner on the table on a Wednesday night.

In side-by-side comparisons, she can tell the difference between meat that was browned first and meat that wasn't the browned meat has a deeper flavor and a crisper exterior. But for everyday cooking, it really isn't a deal breaker. In effect, a crockpot sets up a closed water cycle. Lifting the lid causes a certain amount of the steam to leave the crockpot, and be replaced with cooler air.

However, as you implied, the liquid is boiling and producing a significant amount of steam. The steam is therefore fully replaced in just a few minutes. Moreover, the specific heat of the food is also high and the thermal conductivity is low. You can probably use a blowtorch on the end of a carrot, stalk of celery or piece of meat and hardly heat the food even one inch away! This means that even if the lid is left off the crockpot for about 5 minutes during the cooking cycle, the food will not cool appreciably.

I can therefore see no way in which lifting the lid adds more than minutes to the duration of the cooking, and the reality is probably less much less than that. In the case where the food is covered halfway or more with liquid, the effect of removing the lid is even less. The converse situation, attempting to cook in a crockpot with no lid at all, is apt to fail in that the food will not be cooked in the low-liquid-level case.

Any steam that is created will evolve into the room and too little heating of the food that is not in contact with the crockpot surfaces will take place to properly cook it. The opposite of the low-liquid-level case, where the liquid level is to the top of the food, causes lifting the lid to have even less of an effect.

The liquid, heated by the crockpot, does nearly all of the cooking since the food is immersed. Removing the lid briefly though, will most likely have an immeasurable effect. I think that part of the reason that this silly urban legend took root is because no one or at least no one that I can find actually does controlled testing of cooking duration vs. If you are cooking in a crockpot for 8, 6 or 4 hours, how can you be sure that 15 or 30 minutes has really be added to the length of cooking?

I agree totally. There is a much greater chance of slowing the cooking time if you open the oven door when something is cooking, but that is not even something that will slow the cooking down more than a minute or two. I disagree, the steam help cook your food and the longer u keep the lid the more your trapp the flavor and steam inside… just like cooking rice.

Roam, Buddy, Please go back and read what I wrote. All you just did is to parrot the urban legend. It would be fun to see it proved on Mythbusters. I am totally sure that they would agree that there is basically no effect from opening the lid for a few seconds on a crock pot.

However I may be back in a couple of hrs and let you know for sure as I am getting ready to lift my lid off to see if my carrots are getting done…lol. Tangy onion chutney 5. Rich paprika seafood bowl 6. Turkish lamb pilau 7.

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