Potential extension project: how would using pressure cookers (not fancy instant pots, a regular old analogue one) affect the calculations? My intuition is that the cost of the cooker, ensuring safety standards are met, should be outweighed by the lifetime fuel and time saved.
Background: I was born in India and raised in the UK (my parents were born and raised in India). At least based on my Gujarati family in India (PS. a bunch of Gujaratis (were) moved over to Uganda and Kenya during colonial times...) soaking beans is slam dunk, but so is using a pressure cooker, which in my experience more than halves the time for cooking beans (one of my favourite investments in the past few years).
PS: Modern pressure cookers have an analogue safety mechanism to prevent exploding. The main downside is that after a few years of use the pressure doesn’t build up quite so much since the heat and pressure affects the shape of the vessel.
They’re somewhat more fiddly—if the rubber gasket cracks or if the pressure regulator knob gets lost (on an old style one) it just becomes a normal pot. Worst case the valve gets blocked and it explodes.
Newer ones come with silicone gaskets which don’t crack as easily (and these are easily replaced in any case) and if the valve gets blocked there’s an analgoue release valve which is designed to pop first (search for “pressure cooker safety relief valve” to see), which is also replaceable.
So the worst case is actually “user didn’t wait for steam to emerge before putting on the weight, AND the valve gets blocked, AND the safety valve was replaced with a bad one” and then it explodes.
The additional handful of steps (lock in lid, wait for steam, place weight, and then after cooking unlock lid, check valve is clear) is definitely worth the time and energy savings.
Nice one Dhruv—I’ve thought about the pressure cooker idea a bit, and even thought of doing an analysis on it. I’m a bit worried about safety and uptake (like with soaking beans) but it has merit.
We cook on a charcoal stove here and I’m thinking I should get one myself too :D
Potential extension project: how would using pressure cookers (not fancy instant pots, a regular old analogue one) affect the calculations? My intuition is that the cost of the cooker, ensuring safety standards are met, should be outweighed by the lifetime fuel and time saved.
Background: I was born in India and raised in the UK (my parents were born and raised in India). At least based on my Gujarati family in India (PS. a bunch of Gujaratis (were) moved over to Uganda and Kenya during colonial times...) soaking beans is slam dunk, but so is using a pressure cooker, which in my experience more than halves the time for cooking beans (one of my favourite investments in the past few years).
PS: Modern pressure cookers have an analogue safety mechanism to prevent exploding. The main downside is that after a few years of use the pressure doesn’t build up quite so much since the heat and pressure affects the shape of the vessel.
They’re somewhat more fiddly—if the rubber gasket cracks or if the pressure regulator knob gets lost (on an old style one) it just becomes a normal pot. Worst case the valve gets blocked and it explodes.
Newer ones come with silicone gaskets which don’t crack as easily (and these are easily replaced in any case) and if the valve gets blocked there’s an analgoue release valve which is designed to pop first (search for “pressure cooker safety relief valve” to see), which is also replaceable.
So the worst case is actually “user didn’t wait for steam to emerge before putting on the weight, AND the valve gets blocked, AND the safety valve was replaced with a bad one” and then it explodes.
The additional handful of steps (lock in lid, wait for steam, place weight, and then after cooking unlock lid, check valve is clear) is definitely worth the time and energy savings.
Nice one Dhruv—I’ve thought about the pressure cooker idea a bit, and even thought of doing an analysis on it. I’m a bit worried about safety and uptake (like with soaking beans) but it has merit.
We cook on a charcoal stove here and I’m thinking I should get one myself too :D