The new Crock Pot brand cookers are no longer the industry standard. Recently, Rival changed their temperature settings so that they are higher temp (they were worried about food safety because a few dumbasses apparently don't know how to tell when meat is done :roll
. From what I understand now, the new Crock Pots char food and boil liquids, even on low settings. So, since you're willing to spend top dollar, go for the best. Breville and Cuisinart both make high quality products. The Hamilton Beach slow cookers are also well-rated.
Programmables are nice if you're gone for long stretches of time and can't manually adjust the temps yourself. With slow cookers, you do have a large window of time to make adjustments. If you switch from high to low an hour or two past when you're supposed to, the food is still probably going to be just fine in the end.
With most meats, slow cookers are best for people who are intimidated by traditional roasting methods. I have no problem with cooking science, so using a slow cooker to cook, say, poultry is totally impractical to me; the finished product will taste the same, not have as much brown/crisp and take 5 times longer. Only if the recipe calls to cook low n slow (a pork roast for example) would I use one. But then, just about all of my low n slow recipes are barbecue, and for that, I will use my Weber smoker, which is 100x better than a crockpot.
Now, I do use a small, older crockpot to cook beans. Cooking beans in a crockpot is the best way to go. It takes 6-8 hours, but you don't have to presoak them to get rid of the gas-causing enzymes. All of that will take care of itself due to the long cook time. The nice thing is that I don't have to watch the pot to add more water. I can also use the soupy water that it's cooked in to increase the liquidity of the beans (if I'm making Mexican-style refried pintos).
. From what I understand now, the new Crock Pots char food and boil liquids, even on low settings. So, since you're willing to spend top dollar, go for the best. Breville and Cuisinart both make high quality products. The Hamilton Beach slow cookers are also well-rated.Programmables are nice if you're gone for long stretches of time and can't manually adjust the temps yourself. With slow cookers, you do have a large window of time to make adjustments. If you switch from high to low an hour or two past when you're supposed to, the food is still probably going to be just fine in the end.
With most meats, slow cookers are best for people who are intimidated by traditional roasting methods. I have no problem with cooking science, so using a slow cooker to cook, say, poultry is totally impractical to me; the finished product will taste the same, not have as much brown/crisp and take 5 times longer. Only if the recipe calls to cook low n slow (a pork roast for example) would I use one. But then, just about all of my low n slow recipes are barbecue, and for that, I will use my Weber smoker, which is 100x better than a crockpot.
Now, I do use a small, older crockpot to cook beans. Cooking beans in a crockpot is the best way to go. It takes 6-8 hours, but you don't have to presoak them to get rid of the gas-causing enzymes. All of that will take care of itself due to the long cook time. The nice thing is that I don't have to watch the pot to add more water. I can also use the soupy water that it's cooked in to increase the liquidity of the beans (if I'm making Mexican-style refried pintos).
