Anyone on the forum using the Can Cooker?

[Jim Grillman]

I recently ordered the Can Cooker Jr. It's plenty large enough for my cooking purposes. I am expecting it to be delivered later today. What I am wondering is, similar to other cooking tools requiring some sort of break-in or seasoning routine, is there any sort of break-in/seasoning required for the Can Cooker? I also purchased the SS cooking rack to keep the food from burning to the bottom.

I have a really nice 4.5 lb chuck roast that I would like to cook in the CCJ first. My thoughts are to fire up my Weber charcoal grill in the traditional charcoal pattern, sear the chuck roast on the coals right out of the starting gate, then finish the cooking in the CCJ. The Weber kettle cover gets the day off. Hmm, or I could add height to the Weber kettle by using my Weber rotisserie ring to add enough height to cover the CCJ with the lid and have better control of the cooking ambient temp inside the kettle, as well as the burn rate of the KBB charcoal.

Your thoughts please, awesome chefs out there?

[Troutman]

To me it’s almost like a crockpot or even a pressure cooker. Don’t see what there is to break in, just wash and go.

[LA Pork Butt]

I agree with Troutman. I am giving the small one to my son for his birthday, since he does camping a fair amount of the time. Nothing to break, so it should travel,well.

[Donw]

I boiled water in it before first use, but after that nothing else to do. I use mine for quick easy dinners like I would a pressure cooker.

[Jim Grillman]

So a "bird" in hand.....My Can Cooker Jr. was delivered on Sunday. (Weird, hey?) I went hands on and examined it for the first time in 3D. I'm very happy with the worksmanship. Once I read the fricking manual,I had a much better idea of how to use it. Although, there were a couple of surprises.

The first surprise was the quick startup page packaged with the unit. It went through the heat sources and the amount of heat to limit the Can Cooker to. Low to medium low was all the heat that was required and also strongly reccomended. So my idea of embedding the CCJ inside of my Weber kettle went out the window. (Side note...IF I was to do so, the Can Cooker JR. would fit inside the 22" Weber kettle without adding the rotisserrie ring.)

The second surprise, once I started heating it up with the lid closed was that I never saw a plume of steam escaping through the small hole in the lid. I could hear the liquid boiling inside, but no visual of steam. Instead of the visual, seeing a plume of steam, I found that if I moved a finger quickly accross about an inch above the small hole designed to allow only so much pressure/heat to build up, I could feel the pressure and heat escaping.

I followed your advice, Troutman and Donw, I gave it a good washing then followed the clean out instructions to add one inch of water then boil for 10 minutes which was in the post cooking instructions for cleaning.

My initial meal, as mentioned before was a chuck roast with veggies. I pretty much followed the pot roast recipe on the Can Cooker Recipes website, except for the seasoning reccomendations there. As I would normally do with a chuck roast, I coated it in Extra Light Olive Oil, then rubbed in Big Bad Beef Rub, then back into the fridge for about four hours. Next I searred the roast on my Weber Q on high heat eight minutes on each side, 45 degree turn after 4 minutes on each side, to get a nice carmelizing going on both sides. Next the chuck came into the house and was assembled along with the veggies and beef broth after spraying the inside of the CCJ with non stick pan spray, and placing the two halves of the (optional equipment) cooking rack.

For this initial trial run, my heat source was my glass top electric range which is very precise when it comes to setting and maintaining cooking temperatures. Cooking time was about 15 minutes to get the CCJ up to the point where there was steam coming out of the small hole in the lid. Then, as directed in the recipe, 2 hours additional cooking time at elevated heat. At about 30 min. after first starting to heat up the CCJ, it started smelling really good in the kitchen from the searred chuck inside.

Two hours after the cooker made it up to the steaming point, dinner was ready to eat. I removed it from the heat and waited the prescribed 10 minutes before removing the lid. There was dinner waiting for us, ready to move into a serving bowl for the veggies and a platter for slicing/serving the chuck.

Dinner was great, I'm sure the leftovers will be as well.

No regrets, here. I'm looking forword to my next chance to use this cooking tool. On the website there is a recipe for steaming lobster tails. Hmmm.