Manttra Chef-Xpress 8-Quart Stainless Steel Electric Multi-Cooker

Manttra Electric Multi-Cooker This Electric Cooker is billed as a "Multi-Cooker" as are all the other similar products such as the Deni, Fagor, Cuisinart. I suppose the first question that comes to mind is" Does it do all those things? It remains to be seen if this one appliance can adequately replace 3 or 4, but it works OK. I have yet to find a way to truly "slow cook" without a ceramic or cast iron pot using a minimal, un-concentrated heat source. After spending a week reading reviews of this and other cookers I had mixed feelings about them. I finally decided to give it a try, "Nothing ventured, nothing gained" My main reason for buying this type of product is that I am changing my diet over to Vegetarian, as I have gained 30 lbs since I stopped working, so I am trying to lower fat and eat healthier without spending all day in the kitchen. Other important factors are that it has a countdown timer going into a "keep warm mode" - (I fall asleep while stuff is cooking on the stove). It has a bunch of safety and backup safety features; I can cook one-pot meals in a fraction of the time it normally takes while cooking on the opposite counter away from the stove. Big reason is that Vegetarian recipes use a lot of beans, chick peas, grain and I live at 5,000 ft. and humidity can go as low as 5% in mid-summer. Simmering in a pot on the stove, it takes 5 hours to cook the super-dry pinto beans in my pantry from scratch, even after soaking. It took me 35 minutes on the Manttra P.C. I like the idea of lickity-split soup, stews and chile. Beef tongue, (one of my favorites), comes out real well on a P.C. I bought the Manttra because of its low price and 8.5 quart size compared to some of the other cookers. It's big enough to put a whole chicken in it, along with the promise of the efficiency of an all-in-one cooking solution. It seemed that the accompanying glass lid would also add to its functionality. I thought maybe the dual pressure settings might be an advantage, though how much is unclear as the most popular cookbooks are written to accomodate only single PSI setting. Also an important reason is that it operates without using a Teflon liner. While the Teflon-coated insert that other cookers use provides some advantage when browning and cleaning up, Teflon will wear out eventually, it never lasts indefinitely. My old S.S. Presto "swisher" cooker is 35 years old, and I can still buy all the replacement parts for it at what seems like 1960 prices. Some other cooker complaints were of the Teflon coating peeling. I checked on the Fagor Website and the liner is not listed as a replaceable item, so if it wears out you are forced to buy another cooker. The Manttra comes with a good-sized stainless steel insert basket for cooking pasta and steaming vegetables, a wire trivet to raise the basket, and as mentioned, an extra bonus glass lid for soups and stews. I found the Unit to be fairly portable, a little bulky, fairly lightweight being easily stowed in a car or SUV. Something else that I should mention, is that the heating element is sandwiched into the metal base of the pot and is not an integral part of the base unit as I had at first supposed. I assumed that the pot when separated from the base could be used as a stand-alone Pressure Cooker on a regular Gas or Electric Stove; also, that the pot would be submersible for cleaning. Neither one of these proved to be true, though there are some clever safety features incorporated into the overall design. The electrical cord, electronics, heater control and power supply are all integrated into the base unit. The power prongs for the pot heating element fit into recessed female type receptacle blades in the base unit supplying power to the heating element only if and when the pot is properly seated in the base. There is a plastic frame attached to the bottom of the pot which allows you to separate the two units and set the hot pot directly on a counter top without scorching it. Most of us grew up being able to adjust the flame on a conventional gas stove. We turn up the heat to get it started and adjust the heat after the pan comes up to temperature. 2nd Generation Electric Pressure Cookers are different. They're designed as set-it-and-forget-it devices. With the Manttra you must learn to trust the pre-set temperature settings that are hard-wired in. The Manttra pressure cooker works fine. I filled it half-full of water and put in some ingredients. It takes about seven minutes to come up to pressure, You have to incorporate, (add) the warm-up time onto the total timer setting to get the actual cooking time. Pressure cookers operate at a pre-set pressure which translates to about 240 degrees in cooking temperature. If you turn up the heat, all you do is increase the amount of blow-by steam coming out the pressure regulator vent depleting the water in the pot much faster. Pressure still stays the same and so does the inside temperature. Pressure Cooking is not like frying bacon. Since the pressure and temperature don't change, you only need to vary the cooking time. The Manttra has 2 settings on the pressure valve, I is 8 PSI and II is 12 PSI. Food cooked just fine at 12 PSI, taking at most only a few minutes longer. The recipe book containing 50 Recipes tells you what settings to use. Some of the recipes are two-stage. E.g. Pressure Cook on II for fifteen minutes, release the steam, (about a minute) add final ingredients, like zucchini, carrots, added seasoning and resume cooking set on I (low pressure) for 5 minutes to finish. Takes about a minute to come up to pressure the second time. Since you cant see inside or open the lid when cooking, it is important that you pay close attention to start with enough water in the pot. If the water runs out and it overheats, there are two fail-safes that will vent the steam and shut off the power. It will take some elbow grease to get the burnt stuff off the bottom of the pot, and the cover gasket will overheat and have to be replaced. The engineers were paranoid about safety on this cooker which is apparent when you understand just how it works; You MUST take the time to read and understand the instruction manual before you use it. A large percentage of negative reviews are simply because they didn't read or understand the manual. It is not complicated, but it's not like a pot on a stove. For example, when I first plugged it in, I pushed a few buttons and what looked like 6R showed on the display. "Oh no, I thought. its an error code, this thing is broken right out of the box!" I pushed all the buttons and nothing changed. I sat down and carefully read the Manual. I had no problem understanding the instructions. What was on the display was "br" for "brown" mode. Nothing wrong! If you don't follow the manual there are 2 or 3 ways that you can cause the cooker to fail to seal and build up pressure, while there is nothing wrong with it. A most common problem is that people overload the pot clogging the vent which was probably the chief cause of explosions in days gone by. Pea soup the biggest culprit. The safety devices on the Manttra circumvent these problems. As I said, you can't vary the temperature except for "br" which is for browning meats, boiling soup maybe. It's hot enough, so you have to keep stirring and turning. If it gets too hot, you can turn it off and back on. Next setting is full power for Pressure Cooking activated when you set the timer and push "Start". Plenty of heat to build up and sustain full pressure. When the timer counts down to zero, it beeps and goes into "warm" mode, which though a fraction of full power acts as a LO setting. It is not hot enough to maintain pressure, but it is hot enough for your food to continue to slowly cook, so you don't want to leave it on warm indefinitely. For soups, steaming, pasta and most settings you use the P.C. and the timer setting. "br" can also be used as a "medium" heat setting. To summarize: I thought everything worked as it was designed to do. Nothing failed or broke. It is really nice to eliminate a lot of pots and pans and do it all in one counter-top appliance. Speed and convenience are the biggest factors, along with safety. The Pressure Cooker works as advertised. The steamer works well and I haven't made pasta with it, but if it will steam veggies, it will make rice and pasta. Browning meats at 50% of full power was hot enough. It's not advertised as a "slow cooker" because there is no "Lo" heat setting. "Warm" could serve as Low heat, but it can only be accessed by pushing the timer button which jumps to "4" minutes (the minimum time you can choose), as soon as the timer button is pushed. You push "start" and it runs on full power for 4 minutes which is less than optimal for thick stews and soups before automatically going into warm mode. In other words, the only way you can independently turn on "warm" setting is to wait for 4 minutes at full power until the timer counts down to "00" when warm is auto-initiated remaining in warming mode until the power is manually turned off. I think the Manttra should be considered primarily a set-and-forget portable Electric Pressure Cooker and steamer/pasta maker sometimes stock pot that uses much less electricity than an electric stove burner. It was designed with safety as the prime consideration with portability, low cost of ownership, efficiency and ease of use as key factors. All the power settings except for "brown mode" are automatic and warm can not be instantly selected, but as an example, you could use the cooker to pressure cook a whole chicken and then throw in the rest of the ingredients using it as a stock pot with "br" and then the "warm" setting to make 6 quarts of really good chicken noodle soup. One might argue that it is not really necessary to use the Cooker like a pot on a stove because you could instead, use a pot on the stove for that while you use the Cooker for steaming vegetables or making pasta. I ended up using the glass lid on my frying pan to prevent oil spatter. After careful consideration, I rate it 4 stars with kudos for the well thought out safety features. Everything worked the way it was supposed to, but for me, I couldn't shake the dichotomy of while appreciating the time-saving and convenient set-and-forget functionality, I missed the manual involvement of doing it the long, slow, hard way. Mainly, I didn't like the 4 minute delay going into warm and I thought "warm" seemed to be somewhat higher than a low setting. I didn't feel that this was a malfunction, but rather the way it was designed. Again, I thought the pressure cooker and steamer functions worked well enough. I made a Thai Chickpea Curry Dish that my wife liked - it turned out as well as anything I have cooked the old-fashioned way in just 18 minutes, (plus 9 minutes to build up a head of steam). It would have taken an hour and a half on the stove top, at least three hours in the slow cooker. For me, being a perfectionist and a control freak, maybe P.C. is just too easy? I used to lift the glass lid on my pot of chile, stirring it with a wooden spatula while breathing in that fine Chile aroma. I could check for seasoning, taste and aroma mid-way through the cooking process. I particularly liked to watch and listen to the gurgling little bubbles as they broke the surface. With a Pressure Cooker you only get to watch the timer count down while extra steam escapes from the regulator. I'm sure with a little practice you can learn to use the proper timings, settings and seasonings gaining confidence that your dishes will turn out just right. You can always make final adjustments as I have described in a previous paragraph. One last observation that I think will apply to all the different brands of so-called Multi-Cookers as well. If you are bent on insisting that it perform flawlessly in all categories, I can't say that will happen given the Manttra's price point. If you can simply accept what it does well, enjoying the increased speed and convenience, then the Manttra might be just what you are looking for.W.O.

I really wanted this pressure cooker to be the multi-cooker it promised to be. The first one I received spewed steam all over the place and the pressure relief valve did not stay in place. After using it one time, I cleaned it and the very messy counters and decided to try cooking something else. It didn't even turn on. The second one I received had similar problems, basically with the pressure relief valve. Water also built up behind the led light display. It heats unevenly, only has 1 temperature and you cannot submerge the pot. I've used pressure cookers for years and this is by far the poorest one I have ever used. That said, the customer service was great and the company refunded my money. I don't think Manttra is making these anymore, which is a good thing because it is a really bad piece of kitchen equipment. The only good thing about it is the capacity.

Do not purchase this product. Pressure did not build, steam & water dripped all over the counter, and the water evaporated very quickly inside the pot. The gasket is very loose---my husband doubts it's even the correct gasket.The manufacturer went out of business about 10 years ago, I was told by the company that now sells parts for Manttra.I got a 100% refund from Orange Onions, so I am happy about that.

This is a great price for an electric presure cooker!!!! I have not yet used the browning and steaming features. My only negative is that it is hard to clean...perhaps steel wool would help this. Overall this is an excellent buy.

I HAVE BEEN USING PRESSURE COOKERS FOR MANY YEARS, I REALLY LIKE THE WAY THIS ONE WORKS, FAST HEAT, LESS WORRY WITH THE SENSORS. GOOD INVESTMENT

I have had the cooker for a few weeks. I tried 2 different recipes (with plenty of water) and both burnt the bottom of the pan. I sent the unit back without cleaning it to show them the results. Maybe I had a faulty unit but until I see better results I cannot recommend this unit.

Great product....fast shipper

Wife loves the cooker as it decreases meal preperation time.