What size is my rice cooker?

January 30, 2008 7:21 PM

What size is my rice cooker?

I've had a cheap rice cooker -- a Hitachi RD-3031 -- for years, and it's worked perfectly. My family is now twice the size that it was when we bought the cooker, and we need a bigger one. A four-person one. One that won't overflow onto the counter when the water really gets boiling.

The bowl on my Hitachi holds six cups of water. I thought that meant it was a six-cup size, but some websites are making me think that "cup" means something different in the world of rice cookers than it does normally here in the US.

How can I tell what size my rice cooker officially is, so I can shop for the next size up?

posted by The corpse in the library to food & drink (6 answers total)

The 2-person sizes are generally the 3-ish-cup capacity variety.

The next size up is generally the 5-or-6 cup size, I think.

I think it's because when you stick in three cups of uncooked rice, it ends up being more than three cups of cooked rice, so the sizes are labeled in uncooked-rice-quantities.
posted by that girl at 7:29 PM on January 30, 2008

I tried look for the specs for your model on Google, but the only thing I could come up with was their contact information. Maybe you could call them?

Hitachi rice cookers are distributed by:

American Appliance Group
P.O. Box 185
Old Westbury, NY 11568
Tel: [phone]
posted by amyms at 7:29 PM on January 30, 2008

I'd call that a 6 cup and so would Amazon from the look of it. I used to have an 8 cup Aroma model which was very good about not making a big old mess - it had an incorporated swing-top lid. My previous 6 cup with a plain glass lid tended to make a mess on the counter. I've downsized to a 4 cup (smaller kitchen and less rice in my post-bachelor life) but I'd highly recommend the Aroma, which I got at Costco for under $30.
posted by phearlez at 8:39 PM on January 30, 2008

My rice cooker is measured in Japanese cups, which are smaller than U.S., imperial, or metric cups. See the Wikipedia article on cups to compare sizes in millilitres.
posted by D.C. at 12:03 AM on January 31, 2008

If it holds 6 cups of water then I'd say its a 3 cup rice cooker (3 cups of dry rice = 6 cups of cooked rice) From what I've seen the cup size is the number of cups of dry rice you can put in (with water) But you could try measuring it and comparing dimensions of yours with other products on the market.

Just fwiw, 6 cups of rice is plenty for 4 people, if its overflowing, maybe its just a crap rice cooker. Do you still have the manual that came with it? Mine has 'fill lines' labelled by the number of cups of rice you're putting in, which is handy.

Mine is 1.5 litres/ 8 cups, based on the US cup size on wikipeda (from D.C.'s link) I'd say that yours is only slightly smaller than mine (though your 6 cups could be filling it right to the top) but at full capacity, mine can make enough rice for a week for 2 people.
posted by missmagenta at 7:23 AM on January 31, 2008

SIX CUPS OF RICE IS NOT ENOUGH! WE NEED MORE RICE!

No, sorry, that's not what I meant to say. Ahem... It can cook two cups of dry rice, if I don't mind cleaning up a puddle. (I've never tried three cups.) It sounds like that's what I was missing: the X cup measurement is how much dry rice can be cooked in it, not the volume of the bowl.

It didn't come with a manual. It was a real cheapy from a discount restaurant supply store on the Bowery. The fill lines aren't useful, because some rice has a 1:2 water ratio while other rice has a 1:1.5.

Thanks for the answers -- they're all helpful. It sounds like I should be looking for a sixish-cup cooker.
posted by The corpse in the library at 9:38 AM on January 31, 2008