Others say...

"I LOVE my new Zojirushi induction rice cooker!"
Zojirushi NP-HBC10 5-1/2-Cup Rice Cooker and Warmer with Induction Heating System, Stainless Steel

My old dime store rice cooker finally died a few weeks ago so I got online to shop for a new one. I tried the high-end brand names I usually buy for my kitchen since I love to cook and invest in good quality items. The selection of typical hot pots with and on-switch was endless. Even the better brands only offered a sleeker look for the higher price. And then there were a couple foreign makers at very high price tags. I browsed them just to see what made them so proud of thier product and figured they would be for commercial use or something. After I read the features and looked back at the others, they all just looked pitiful. I have delayed starts,keep warm, audible finish signals, and LED read-outs on other kitchen and household appliances, so why not a rice cooker. I just hated to pay that much just to make rice. After all rice is rice and it's not like we eat rice every day or even every week. I tried making rice one night on the stove and that was awful. I finally bought the Zojirushi 5 cup induction in stainless for the convenience features. The delay start and keep warm are hard for a busy mom to resist. It looked nice in my kitchen when I got it out of the box. The instruction book was a bit intimidating until I realized it was mostly sections in other languages. The English section made sense and is much easier to operate than my cell phone. The first pot of rice was with my regular store brand. Rice is rice, right? Nope. This stuff had an aroma, texture and taste that was wonderful. It was like trying a new food. Had I known how fabulous it would taste, I'd have bought it for the food quality alone. Sure it was an investment and a risk. It could have arrived and just made... well... rice. But it didn't. After the first meal, there was no more discussion about the expense for plain old rice. This new stuff was well-worth it. Now if it's buying one of these or paying your electric bill, keep the lights on. You have other things to worry about. But if this is within your reach, it would be a sound investment. I truely enjoy cooking and trying exotic foods. My mother-in-law has become very trusting over the years and will try anything I make even if she can't pronounce or recognize it. Sadly, rice (well this new stuff) had never been on the menu much. All that has changed. My sushi can stand up to any sushi restraunt. Just think what you'll save by making your own California rolls. I'm reading Asian cookbooks that have been collecting dust in my archives for years. Now I know what they were talking about. You have to start with great rice. Even if you don't cook and aren't a foodie, this is still the right machine. Should this sturdy little gizmo ever need to be replaced, it will be with a Zojiurshi.

"Excellent grain cooker"
The cooker has done excellently. All of the rice types have been great. I'm using it for other grains. After some experimenting, here are my methods so far:

Steel-cut oats for breakfast: add 1/2 cup oats to bowl; wash a few times until the water is mostly clear; add water to slightly above 1 brown rice mark; press timer button; select porridge setting. Great oats are ready in the morning. Adjust the water addition to your personal preference. I add spices, fruit and ground flax later so I need it wet enough. Some residue gets on the top plate and into the steam vent. I set the top plate in water while eating to make it easier to clean.

Quinoa + oats: add 1/2 cup of each into bowl; wash a few times to get mostly clear water; add water to 1 white rice mark; cook as regular white. We enjoy this grain mixture at meals. It saves well in the refrigerator. Saute some onions, etc and add the grain at the end to heat it.

Hulled Barley: cook as brown rice. I like it with slightly extra water. I cook 1 cup barley at slightly above the 1 brown rice water mark.

Amaranth: I've haven't tried it enough to make a recommendation as yet. The regular white rice setting overcooked it.

"Zojirushi NP-HBC10 Rice Cooker"
My wife and I are very pleased with this rice cooker. Whatever kind of rice that we cook it does the job perfectly. The rice is moist but not mushy and the grains are all separate. We had previously tried 2 other rice cookers and were disappointed with with both. They spit water out the vent on the counter and floor and the rice was in a gooey clump. This Zojirushi cooker was much more expensive than the others but I will say that it works well and is worth the extra money.

"The best rice cooker on the market!"
Amazingly easy to use and the rice comes always perfect... better than any previous rice cookers I have used - especially if you need to cook more than 1 cup at a time!
Highly recommended.

"I love my rice cooker!"
I've waited for years to buy the rice cooker of my dreams, and now I have it! I've cooked rice on the stove for years, and I thought I had a pretty good recipe for that, but when I first used my Zo IH, I could tell a huge difference. The rice was perfectly cooked. So far, I've used white, short-grain rice, brown rice and made porridge. The porridge turned out perfectly, as well. And so easy-I put the ingredients in the night before and used the timer function, and presto! we had porridge for breakfast. I like to eat porridge (juk) plain, with a little salt and sesame oil for breakfast. We tried one of the recipes in the booklet for a one-dish meal which I thought turned out well. I like the little chiming sounds for starting and finishing, although there is a way to change those to beeps or silence. I love the keep warm function. The rice will stay perfect even if we can't eat it just when it's done.

One difference is learning how to clean the Zo, which, compared to washing out a pan is a little more tricky, but after 2-3 uses, I felt like I had the process down and didn't have to think about it anymore. The pan is super easy to clean, and the other 3 spots to clean were easy to learn and not as complicated as I feared at first.

Please, everyone learn to wash your rice before you cook. It does make a difference, and it's not that time consuming. Also please look for the highest quality rice you can get, also the newest rice. It all makes a huge difference, and I swear you will never want to go back to your old rice. I'm hoping to be able to buy farm-fresh rice in this country, but so far have not located a source that would send me fresh rice. But I'm sure I'll find something eventually.

Sure, it's a lot of money, but if rice is an important food to you, you can't go wrong with this cooker. Zojirushi is a reputable brand, so I'm counting on many years of use. I saved a little money each month till I had enough, then bought it.