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Update on February 13, 2013. This steamer is amazing and the most used appliance in our kitchen. I steam whole grains in it, reheat food, cook vegetables it's a true winner and highly recommended.
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I was waiting for more of you to review this steamer but then I was too curious to wait. We have really loved our Oster steamer but we are severly uncomfortable with the plastic components. I have been looking for over a year for another steamer that is BPA free/plastic free. The steamer arrived yesterday and we tried it out right away. I filled it with warm/hot tap water, and it steamed beautifully. The stainless steel bowls are neat. We bought this as an "intermediary" device until more healthy steamers come on the market. They could have added a few things to make this steamer perfect: water tank for 90 min. steaming; ability to add water while steaming; timer that allows steaming at future time; Keeping warm component basically stuff that I liked about our Oster steamer. Also, while the water basket is stainless steel, there is a hard plastic component that goes around the heating element I have no idea what plastic it is or whether it is BPA free and if BPA could leak into the steam and contaminate our food. I hope not.
A very cool advantage of this steamer, besides the stainless steel bowls, is that each basket gets its own steam so e.g. the thai dumpling steam does not flavor the broccoli. Also the stainless steel bowls are easy to wash. Our Oster plastic bowls were hard to clean around the steam holes and the plastic took on weird colors that would not come off.
Update: okay, we are sold we love this steamer; it steams really fast (it is powerful), I made rice and it worked out perfectly (I tried to make rice with the Oster once it was a met mess) in the time they indicated (brown rice, 50 min), and I realize that I can now season my food. With the Oster, only the rice bowl was solid, everything else you could not add anything to it. Today I made the rice, when it was almost done, I added a second level for veggies seasoned with herbs and olive oil just wonderful. Our old rice-cooker is gong to good will. I think this is all we need.
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The single best thing about this steamer is that there's no need to worry about plastics (even plastics marketed as BPA-free may leach chemicals that mimic estrogen). I looked high and low on Amazon and this is pretty much the only electric steamer not made out of plastic. FYI, I purchased the 9-quart version (9" diameter, 2.5" deep pans). While we're happy to have the larger one for the steaming capacity, it's a bit hard to find storage space when it's not in use.Pros:
* No plastics (the "hard plastic heating element" mentioned in the other reviews looks and feel like ceramic to me which is a common material for heating elements).
* The insert pans are optional, so if you have items that are taller than 2.5", you can add another layer and leave out the pan.
* Heats up pretty quickly, and steams all three layers well.
* Simple operation (mechanical dial to set the steam duration).
* Easy to clean, including the water reservoir. The various parts are all stainless steel and can be cleaned easily in the dish washer or with some Bar Keepers Friend. If you don't use distilled water, the water reservoir will end up with scaling, but that can be cleaned easily by heating it with a little distilled white vinegar. There are no hidden or hard to reach bits where mold or nasty mysterious stuff can grow.
* Makes great rice. I'd get rid of our dedicated rice maker except our fancy rice maker has advanced timing features (like setting it in the morning so that it finishes 30 minutes before "dinner time").
* Automatic shutoff safety feature if it runs out of water.
Cons:
* The stainless steel pans are pretty thin and looks cheap (definitely not nice 18/10 stainless steel). If you let water sit in the pans, you will get rust stains (fairly easy to clean off, but you will get them).
* The included chrome plated wire rack rusted pretty badly after just a few uses (replaced with a silicone steaming insert).
* Some sort of machine oil coated all the stainless steel parts. Even after washing everything in hot water and soap, the first couple of times we ran the steamer, some sort of black, oily stuff dripped into the pans. I recommend running the steamer without anything in it a few times until this no longer happens.
* No advanced timer functions. While the simple mechanical dial works great, it would be nice to be able to have the steamer start in some hours as opposed to immediately.
* Takes up lots of storage space. WYSIWYG the layers don't collapse in some clever way for storage.
* Seems expensive for what it is. It's the most expensive electric steamer on Amazon by far. For the cost, it feels like they could have used better stainless steel.
Having said all that, it's pretty much the only electric steamer that's guaranteed to not have any BPA / chemical leaching issues. So until other stainless steel or glass electric steamers become available, this is pretty much the only game in town if the plastics issue is important to you. I'm happy with the steamer overall. It does what it's supposed to. But hopefully, eventually there'll be more plastic free steamers with higher quality components and advanced timing features.
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This was a gift from my husband as I had asked for one.It looks real nice, although the steel/platic bottom combination confuses me.
Things I like about the product:
Basket bottoms are solid, so little food like corn does not drop through like other 'vented' baskets.
You can marinade items and keep the juice in the basket.
The baskets are seperate from the steam rings, they just slot in. Makes for cleaning the baskets rather easy. This also means you can remove a basket but stack the vent rings to accommidate something larger.
The steam vents are located at the top of each ring level, so if you want to cook fish, the steam travels through the vents on the outside, not through the food keeping flavours apart.
The baskets are large, which is great for our 4 person family. You can make an entire dinner from it with decent servings for all.
It has a super large water resevoir approx 6 cups or more. So anything that requires super long steaming does not require a refill.
Things I do not like about the product:
It leaks steam at each level, which can burn if you are not paying attention and want to peek inside to check food.
There is no visiable water level viewing which means taking off all of the levels if you do need to add more water durning cooking.
There is a base plate that sits between the white base and the first level that catches the excess water, this is very shallow with a lip approx 1/4" high and requires being by the sink to take off.
The base does not have a water resevoir insert so draining the excess water from that requires dangling the white unit over the sink to empty, which also means you can only clean out the base with a cloth or sponge wipe.
It came with two inserts in the base, does not state what the purpose of these inserts are in the instructions. One is stainless and the other plastic, they kinda seat over the heating filliment, I assume as a protector. I am clueless on this one.
The baskets do not sit (nest) inside of each other so you need storage space approx the size of the unit to store this. I had to designate a cupboard just for this item.
All in all.. I have to give this a 50/50. The size and holeless baskets are nice, but the impractical cleaning and storage turn me off this.
Not the best review as I am on the fence with this product. However I hope some of the information helps in you making an ultimate decision either way.
Honest reviews on Secura 3-Tier Stainless Steel Food Steamer, w/ Steam360 technology
The best thing I love about this food steamer is ... needless to say, Stainless Steel. The steam baskets are all made of stainless steel, the housing is stainless steel and the water tank is stainless steel!! My previous food steamer, while still functioning, are all plastic, even the water reservoir. Well, I am pretty sure they are safe to use and the manufacturers probably claim the contamination level is well below limit. But have they considered how many other different sources we are in contact with plastics and other contamination. When come in food, it is better to be safe than sorry, and stainless steel is proven to be safe. This is why we bought this stainless steel food steamer. We love steamed vegi, but not comfortable to use our old plastic steamer.This new stainless steel steamer have not let us down. It is actually more powerful and steams faster. Filling with warm tap water, it steams within 20 secs, pretty amazing. Cold tap water takes a bit longer to boil.
And I love the design too. Apparently the structure is more complicated than ordinary steamer, with more parts. But only the steam basket needs washing after cooking, which is very easy to clean by hand washing. My old steamer baskets have many small holes at the bottom and you know it is a pain to clean all those tiny holes.
My experience with this food steamer is very positive. I will recommend this product.
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This steamer is more than what I could have asked for. On top of that I had to contact customer service just to make sure that it was steaming in proper timing and they responded within the same day and offered to ship out a new one if something was wrong. I kept the original one I had because nothing was wrong after all. Its great to be able to cook three different items at once and with only prep needed. Once done just set the time and wait for it to be done. Brown rice takes about 60-65 minutes; 1 cup of rice and 2 cups of water. Vegetables take about 20-25 minutes (brocolli, carrots, potatoes, corn, sweet potatoes and sugar snap peas). It start steaming right away and the tree independent bowls are really great for not mixing flavors. Overall I would recommend and I am pleased with this purchase.
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