# Rice cooker hot hold temperature



## John Delahaye (Jun 16, 2018)

Hi there,

I’ve bought two different commercial rice cookers recently under the illusion that they would cook and then hold my rice at a legal temperature for serving. 
It turns out that the keep warm feature only provides enough heat to keep the rice falling below 63°C for a few hours. I’m not sure why a commercial rice cooker wouldn’t provide a comparable heat source to a Bain Marie. Does anyone have any ideas? I don’t want to transfer 20 litres of rice to a Bain Marie as I simply dont have the space in my little catering van.


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## foodpump (Oct 10, 2005)

Best thing for holding rice are the Cambro hot boxes. You can keep rice, pasta, mashed pots hot for well over 3 hours in those sweat boxes with no damage whatsoever. I know this because I did just that for well over 10 years. 

A steam table will dry out and crust up the rice in Under an hour--regardless of how many layers of silicone paper, towels, or doubled up inserts you use.

The commercial rice cookers--20 cups and up, keep the rice good and hot for a few hours, but you will get a scorched "rice cake" on the bottom of the pan, but other than that no damage.

Hope this helps....


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## Pat Pat (Sep 26, 2017)

And household rice cookers hold the rice @ 75°C. Way too hot...


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## jasimo (Jun 23, 2018)

you can hold the rice at 68c for 4 hours only, then you will need to chill it down after very quickly to be able to reuse it.then oly once, reheat to 72 c for 12 mins.


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## John Delahaye (Jun 16, 2018)

I found the solution in the end. Maestrowave. The only commercial rice cooker that actually holds at the right temperature.


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## halb (May 25, 2015)

foodpump said:


> you will get a scorched "rice cake" on the bottom of the pan


Actually that scorched rice is sought after by some people.


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## someday (Aug 15, 2003)

How long do you need or expect to be able to hold rice hot for service? More than a "few" hours? Isn't that unreasonable?

Your best bet might just be batch cooking...doing 1 batch at the start of service and another partway through. If your service lasts long enough that you need to hold rice hot for longer than a "few" hours you should be cooking another batch anyways to maintain quality.

EDIT: Whoops, didn't see this was from a few years ago. Glad you found something that worked.


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