Hearing a rice cooker make strange noises can be equally intriguing and worrying. If you are like me, when hearing my appliances making strange noises – you will have stopped everything to stare at said appliance for some time.
If a rice cooker is making popping noises, you should first unplug the appliance immediately. Most popping and sizzling noises are caused by moisture around the bowl and heating element. Wait for the appliance to cool – remove the bowl, dry the inside of the unit and remove any moisture from the outside of the bowl.
This should hopefully remedy the problem. To check the unit. Remove anything from the bowl inside – add two cups of cold water, being careful not to spill any inside the unit. Make sure the outside of the bowl and the inside of the unit are bone dry and run a cook cycle to check if the popping noises have stopped.
Unplug the rice cooker, and do not use it.
If your rice cooker is still making popping noises, cease using the appliance.
Leave your rice cooker to dry out.
You should turn the unit upside down, open the lid, and leave the unit to dry somewhere warm for 24 hours.
There is a chance moisture has made its way to the underside of the heating element, which is also where the electrics live, as we all know. You shouldn’t mix water and electricity!
Power on without the bowl
Be very careful. Leave the lid open, and press the cycle button without the rice bowl. You should be very careful as the heating element will be exposed – and very hot. Don’t attempt to touch the element or poke anything in. Listen for any other popping noises. If the unit isn’t popping any longer, turn the power off, wait for the heating element to cool, and run a cycle with the bowl and rice in.
If the unit had stopped popping, it was probably the above – water had made its way to the bottom side of the heating element.
If the unit is still making popping noises
Consider replacing the unit.
After many years of experience with kitchen kits in industrial kitchens – Most of the time, it will cost more to get a repair done than to buy a new unit. As annoying as it is, parts are often not mass-produced, and often you will have to ship units off for repair.
There’s also the trail of thought that if the unit is old and/or faulty, replacing one part is often online, increasing the appliance’s life span marginally. From experience, once one thing starts to go wrong, the snowball effect will kick in.
With rice cookers now being affordable, it’s almost a sure bet a new rice cooker will be less expensive than a repair. Walmart has a pressure rice cooker (and steamer) for $29.92.
Even for the seasoned rice cooker user, it can be incredibly difficult to avoid water creeping into your rice cooker. However, there are a couple of sure-fire things you can do to at least minimize the risk of water getting somewhere it shouldn’t
Dry the bowl before you put it in
It sounds obvious, but running a dry cloth or paper towel around the outside of the bowl and the underneath can eliminate any pesky drips hanging on for dear life and, in turn, stop any scary hissing noises coming from the element.
Don’t overfill the bowl.
Rice cookers work on steam and pressure, but to get to that point, water needs to go over boiling point. By overfilling the bowl with either rice, water, or even both. You are gunning the risk of water splashing over the rim of the bowl when it gets to boiling point.
Run a complete cycle (not quick cook)
Some rice cookers have a quick cook function, which can sometimes skim about 10 minutes off the cooking time. However, with quicker cooking comes your unit, the boil and steam process all being sped up. When pushing the process faster, parts of the process can not QUITE work correctly and give you a heavy half steam, half boil with both yielding more water spilling over than you would like.
If your rice cooker is popping, you should dry the unit. Check the bowl is dry. Open the lid to the rice cooker, turn it upside down and set it somewhere warm to dry for 24 hours.
This eliminates any chance of moisture being around the heating element.
If your rice cooker still makes popping noises, you should discard the unit and consider buying a new unit. Rice cookers are uneconomical to repair and should be recycled when you can.
