So your rice cooker has been suspiciously silent and has not notified you of the end of a cycle. Is your rice cooker still cooking? Or has it finished? Everyone knows you shouldn’t open any appliances which use steam halfway through a cycle! The eternal dilemma. There would be a couple of clues if you missed a notification from your rice cooker. Or maybe the beep has stopped working!
Rice cookers usually beep to notify users when a cook cycle has been completed. Displays will show OH or OK, and rice cookers will stop making a steam sound. Most rice cookers have a keep warm function that will “click” on and off while keeping your rice at a constant temperature.
If your rice cooker has stopped beeping, as annoying as it is – We should then assess if your rice cooker has stopped working or is malfunctioning or – if it’s as simple as a problem with the notifications. Also known as the beeping. We can troubleshoot – in the following order to get a better understanding of where the problem lies.
Before we run through the steps, we will run through on the assumption you have done the above, ran a complete rice cycle then, unplugged the appliance, and waited a sufficient amount of time before opening the rice cooker up.
The easiest of the steps and the most insightful. Has your rice cooker produced some cooked rice, If it has, we can move on to the next step
If your rice cooker has stopped cooking rice:
This indicates a malfunction in the actual unit rather than a problem with the beeping and notifications. If your rice cooker has stopped cooking altogether, skip to the next step to perform a reset of the unit. The chances are that resetting the unit won’t help, as rice not cooking indicates a hardware issue. However, there is still a slim chance it will help.
If resetting doesn’t help.
I will be frank with you at this point. Your rice cooker is almost certainly dead. As a last resort, I would check the manufacturer’s website for your inits manual and try their troubleshooting guide. Some units do have specific faults and easy fixes.
If this doesn’t work, then…
Time for a new rice cooker.
Rice cooker repairs can be costly and usually will cost far more than a new rice cooker. Not to mention the time you will waste running an old broken rice cooker across town. Thankfully prices of rice cookers are forever dropping, and Walmart now sells an excellent rice cooker for $30. (you can find it HERE). Suck it up, say goodbye, and welcome your new rice cooker home!
Yes, a wild thought, I know. Due to the many components, and computer boards, rice cookers can malfunction from time to time, leading to things not working in tandem. (Sometimes your rice cooker won’t stop beeping, other times, they cook for a little too long – you get the idea).
Most of the time, a short reset on the unit will be enough to get everything synchronized again and working to order! I will take you through a hard reset, the “regular” way – then the alternative method.
How to hard reset a rice cooker.
Most rice cookers use a universal method. No matter which rice cooker you have, you should try the following first.
How To Hard Reset A Rice Cooker
Usually (but not always), when a rice cooker registers a reset, it should make a sound or show a message on display.
You should now run a quick cook cycle with just water to give the rice cooker a quick trial and see if your issues have been resolved.
If your rice cooker still has issues
Check the manual. Although most rice cookers use the cancel method to hard reset, some models may have a different method to achieve a reset. If you don’t have the manual (let’s face it, who keeps old manuals!) Check your manufacturer’s website – The model of your rice cooker should be on the bottom of the unit.
Don’t give up the ghost quite yet. Some other fixes may help – If some of these still seem “obvious,” try them anyhow, but you have missed something, and it really can’t hurt.
Check if any buttons are stuck.
Some rice cookers are programmed to beep every time a button is pressed. A stuck button will override the beep function, as the rice cooker thinks it is beeping.
Give the control panel a firm wipe down with warm soapy water, paying particular attention to any “buttons.”
Make sure the vents are clear.
Older rice cookers often had a tiny speaker grill on or underneath the rice cooker. These often look like vents and could easily be mistaken for one. Check all around your rice cooker, and make sure all grills and or vents are clear.
If you find any blockages, clean them with a q-tip and some warm soapy water.
Give your rice cooker a GENTLE shake.
Now I don’t want you to start thrusting your rice cooker in the air. Just shake it and hear if there are any loose parts. There is a slight chance the speaker or other components have come loose in your rice cooker. Better the devil, you know!
It is not much you can do if your speaker has detached itself, short of opening the rice cooker up (which I would NOT recommend doing).
After running through this small troubleshooting guide, you should hopefully have been able to fix the beeping issue. However, if you have been unable to fix the issue, there are two outcomes:
If your rice cooker is no longer beeping or cooking rice – Get a new rice cooker
If your rice cooker is cooking rice but stopped beeping – Not an issue. Manually time the rice cookers cycle
Most rice cookers take 20-30 minutes to run an entire cycle. Ensure you aren’t opening your rice cooker before the cook cycle has finished, as opening a working unit can be dangerous.
Set your manual timer to 40 minutes.
That’s it. Rice cookers don’t necessarily need to beep and notify you. There are ways around working rice cookers without beeps!
