My initial impressions with the Ninja pressure cooker/air frier

[Major Nikon]

The one I have is the Model # FD302 so everything I'm mentioning is limited to that model, but I think other models by this and other manufacturers will be similar in design and capability with the biggest differences being capacity.

Truth be told I didn't really want one of these do-everything devices and I only have one by virtue of my wife buying it for her own uses. The reason being I have other devices which give me the same capability of most of the features it has, albeit perhaps not as conveniently in some instances.

Right away the first thing I noticed about this machine is it has two lids which can't be used in conjunction with each other. Essentially it has a lid which is used for convection and another which completes the pressure vessel. The first of these can't be removed from the machine without serious disassembly. This is a bit of an annoyance, but give there's electrical connections between the lid and the machine, I can understand the reasoning. A removable lid would require some sort of electrical plug between the two and that introduces points of failure. Given that I'd still prefer a removable lid.

The next thing I noticed is the lack of manual control over the machine. For many functions you can't specify your own temperature. For instance it has a yogurt function, but you can't program your own temperatures and near as I can tell you can't even determine what those are. Since the pressure lid must be installed for the yogurt function (it knows when it's installed and denies the mode when it isn't) you can't even use your own temperature probe. I very much do not like this and probably won't use it for making yogurt, although it is kinda useful for those who don't want to mess around with your own methods. You simply turn it on and it will bring the batch to pasteurization temps and times and tell you when it's time to pitch your culture. So long as you follow the instructions it makes the operation pretty much foolproof.

As a pressure cooker the device works quite well and I find it quite useful. I made a batch of beans by pressure cooking a ham shank for an hour in a quart of water. During this time I rapid soaked a pound of pinto beans in boiling water for that hour and drained them prior to adding them to the pot. I then pressure cooked the beans for about 10 minutes. The results were as good as any other method I've used. The beans came out fully cooked, but still firm which is just the way I like them. The added feature is there's a hold warm function after the pressure cooking is done which makes the whole bean cooking operation into a set and forget.

Eventually I'm sure I'll play around with some of the other functionality. The convection or "air frying" operations don't interest me much, but I'll probably experiment with them at some point. I can see potential in things like a proofing oven for breads or even steam enhanced bread baking, but given the lack of manual control I'm not sure those things are even possible.

I think if I were in the market for one of these I'd look for a model that fits the capacity of whatever features I wanted and would have the maximum amount of manual control for truly advanced use of the device. I can see a lot of capability in one of these devices, but I'm not sure if there's any that give you enough control to fully realize it.

[onecaliberal]

1. I have the same one, we love it.

[Major Nikon]

2. Update: Making yogurt

So I decided to run a batch of yogurt off with the machine and the results came out pretty good.

The machine has the option to cook the milk first which automatically heats the milk to near boiling, allows it to cool, and prompts you to pitch your culture. Alternatively you can go right to ferment which you might want to do if you're using ultra-pasteurized milk.

In this case I used 1/2 gal of 2% vat pasteurized milk so I went with the first option. I wish I had timed the process, but I neglected to do so. When prompted, I pitched with a 150g container of Fage Total 2% and fermented for 6 hours. At the end of that process I'm guessing there was about a 1/3rd of a cup of whey I poured off before refrigeration and about another 1/3rd of a cup I pour off after refrigerating overnight. Most of the rest I strained for Greek yogurt, but I did try a serving prior to straining. The results were quite nice. The texture was perfect and the flavor was mild with little acidity. I prefer a more sour taste to my yogurt, but I suspect most would like it better closer to neutral.

All in all I'd have to say I'm pleased with the results and it's certainly not a bad way to go if you're looking for a nearly foolproof method for yogurt making at home. The down side is the lack of manual temperature control means you are limited in what you can do, but I don't think most would find this much of a disadvantage.

[hippywife]

3. If you want a more tart taste...

it needs to ferment longer. The longer it incubates, the more tang it takes on. I make a full fat plain Greek yogurt in my Crock Pot Express and the programmed setting is 8 hours, but is adjustable up or down to preference.

[Major Nikon]

4. There's a number of ways to alter tartness

You can change the incubation time as suggested, but you can also do other things like using different starter cultures, supplementing protein with things like milk powder, altering temperature, agitation, using different types of milk, and I’m sure various other things. All of these things also vary texture and other flavors of the finished product. It will take many more batches and more experiments to find the sweet spot I’m after should I wish to continue using the pot. For now my favorite method is my water circulator and I’m not sure if I’d even want to use the Ninja instead, but it is good to know it does work reasonably well.

[Major Nikon]

5. I did another yogurt making test

This time I timed the operation from start to introducing culture. It took about 15 minutes to go from "Boil" to "Cool" using 2L of milk straight out of the fridge. Naturally this is just the time to bring it up to temperature and not any holding time. Typically you'd want to hold at about 180F for around 20 minutes using conventional methods in order to sufficiently denature vat pasteurized milk, but leaving the lid on and allowing it to cool until it gets to the "Add" stage takes about 2.5 hours. This will allow plenty of time for the milk proteins to alter at the higher temp. After 20 minutes you could remove the lid and dramatically speed up the cool down time.

Both the strained and unstrained versions of my first batch came out well. The strained version was indistinguishable from Fage 2%, which isn't surprising since I used 2% milk and pitched with a small container of Fage. This was with a 6 hour ferment. Next I'll try an 8 hour ferment and pitch with my previous batch. I don't think I'll go more than 2-3 generations as each subsequent one as the possibility of fermenting foreign cultures becomes greater with each batch. I'll probably also try a few variations like adding additional milk protein and experimenting with some freeze dried cultures.