How do I keep the rice cooker from boiling over?

Question

I am having epic rice-cooker failure here.

I measure out the amount of rice suggested by the little cup thingy. I rinse it with a bowl and a strainer until the water is clear while rinsing. Then I put the rice in and fill it to the appropriate line in my Rice Cooker with fresh water. After cooking for a little while, it immediately begins to boil over and nasty bubbles start popping out of the little hole in the top, dumping yucky, sticky water all over the place.

The Rice, when all is said and done, is alright but it's a hell of a mess! What am I doing wrong?

Answer 1

I've heard that adding a little olive oil (any kind) can help with bubbling over.

Otherwise if you don't get any answers, consider that your rice cooker might be broken. If you get that far, try to borrow someone else's and repeat your method.

Answer 2

How to keep a rice cooker from boiling over

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NsRmzEy8Kdk

or

keep a wet paper towel over the vent

or

place a wooden stick or string of rope across the container

Answer 3

Put a little bit of butter in before cooking. The fat on the top will prevent the bubbles from surviving for too long and therefore not allow it to boil over. The olive oil should work as well, but I don't know if that has the required amount of fat needed.

Answer 4

I just talked to a pro rice cooker person, he says forget about the instructions, prep the rice as usual, put it in the rice cooker, then add just enough water to cover the rice, turn on the rice cooker, and voila, perfect, fluffy rice every time!

Answer 5

This happens to me, too...in fact that is exactly why I am here, because I was googling for a solution! I will try a more through rinsing of the rice and the butter thing next time. BUT I think the real answer is the quality of the rice itself. When I used a higher quality rice (when I first got my rice cooker) I didn't have this problem, of late I have not bought the better rice and I have a mess on my hands. So maybe the more aggressive rinsing will help.

Answer 6

You mention you're using the recommended amount of water according to the rice cooker... have you checked, or tried, the amount of recommended water according to the rice?

Varieties or preparations of rice use different amounts of water, sometimes varying by quite a bit - I've seen them from just under one-cup-per-cup-rice, to three-cups-per-cup-rice. Your rice cooker can't change the lines to suit the rice, and may be making assumptions that don't fit the rice you're using.

Personally, we made rice a lot growing up, and I never noticed the amount of rice we made, or the amount of rice and water we started with, actually fit the rice cooker's lines.

Beyond that, you should probably try reducing water, even if your rice recommended amount of water is fairly close to the rice cooker's. You clearly have too much of it for your rice - the amount of water making your rice come out right plus the amount that gets dumped out the vent. And rice is a biological rather than processed product, like flour or tea or vegetables, where different weather, different years, and other minutely different factors in growth, production, and usage means that one batch of even the same variety of rice may end up being different from another batch - so you may need to tweak recommendations to fit what's actually going on.

Answer 7

maybe just try reducing the water by a little amount at a time, each time you make it, until it works out right? seems odd to me that even though you are rinsing & measuring your rice, and adding the recommended water, that this would be happening. my rice cooker is foolproof when i follow the directions like that!

Answer 8

My rice cooker never boiled over using converted rice, but we have a bunch of regular long grain rice that was given to us and every batch boils over. I always follow the ratios on the back of the rice, but I’ve just read the instructions on the back of long grain enriched rice and it calls for half again as much water! Problem solved!!

Answer 9

When simmering/steaming rice of any type the rice/water ratio is always 1:1 plus more water for evaporation loss

Your evaporation loss can generally only be determined by trial and error

The evaporation loss amount is fixed for the type of rice, cooking vessel/machine, and temperature used

If you cook 1 cup of rice with 1.5 cups of water, then you can cook 2 cups of the same rice and same method with 2.5 cups of water. This is 1 cup of water per cup of rice, plus 0.5 cups for evaporation loss). If you use 3 cups of water you will have left over water, and in a machine probably overflow

Many packets of rice actually say this, they just don't spell it out why, so many people think it's a miss-print and just multiply the rice/water ratio for 1 cup of rice

Answer 10

It has been an ordeal to us for a very long time. You can blame the manufacturers because its really a problem. We have used 2 brands and still have this problem. Just put wooden stick on the lid and place the cover, when the cooking is done, remove the stick and return the cover.