Had completed a brilliant post and was just going to hit preview and CLUNK! The computer overheated and shut down. Couldn't handle so much wisdom in one page presumably. OK, chill baby, I'll use another one. Ever more pearls of wisdom were being typed and part way through that up pops the BSOD. Now I'm beginning to suspect a conspiracy... OK, give it one more try. Now I know I won't remember all those great things. (heavy sigh) We're talking about a cooking appliance here and it'll do different things depending on what you instruct it to do. It'll only follow orders. We're not at the stage of the Jetsons and Star Trek with their Food-o-Matics! :) The skin CAN get crispy, but it's not going to happen by default. My point was, well, one of them, was that the basic concept in cooking something brown and crisp, short of deep frying, is to apply dry heat to it. Moist heat won't do it, rather, it'll have the opposite effect. Remember one of the basic tips for a crisp skin on the T-day bird is to pat that chickadee dry before placing it in the oven. A watched pot may still boil, but a wet bird won't brown and crisp. At least not for a long, long, long time. The laws of thermodynamics always trump Maillard in a cooking process. You don't make peanut brittle by pouring the ingredients into boiling water. Dry heat vs moist heat. So what do you do? Well, either adapt and/or accept, or change cooking methods to work with the tool provided. There's a couple ways you can accomplish this. First you can go the easy route and get the Roast-Air lid. Very handy and I highly recommend it. It's a high domed lid with a fan unit on it to convert the unit to a convection oven. I don't know for sure but rumor has it that it's not available from Nesco anymore for the 6 qt unit so you'll need to seek other sources. I bought the kit from QVC and it had the high domed lid (with a nice big handle rather than a wimpy knob), the fan unit and also a "2-way" rack. I use the rack often and also use the lid without the fan at times. I don't remember whether the extra cookwell was separate (probably was) but it's been handy. I like the non-stick one. If I want to crisp something up a bit, I'll cook it most of the way and then put the fan on for a while. That baby will dry it out quickly and crank the heat with it will brown it up without significant damage to the moistness of the bird. Another much less desireable option is to put it in a convection oven or even the regular oven for a while to crisp it. You can also just keep removing the juices and occasionally pat the bird dry. I would occasionally cock the lid a bit to let a little more steam escape when I had one of those fuel-injected birds they pawn off these days. Keep in mind if you have too much moisture in there, it's not dry roasting, it's going to steam and/or braise the item. That's not the fault of the appliance, it's simply not using it right. The lid has vent holes it it purposely to vent out some of the excess moisture but they can't know the amount of fluid in everything. Some will have more, some will have less so that's where the cook's talents have to come into play. There's been a time or two I wanted NO moisture to leave the cookwell so I just put a layer of heavy duty foil over the top of the cookwell and then the lid on top of it. I always thought an adjustable vent would have been better but they argue that it's the right amount for most things. Oh well, can always plug a hole or two. And no, it's not an air tight seal but it's surprisingly tight when you look at the design. Pull that top off and a LOT of steam comes out! I imagine something can boil dry if you leave the heat too high and for too long. I've never had a problem with it that I can recall. Actually, I have more concerns about excess moisture than drying out with the cooking I do. I should have mentioned you could have just covered it with foil, or for that matter even left it open while it burned off. The purpose is to burn off the coating on the electronics and to season the cookwell which would happen without a lid on it. Sorry about that, didn't even cross my mind. Was concentrating on mentioning the burn-in. My lid has discolored over the years, but I attributed it more to improper washing than a heat effect!

cynic, as an aside to the roaster discussion, I use a big green unbreakable Stanley Thermos. It's not pretty, but I got mine because all th farmers and construction workers I know used them. Mine will keep a pot of hot chocolate steaming hot for several hours while the kids go tobogganing, so we're talking outside in a Michigan winter and usually stuck right into the snow. I used them a lot for camping, I could make coffee at breakfast, put it into the Stanley and it would still be drinkable at supper. Oh, and I've put ice water in it or iced tea when spending a few hours out in the hay field and it keeps ice in the liquid for a couple of hours too. I can definitely recommend them, although my oldest one is over 20 years old, so I'm hoping they haven't "improved" them. Annie

Again, if you want dark brown, crispy skin you don't want to use a covered roaster, electric or non-electric. If you put a bird in a covered roaster in the oven it'll not be that mahogany color that some insist on. You need *dry* air to crisp the skin. Roasters keep the moisture in and it partly steams the food. I have the Roast-Air lid for my 6 qt and use it occasionally but I don't eat the skin anymore so I don't bother. I usually only used the lid the last 15-20 minutes, crank the heat up a bit too after I had removed all the juices. (Got to get rid of moisture to get dry, browning heat) You'll also have a lot more juice left in a roaster since it doesn't evaporate like in a dry oven. I've also cocked the lid to let the excess moisture out and cranked the heat up when I wanted it more crisp. Although even then I often microwaved the skin and ate it as a snack. I don't know what they do to the birds these days but I don't like the skin anymore. Even when it's dried out and crisper, I don't like the taste of it. Dry air is also going to give a bigger danger of dry meat. The appliance is a tool. The cook makes it good or bad. You can't always blame the tools when the carpenter is incompetent. FWIW I've never seen an electric roaster that didn't have a removable cookwell. Oh and removing the lid often loses a lot of heat and moisture. I highly recommend a probe thermometer that you can read outside of the oven or roaster. Yes the outside gets very hot. I've never burned myself but I've used some not-so-nice language when I've touched it. I've thought about wrapping it similar to a water heater blanket. Thought it might save some energy too. Target has an 18 qt Oster oven for $29, Menards has the 18 qt Nesco for $38.88 and Target has a Sunbeam 16 qt for $26. I imagine Target will put them on clearance before long too so if you want to wait you can pick up a bargain. Last year they had one on clearance for $17 (not a Nesco though). AFAIK, Nesco has never made a 16 qt unit. Nesco's have come in 4, 5, 6, 12 and 18 qt. If you measured water, it could be they consider the domed lid as part of the capacity, I'm not sure. Virginia Olson of Nesco always used to say that the 18 qt would handle up to a 20# bird, however, I read all the time about people doing 22# birds in the 18 qt. That sounds like about the max but many say if you can stuff it in there, it'll cook! And I'm sure it would. If anything you might have a crisper skin.

OK, I misread that, I thought you meant put the stock pot in the roaster and bring it to a simmer, LOL. I couldn't wrap my head around that at all. If you put the lid on the roaster and just open the vent, I still think it's fine, it simmers a batch of broth nicely and I've made apple butter in it but that needs the lid off for the last couple of hours to "cook down". Annie