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Oster 18 quart electric roaster

15 years ago

I don't know how Oster compares to Nesco but with Turkey Day looming I thought I would mention a sale that looked like a pretty good deal to me. Target has an 18 quart Oster on sale for $27.00. Not a bad price for getting an electric roaster and freeing up the regular oven for other things. What do ya think? Good deal....or not?

Duane

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Comments (19)

Teresa_MN
15 years ago
I just looked at my Target ad from the Sunday paper. That is a good deal. I'm sure it is a price leader that they are selling below cost.
cynic
15 years ago
$25-$30 is pretty common pricing for the discount store brands. Last year they had the Rival (or was it Oster?) for $17 on clearance. I debated for hours then figured I just didn't need one that big.

I don't remember the brand my mother had but it was a great roaster, 1950s vintage, and it was not a Nesco. Nesco is well built but that doesn't mean others are no good. If you have a use for it, hey, the price is certainly right and if it doesn't work, you're not out much and who knows, many people have more than one roaster oven. Keep us posted if you get it and how you like it. I'm sure it'd be fine.
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I love mine too, I have the 18 quart and the 6 quart, and I do everything in mine that I do in the oven, even Boston Brown Bread and I've baked brownies in mine when my oven was on the fritz. I roast the bones and vegetables for stock right in the roaster and then add the water and seasonings and let it go, everything done in one pot. I've posted pictures of roast chicken on WFD and the skin was as brown and crispy as I get in the oven. And mine has vents, but you can close them. However, as cynic mentioned, it may be more efficient to do the browning on the stovetop. Not necessary, but perhaps quicker. And, as cynic has suggested before, the small ones make great crockpots, my 6 quart even has a temperature setting for "slow cooking". I use the big one several times per year and I'll roast the prime rib in it tomorrow. The small one gets used at least a couple of times a week, and Elery liked it so much he bought one for his house. Far more efficient than turning on the oven for roasting one small chicken for myself, or baking a small amount of beans all day. I also do huge batches of apple butter and tomato sauce in mine for canning, just leave the lid ajar so that it cooks down, and because they heat up the sides too, you don't have the scorching issue or the spattering that I have on top of the stove. Enjoy it, Alexa, I love mine. Annie
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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.
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Browning is a little different in an electric roaster than a conventional oven. You need to understand the cooking process to understand what happens. In a conventional oven it's more open and moisture evaporates. Cooking in an electric roaster is more like cooking in a covered roasting pan in the oven. As mentioned about the oven heating up the kitchen, that's because ovens leak more air than people realize so it vents more moisture out. You will definitely have trouble browning in a roaster oven, covered roasting pan, slow cooker, dutch oven, etc unless you take different steps. What you're doing is more of a braise than a roast. To really "roast" you'll need more dry air and the bird (or whatever) will need to be a bit more dry. This is why you brown your pot roast, ribs etc before braising. Remember the tip for conventional ovens to get a good browning - pat that bird dry. So, there's essentially 3 or 4 ways to go about it, maybe more. 1) The easiest way (if you have a Nesco, don't know if other brands have the option) is to get the "Roast Air" kit. Essentially it's a lid with a fan on it and converts the unit to a convection oven. I have it for my 6 quart. You'll brown like any oven with that baby blowing that hot air around! I usually don't run it the whole time though. I hook it up toward the end. I also pull the juices out of there, especially if I want them for gravy or something. 2) Second option as mentioned is to use your oven or broiler to crisp/brown it up. 3) Virginia Olson from Nesco used to be on QVC often and she suggested using Kitchen Bouquet to baste it if color was what you were looking for. Again, I suspect she would pull liquids from the roaster because her turkey sure looked fairly crisp too. 4) Another thing I occasionally do is pull the juices, paper towel the bird dry and then cock the lid and crank up the heat on the roaster. That will brown it up too.
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Comments (10)
You've been won over to the wonder of electric roasters. Now you see why I threw away my slow cookers! I've made yeast breads, sweet breads, biscuits, rolls, meatloaves, burgers, pot roasts, baked potatoes, soups, stews, chilis, casseroles and much much more in my 4 qt and 6 qt Nescos. I use it to cook up ground meat (sometimes adding onion) to freeze. This saves mess when I need ground meat for a casserole, soup, chili, etc. I recently did about 18 pounds (in 3 batches) using my 6 quart unit. It's so nice, you don't have to constantly attend it like a frypan or stock pot. A few stirs and it's cooked up, drain it, bag it, freeze it and one ease pot to clean. I don't know of anything you can't bake in an electric roaster that you can bake in a conventional oven. And you can do a number of things in an electric roaster that you cannot do in a conventional oven. Because mine are smaller ones I've never tried a pie in there before although it would probably work fine. In the big one you have, pies would work well too, as would cakes, even cookies and bars. BTW, that cauliflower looks GREAT! I believe the Oster is similar to the Nesco in that the heating element is not in the bottom like a slow cooker, rather in the sides. You still will want to use the rack for a lot of things, not for fear of burning the bottom but for better air circulation. As for your romertopf , don't take this as gospel, but I'm guessing that as long as you don't have it ice cold you should be fine. If you're concerned, you could bring up the temperature of the roaster more slowly to condition and heat it. But I'm not sure you really need it. The electric roaster will probably do pretty much the same thing. I don't know what size you have so that could make a difference and you might want to have the romertopf in there while cooking something else along side of it, I don't know what you want to do so I can only speculate. Enjoy that roaster oven. I know you will love it more every time you use it. There's slight differences in using a roaster oven and you'll learn as you go. For one thing there's more moisture in a roaster oven than a conventional oven. This can impact things like browning birds and the like, but that's easy to work around, at least for me. One tip, you can do multi-level cooking if you have the rack like the one that comes with the Nescos. If you don't have one like it (the 2 tiered rack) you can still make your own or rig something. Using my mothers roaster I used Corningware covered dishes and the big glass raised knob worked fine to set another one on and it cooked fine. You need space between them for air circulation. So many times when I see these large roasters for $15-$25 I've thought about getting one, but just can't justify it. I don't cook for large groups anymore but it's such a bargain. Then I can't help but laugh seeing people buying slow cookers for $100 or more! They just don't know what they're missing! Happy cooking.
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terrychott_charter_net
15 years ago
It is now near Christmas and I need a roaster. My oven went out. HELP Anything near the price of 30 dollars on sale????
cj47
15 years ago
Depends on where you live and what kinds of stores you have near you....

I made my hams and turkeys for years in an 18 qt Nesco, since my oven was awful. I bought it at Sam's Club for about $35, but that was years ago. Being so close to Christmas and really, really needing it, you may be out of luck and have to actually pay more than the sale price for it, but I do hope you can get lucky! Check your local Craigslist--you might hit the jackpot there if the stars are aligned just right.

Good luck to you,
Cj
cynic
15 years ago
Did you find one? Check the clearance racks now if you haven't. Check places like Menards, Home Depot, Target, Kmart, Walmart, etc. I've seen them advertised a lot. I saw quite a few on Craigslist but most of those were above new price. They're wonderful appliances.
annie1992
15 years ago
Amanda's is a Rival, I think, and it's several years old and works fine. My Nesco has been perking along for several years, and I want the small one now, but Amanda's Rival works just as well, I think.

I've baked brownies in mine, done Thanksgiving turkeys, Christmas hams, simmered batches of broth and apple butter, it's a great device and when it's hot in the kitchen and you have no air conditioning like my old house, you can stick it outside on the deck and cook on the porch. Oh, and you can also put it outside on the deck when you're roasting lamb at Easter and the smell is so horrible you don't want it inside, LOL. I use mine for baked beans and sloppy joes and scalloped potatoes for family parties too, and it'll keep pans of lasagna warm if you just put the rack in the bottom and set the pans on the rack. it works great if you need the oven for something else and still need to keep other things warm that have already been cooked or baked.

Merry Christmas, Terry, I hope you got your roaster, it can be used for a lot of things.

Annie
Iris ( ranegrow ) z7 Maryland
15 years ago
Hi Annie, I got an 18 qt NESCO for Christmas and we are actually cooking our Christmas dinner today and I have a quick question if you don't mind me asking , how long did you roast your turkeys in your NESCO ? ... the instruction booklet says 13 - 18 minutes per lb ? We have a 21 lb turkey here , I figured after 3 1/2 hours I would check the turkey with the meat thermometer and see where it stands ... I did research on google and found several posts about how great the NESCO is but also read a few comments that it can be easy to overcook ??? Thanks for any advice .

Iris
annie1992
15 years ago
Iris, I haven't had any problems with overcooking because if my turkey is getting done too quickly, I just turn down the heat.

I do turkey in the Nesco for the same amount of time I do turkey in the oven, so I'd do that 21 pounder for 4-5 hours, I figure about 15 minutes per pound but I start checking for about an hour before I figure it's done to make sure it's not cooking too fast. That's at 350F for an unstuffed bird. I check with a meat thermometer, those pop up things they give you in the turkeys aren't so reliable. It's easy to overcook in a Nesco because the skin doesn't brown as crisply as it does in an oven and so people figure it isn't done, I think.

I've never had a overdone or dried out turkey in the Nesco, though, as long as I'm careful to check the temps.

Annie
Iris ( ranegrow ) z7 Maryland
15 years ago
Thanks Annie ! I love my new NESCO roaster, had wanted one for many years ... the turkey turned out so moist and full of flavor ... approx 4.5 hrs later, thank God for meat thermometers ! The skin wasn't as brown and crispy as an oven roasted turkey but the moistness and flavor more than made up for it ... I might try some of that Kitchen Bouquet next time ... I've never used it though . Thanks again for your help . I am looking forward to making beef and pork roasts in it as well as other things .

Iris
cynic
15 years ago
I always use a thermometer probe with the alarm and set it for 150ÃÂ°. Once it hits 150ÃÂ° I turn the temp way down and start getting ready because residual heat will continue to cook. I call a turkey breast done at 160ÃÂ°. The unit keeps so much moisture it's a moist heat, rather than a dry heat, which they claim will prevent cheesecake cracking but I don't eat cheesecake so I don't know about that. To brown the skin more you have to keep the skin dry. Dry it well when you put it in there, pull out juices as you're cooking, pat it with a towel or paper towels a you go, and Kitchen Bouquet, soy sauce or the like are tricks to brown it but I don't eat the skin anymore so I don't really care. I do occasionally put the RoastAir fan on and THAT will crisp it up!

I used to cook the turkey breast to 180ÃÂ° per some recommendations and it was fine in my Nesco. Not dried out like in an oven. But there's no need to cook it that much but it doesn't matter if it goes a little over. Use a thermometer and turn it down to 150ÃÂ° and it'll stay hot and moist.

Don't limit your use to just turkey or ham. Soups, stews, meatloaf, pot roast, chicken, ribs, casseroles, sausage, and virtually anything you'd put in a regular oven, since that's what it is! :) Great for baking potatoes, au-gratin, roasting cauliflower, steaming veggies and the like too. I've baked bread in mine and some of the best lasagna I've ever made came out of that Nesco.
annie1992
15 years ago
Iris, I'm glad your turkey came out so well, I always get a nice juicy turkey in that roaster!

Like Cynic, I use it for a lot of things, it's a great appliance and my "second oven".

Annie
memas
14 years ago
Thanks for all of the follow-ups. I did see the sale in the Target flyer and thought it was a good deal. Then I started researching "roasters" and wondered if there were major differences in brands. I'm going to give the Oster a try, especially sine the "price is right"!
caboodle
14 years ago
I really like my Nesco roaster, too. I think I'm going to cook our turkey from frozen state in it this year following the directions in the link below. The hard part about a turkey for me is the thawing process.

Another thing I like I like that I added to the roaster is the triple buffet pan inserts. It makes family gatherings much easier. This summer we had a large gathering and had brats and hotdogs (along with fried fish we'd caught) and I used the inserts to hold grilled onions, sauerkraut, and chili for topping the meats.

Judi

Here is a link that might be useful: How to cook a frozen turkey
gardengrl
14 years ago
You all have convinced me and I broke down and bought the 18 qt Red Nesco that was posted a few topics ago.

Annie, does the roaster cook the bird similarly to an oven bag? Does it actually steam the bird versus roasting like in an oven? I usually use an oven bag for my birds, as I think they actually do turn out better and we don't eat the skin anyway.
annie1992
14 years ago
Kathy, the roaster does make a moist bird, similar to a cooking bag, but the skin is crisper than a cooking bag.

And, for those interested, I saw that Menard's has the Nesco for $38.99 and Meijer has a 16 quart Oster for $24.99.

Annie
gardengrl
14 years ago
Awesome, thanks Annie! I have a 23 lb. bird chillin' in the freezer...I hope it fits! :-)
annie1992
14 years ago
It'll fit, Kathy, shove it in there. (grin) Happy Thanksgiving.

Annie
foodonastump
14 years ago
I just noticed this thread is a year old! Duane, where are you? And Judi, I don't think I've seen you in a while; nice to see you back! In case you've missed it the couple times I posted it, I LOVE the Spanish rice recipe that's attributed to you. Thanks!

Ok, sorry folks...back to roasters...
caboodle
14 years ago
FOAS, I do post occasionally; I don't know why I don't post more, because I read the forum several times a week.

I did miss your posts: glad you like the rice. I worked with it for a bit before coming up with a recipe we felt fit the bill. Thank you,

Judi

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