I am going to be cooking a pork butt soon in my crockpot I guess. Have not cooked one in a long time. What method do you all use?
Another thing I am curious about is does anyone know if there is a slow cooker out there that offers a fast heat up cycle then can be reset to a high or low temp after an initial fast heat up? For instance, I started a pasta sauce in my slow cooker kind of late in the day and you know how long it takes to get the temperature up so it is bubbling. I was wondering if any slow cooker had a program where you could get the contents heated up quickly then it switches to a low temp for the rest of the duration. Maybe I need to invent one!
I have a spendypants Instant Precision Dutch Oven. Yes, it's made by the Instant Pot people, but it isn't an Instant pot. It's an enameled cast iron dutch oven slow cooker that can also be set to sear/sauté (400°F), braise (starts with high temperature to brown food and then lowers), etc. There is one slow cooker setting (203°F), but the temperature can actually be set anywhere from 77°F to 400°F (lower temperatures for proofing dough, sous vide, incubating yogurt), although oddly I think the manual 1 setting only goes to 203°F and the manual 2 starts at 212°F, so they miss a small range in there. But you can absolutely set it to a temperature that gets your food up to boiling quickly, and then turn it down. The braise setting does it automatically.
I don't use it for sous vide or anything other than slow cooking, braising, and making stock. It's fantastic to sear at 400°F and then turn it down to slow cook. I can braise at a slightly higher temperature if I want food cooked faster.
I have a systemic nickel allergy, and the regular Instant Pot insert is 18/10 stainless steel, and I can't eat any food cooked at length in nickel-containing stainless steel. I use the regular Instant Pot for sous vide, steaming potatoes and sweet potatoes, hard cooking eggs, etc. and to cook food for my family, but I can't eat food that has simmered in it all day. Before I was diagnosed with the nickel allergy (finally -- answering years of health issues) I gave away my slow cooker to someone who needed one, so I was in the market for a slow cooker and wanted something that did more than the basic ceramic insert model -- in particular I wanted to be able to sear and slow cook in the same vessel, but it couldn't be 18/10 stainless.
Costco sells the Instant Precision dutch oven for $169, which as I said, is spendypants. But it does exactly what I want it to do. And while I figure the controls will give out one day, the dutch oven itself can be used without the appliance portion, so it won't be useless.
Most recently I cooked a pork butt in mine. I salted and seared it, sprinkled garlic and onion powder all over it (after searing so the seasonings wouldn't scorch), and then put it on slow cook and let it go for 7 hours. It didn't need any added liquid, and turned our beautifully. I kept the seasonings simple because a pork butt is large for the three of us currently at home, so I wanted to be able to use it in various dishes.
