Face-Off: Instant Pot Duo60 7-in-1 vs. Instant Pot Max

And we saved about 10 minutes by using the Max on its highest pressure level. Carnivores, take note: You’ll save more time cooking certain foods like meat or beans with pressure, but not as much cooking rice, for example, or vegetables.

Slow Cooking
Both models earn a middle-of-the-road Good rating in slow cooking. Compared with most of the other multi-cookers we tested, the Instant Pot Duo and Max needed more than 5 hours to make beef stew that was tender and ready to eat, and more than 7 hours to serve up chili with tender beans. Both models can slow cook, but you’ll have to give them more time than the competition.

Cooking Rice
Both cookers turned out rice that was fluffy and moist. The Instant Pot Duo and the Max each cooked 1 cup of white rice in about 20 minutes, start to finish. But we found that both cookers left some rice stuck to the bottom of the pan.

Steaming
Neither model did a good job cooking our broccoli-and-carrot medley, earning only a Fair rating in our steaming tests, the lowest rating any pressure multi-cooker earned across our performance tests. The veggies turned out mushy and lacking in color. The Max required 12 minutes to reach pressure, and the Duo took 14 minutes. Even when we set the cook time to a minute or less, the veggies were overcooked. If you want to steam veggies, you're better off looking elsewhere in our multi-cooker ratings.

Sautéing
The Duo and the Max both turned out nicely browned sliced onions. But keep in mind that none of the eight multi-cookers we tested match the sautéing power of a rangetop.

Convenience
They’re both easy to use, and their stainless pots proved durable in our tests. But the Max is slightly more convenient in that the control panel is less cluttered, and its touchpad includes venting options, making it a cinch to choose one of the three. The Duo does it differently and has a steam release valve on the back of the unit (depending on your recipe, you can set the valve to natural release or you have to switch it manually to quick release). Another bonus on the Max? It alerts you by flashing what stage it’s in—preheating, cooking, or keep warm. The Duo, on the other hand, uses a timer to keep you informed, so it's harder to determine where you are in the process.

Added Features
Both multi-cookers turn out smooth, delicious yogurt, but here’s why the Max earns its name. This cooker adds a sous vide feature, and we used it to cook chicken breasts, each sealed in a plastic bag and placed in a bath of heated water (it took about 45 minutes in our tests to bring the water to the proper temperature). Three hours later, the chicken was juicy and tender, and evenly cooked throughout.

The Max also has a canning feature, which we did not test. Instant Pot says that recipes used must be tested by the Department of Agriculture for food safety. But the USDA’s recommendations have not been tested in electric pressure cookers. It’s crucial to do canning right; done improperly, canning carries the risk of botulism, a rare but potentially deadly form of food poisoning.

One Frustrating Factor
Every time we tried to make chili using dried beans, the Max flashed a “Food Burn” error message as it was reaching pressure. That meant we had to stop, stir, close the lid, and let the cooker reach pressure again. After this happened repeatedly in the first model, we purchased a second model to test. The same thing happened.

We didn’t get the “Food Burn” error message when we cooked beef stew with potatoes and carrots in the Max—or any other foods using the pressure cooker function.

According to Instant Pot, the alert is a safety mechanism that stops heating to prevent food from burning, but the company says the warning can also occur when cooking very starchy foods that settle at the bottom of the pot.