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Revere Ware Q&A: Is Revere Ware oven safe?

A customer asks:

I have an old revere were stock pot it is a six quart and I want to know if it is oven safe and to what temp.

At on point Revere Ware stated that their cookware with Bakelite handles was oven safe.  But at some point, perhaps in the 60’s or so, they stopped making this claim.  Our own testing (with original and our
replacement parts) shows that there is a temperature around or above 350 degrees or so where the Bakelite will break down and emit a horrible odor.  Trust us that this is not an odor you want in your house as it is hard to get rid of.

The problem is that even if an oven is set at 300 or 350, ovens often heat unevenly and some parts can get much hotter, which will break down the Bakelite.

We don’t recommend putting anything with Bakelite in the oven and our parts are not offered as oven safe.  It is also important to make sure that on gas stoves, the flame from the burners doesn’t lick over the edge of the pan and heat the handles.  In addition to getting hot, this can also break them down and emit the horrible odor.

 

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Dangerous fix for vintage Revere Ware pressure cookers on Ebay

I came across this purported fix (pdf in case the listing is gone) for faulty vintage Revere Ware pressure cooker over pressure plugs on Ebay.

The problem with over pressure plugs on the vintage cookers is (a) they contain solder inside that will melt (thus opening up the over pressure hole) when the pressure gets too high, and once blown, they are useless, and (b) they are no longer available.

While they do include a copy of the pressure cooker manual (which you can download from our site for free), the fix itself is nothing more than a screw and nut that will permanently block off the over pressure hole.

While it may be frustrating not being able to use your pressure cooker without an over pressure plug, plugging the hole and leaving yourself with no over pressure release is dangerous.  The instructions that came with the “fix” give no warning as to the dangers of not having a pressure relief when using a pressure cooker.

We can’t recommend fixing your pressure cooker in this way.

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Revere kettles

Revere Ware produced tea kettles in many styles over the years, as evidenced by this ad (apparently from the 70’s given the avocado colored tea kettle).

The most iconic tea kettle is the stainless with copper bottom art-deco style which is still sold today.

We now have an information page for this kettle with care and use tips.  We are in the early stages of producing replacement parts (handles, whistles, and triggers) for these kettles.

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More finding Revere Ware on Ebay

Ebay now appears to do some classification of its own, although it is far from complete.  This page separates out some Revere Ware listings into categories.  The amount of categories is far from complete and this only appears to cover a small number of the available Revere Ware related auctions.

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Capturing the Revere Ware era

This ad from 1948 captures the Revere Ware era perfectly.  We use our tea kettle almost every day but the percolator had been sitting in the garage due to a fancy espresso machine in the house.

I recently took my family camping which proved to be a perfect opportunity to try out my vintage Revere Ware percolator.

The percolator worked well and made great (and strong) coffee.   The directions I’ve found for this percolator say to percolate for 3 to 4 minutes.  Before the Revere Ware percolator, the only percolators I’d used in recent history are the large electric ones that make coffee in large batches; these stop percolating on their own.  I found myself letting the coffee percolate much longer than 3 or 4 minutes, expecting it to stop, hence the strong coffee.

The only trouble I had was a little of the coffee grounds escaped the basket and ended up in the coffee.  If I just let it settle for a few minutes before serving, it wasn’t a problem.

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Finding Revere Ware on Ebay

A couple of years ago we started a website that collects all Revere Ware related listings on Ebay and separates them out by type, size, etc.  For example, if you are looking for a 7 inch lid, you can see all currently available lids on Ebay sorted by size.  We update the listings every 30 minutes so it always has up-do-date listings.

It wasn’t the prettiest of websites, but it worked well.  We recently did a complete overhaul of the site which makes it both more attractive and more effective.  For example, we offer a grid view and a list view.

If you are looking for vintage Revere Ware cookware, this is arguably the easiest way to find what you want.

We’ve also been tracking the number of listings of Revere Ware related items on Ebay and it continues to grow and grow, meaning there is more and more items available to select from. Here is the graph of the number of items listed since May 2009.

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Revere Ware Q&A

We receive about 300-500 Revere Ware related questions through our contact form every year and do our best to answer every one.

We are always happy to answer questions about Revere Ware care, help finding the correct size handle, or even help identifying an oddball piece of cookware, so feel free to contact us.

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PC-806 electric pressure cooker parts

PC-806

A customer asks:

I have a PC-806 pressure cooker, the pressure regular is missing (probably got lost during removal-and-cleaning, is there a replacement part I can buy

It is almost certain those pressure cookers were not actually made by Revere but were re-branded units made by another company, like Cuisinart.  You might try calling them.  You also might try looking/asking at Miss Vickie’s, a forum and recipe website for pressure cookers.

Also, this supplier in Australia has the best selection of pressure cooker parts we’ve seen.

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Copper cleaning tip

Reader Chris gave us this tip for keeping the copper bottoms clean:

Heat Campbell’s tomato soup in pan. Before washing, rub left over soup on the copper and let sit a few minutes. If one eats the soup every few weeks the copper looks better and better with almost no labor.

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Vintage 4-quart pressure cooker over pressure plug

The Revere Ware vintage 4-quart pressure cooker, made during the 40’s and 50’s, is a great pressure cooker and we’ve sold quite a few replacement gaskets to people who want to keep them cooking decades more.

The biggest problem with these units is the lack of availability of over-pressure plugs in the lids.  These plugs are made with a hole through them filled with solder that will blow out at a certain pressure.  Once the over-pressure plug is blown, it is done and needs to be replaced with another.

One possibility is to convert the pressure cooker to use an over pressure plug that is still available.  Specifically, Revere Ware’s model 1574 and 1576 pressure cookers use a simple rubber plug that fits in a 12mm hole in the lid.  These plugs are identical to Presto part 09915.

In theory, converting the vintage pressure cooker to use the new style plug should be easy – just drill out the hole for the current over pressure plug with a 12mm metal drill bit.  The vintage 4-quart pressure cooker has an operating pressure up to 15 lbs and the 157x models work up to 17.5 lbs.

Below are some comparison pictures between the vintage 4-quart and the 1574.

If anyone is going to attempt this conversion, please send us pictures and let us know the outcome.

As with anything pressure cooker related, we advise that you use caution.

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