StirMATE Automatic Pot Stirrer GEN 3- Variable Speed, Self-Adjusting, Powerful, Cordless

Update 10/23/18: It's been a year since my purchase and I've used my Stirmate at least a hundred times (about 250-300 hours) . It is still runs perfectly. I've used it to make all sorts of sauces (Ragu, Bolognese, Velouté and Espagnole roux, bases for ice cream and gelato, custards, puddings, soups, and marmalade. Its very helpful at reducing water content, particularly when it needs to be done very slowly. It serves to gently scrap the bottom of the pot or sauce pan, and keep the mixture of whatever you are cooking well distributed. That being said, I found it works best with straight-sided flat bottom cookware. I've used it for reducing syrup for something like flan, but It would not work well with very viscous preparations like toffee, thick caramel or fudge. Overall, I'm very pleased. Nov. 3, 2017: I just got the Stirmate and used it for the first time. It works amazingly well, seems very well constructed and from solid materials. The mechanism is surprising powerful, providing plenty of torque and for the hour or so I used it it didn’t slow down at all. It’s very quiet, but not silent. The actual stirrer is simple yet ingenious - essentially, it is on floating hinges (top and bottom) so it can self adjust to whatever size and shape pot you are using. No need to worry about the end of it hanging outside the pot – it won’t get damaged by indirect heat. The Stirmate runs on a 9volt battery, like those in a smoke detector. I’ve been watching this product for a couple of months, deciding whether or not to buy it. The first iteration of the Stirmate used a regular battery, then they offered an externally rechargeable battery, and this new version has an internally rechargeable battery. You can replace the rechargeable battery or use a regular battery if you’ve forgotten to charge it. I just love that, because lately many gadgets need to be discarded when the rechargeable battery wears out. Shipping was fast. From California to New York City in just 2 days. It was shipped inside a paper envelope with some bubble wrap. The envelope arrived broken on one end and the stirrer stick was hanging out. Maybe I should take off a star for that but I suppose the fact there was no damage just speaks well of the build quality. Before ordering I wrote to the seller and they said the Stirmate is covered by a one year warrantee (excluding the battery). I have already made the Greek style rice pudding recipe from the Stirmate.com website – I couldn’t wait and ate some right away (delicious), but I’m sure it will be even better when it cools and firms up. Bottom line is that the Stirmate is worth the money, and certainly beats standing over a hot stove for hours stirring and stirring like some recipes require.

To summarize, the product works. And for $65, it’s a steal. There are surely a few tweaks here and there that could make it a better product, but the bottom like is that it does exactly what it’s supposed to do: stir pots. Rather than write some ridiculously useless review about how well the rice pudding or ‘grandma’s special beef stew turned out’, let me describe the product and explain why it’s a must have. Again, the price. If you’re looking for something to stir your oatmeal so that you can sit and read the paper, surely you can throw $65 on this item. It’s inexpensive. And again, it works. Second, it’s a very sound design. Easy enough for any dummy to use. The mechanism is also very simple, but effective. Whoever designed this product understood geometry and trigonometry. When set up properly, the stirrer will reach the edges of the pot. This is accomplished by simple geometry. There are no fancy linkages that require any setup, or that will be vulnerable to failure under cooking conditions. The main body (which houses the motor) is also ridiculously easy to attach to your pot. The device can stir both thin and highly viscous contents. It has the power to do the latter. Moreover, it can use both a rechargeable and a standard 9V battery…. for times when you forget to recharge it. Overall, this is one of those rare products that demonstrates thoughtful design. Someone clearly made a product they intended to work as advertised. My one gripe? The motor could be a touch quieter. But that’s an easy fix for another version.

I like this thing. It did a great job with my huge pot of tomato soup. I would give it 5 stars if the manufacturers didn't claim the battery lasts 10 hours. I suppose maybe it does if it's stirring water at the lowest speed. For my job, it did about 4 hours. Recharge time was fairly short, so it's not a huge problem. Be sure to read the cleaning instructions. I got mine clean fairly easily despite lots of tomato spatter. It was easy to assemble and put into action. Wish it had a low power beeper. I will be using this a lot. Very glad I bought it.

Some of the soups, sweets and ice creams (and everything else where I need condensed milk or Indian khoya), kadhi, and curries I make need to be stirred continuously. Sometimes I need to stir continuously for 45 minutes or more or else the dish has a slightly burnt taste. I always wanted a way to stir automatically while I do other things. I considered buying a robotic arm and programming it at one point but that was an overkill. Also not easy to do. I love this simple solution! The Stirmate attaches to all my existing pots (not the super small ones though). And it works pretty well! It can mix very well, and keeps things from burning or boiling over. It can scrape the bottom of pots, but can't do the scratching with force motion a human had can. But that doesn't matter for most of the dishes that have enough water or oil.

To start, I am 78 years old and don't have the patients to stand at the stove and stir what ever I am cooking for twenty minutes. This simple to operate electric stirrer made my life a lot easier. Yes it is rather pricey , but how much is your free time worth?

This product works great. If you're stirring water, anything with more resistance than that and it will not work for more than a minute or two if you're holding it down. Even with just water, the machine tries to angle itself up off of the pot which then makes it not work either. If I wanted to sit at the pot holding something on the pot I would just stir it myself.

I talked my wife into spending a few extra bucks on this. I’ve been processing tomatoes most of the summer and unless I stand over the pot and stir I’ll end up burning the bottom of the pan. Found this little gem and no more burning the bottom. I can walk away and do other things while it keeps the pot stirred. The charge doesn’t last 10hrs some proclaim but long enough to give me a break. I wouldn’t leave it alone more than 6hrs but it may last up to 8 if it doesn’t have to big a load to stir. One day it sounded like it was still running but the paddle wasn’t moving. I had processed about 3 to 4 batches with it by this time. Past the returned date so I decided to break it down. That little motor you see is a power house now. You can see the flat part of the shaft that suppose to keep the little gear turning, well that would work great if the gears were metal but as the age of progress has done us, plastic everything. It wallered out the inside of the little plastic gear. Everything else looked to be as new so I did a little southern engineering and cleaned the motor shaft and gear shaft off with brake cleaner, let it dry, then crazy glued that gear back on the shaft. Wish I had some food grade grease to put on the gears but I did lather them down with some olive oil. So far so good. On my first batch after repair in the last photo. So get it if you want. Some have success with it. It’s “okay” in my book but 3 stars because I had to work on it. And I’ve decided if the glue doesn’t hold up I’ll JB that gear on the shaft. One more thing, if you decide to buy, get the metal stirring attachment and throw away the plastic paddle they send with it.

I have been experimenting with techniques to make great home made ice cream thank to the endless quarantine. I tried heavy cream, gelatin, gums, etc., but what works the best for me is home made evaporated milk. I start with a gallon of whole milk, and after spending hours stirring the milk so it doesn't burn or spill, I end up with relatively small quantity of thick evaporated milk that makes amazing ice cream in my ice cream maker (stand alone one with a built in compressor). The ice cream is crystal free / creamy, and doesn't have the high fat/buttery taste of ice cream made with heavy cream. All you need is this thick milk chilled and blended in a blender to add volume, sugar (dissolve towards the end of evaporating milk), and any flavors (fruit, peppermint extract, vanilla, etc.). Just milk and sugar is also delicious. There is just one problem with this approach. It takes FOREVER to make evaporated milk. I remember spending up to 3 hours stirring the milk! I love my ice cream, but spending 3 hours in front of the stove was getting old pretty fast. One evening, I decided to search for an "automatic stirrer" product on Amazon. I wasn't expecting anything, but lo and behold, I ended up coming across StirMATE. I couldn't believe my eyes! This is EXACTLY what I was looking for. It was an instant buy, and thanks to Amazon's quick delivery, it was in my hands in a little over 24 hours. I was pleasantly surprised by the build quality and heft of the device. I was expecting it to be a flimsy little thing, but it is really well built and feels solid. I took it for a test drive the same day it arrived, and I am happy to report that it did exactly what I wanted it to do. I left the milk in a large stainless steel pot on medium/low heat and let StirMATE do it's magic. A few hours later, I had perfect eveporated/condensed milk that I used the next day to make some delicious low sugar Matcha Green Tea ice cream. StirMATE saved me hours of standing over the pot stirring it constantly, and scraping a thick layer of burnt milk from the bottom no matter how much I stirred. I've only used it once, so I can't say how long it will last, but it looks like the people behind it are passionate about what they do, so I assume they invested a lot of time designing it well. Here is a fun fact I discovered shortly after receiving the product: The inventor of StirMATE (Dimitri Cados) is the founder of Casbah foods. A few years ago, I got into home made Falafel and remember buying a bunch of boxes of Casbah Falafel mix (it was delicious!). Awesome job with this invention, Dimitri!