I'm confused by all the issues people have had cleaning it. All of the ones I've used have a non stick inner pot thing. The rice just dumps out of there with minimal effort. Are there really cheap brands that don't have this or am I missing something about cleaning it?
The non-stick interior isn't my biggest complaint, it's all the groves around the seals gaskets that icky with rice water.
I find that, to clean it, I need to wrap a paper towel around a sharp chopstick or toothpick to get in to all the little corners. And when I look at all of my friend's rice cookers, they have the same problem. Rice water crustys all around the seals that are hard to hit with a disk sponge.
Edit: mine is pretty clean right now, but I just spent a good amount to time getting into all the little crevices. Of all then stuff in my kitchen, its one of the more annoying things to clean.
Your lid looks completely fixed? On my zojirushi the top panel pops out and you can scrub it down, then just wipe out the lid before you pop it back in.
Yeah, that’s easy to pop out and clean. The most annoying part is the black plastic channel with the latch and hinge. They collect rice water and have lots of small spaces that you can’t easily hit with a sponge. You need a chopstick or toothpick.
It's all the other parts that might get dirty. Mine has a tendency to form bubbles, which means starchy foam can get around this metal disk above the pot and starches everything. I have to disassemble everything to get it really clean again.