GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — Looking to keep your hot stuff hot or cold stuff cold? Want to be the king of potluck without the heavy pot?
The 6-Hour Bowl promises to keep your hot food hot or cold food cold for up to six hours. But does it?
Let’s try it!
The 6-Hour Bowl is lightweight and made of plastic. The only instruction is to run it under cold water before using cold or hot water for hot items. So for every test, we followed these instructions.
For our first test, we tried to see how it would do with some store-bought potato salad. The potato salad was around 40 degrees when we placed it in the 6-Hour Bowl and a chilled mixing bowl sandwiched between some ice. We proceeded to put it in direct sunlight until the sun went down.
The outside temperature was around 80 degrees. After six hours, we temped both of them, and the mixing bowl in a bowl of ice and cling wrap was at about 78 degrees. The 6-Hour Bowl came in at 67, so it fared a little bit better but was far from the 40 degree starting point.
Now to the hot stuff. We went from our stove top with our magic pasta creation that temped at over 180 degrees and dumped it right into the 6-Hour Bowl. We left it on the counter for six hours, then opened the lid to check the temperature, and it came in at around 120 degrees. So about a 40-degree drop, and far from being safe to eat.
To make the testing a little more accurate for the cold side, we decided to refrigerate the pasta creation for a few days in the 6-Hour Bowl. We pulled the 40 degree bowl out of the fridge, and instead of leaving it in the scorching sun, we placed it on the counter for only four hours, like you would at a party or family get-together. And the results of this were 53, so only a 13 degree increase.
The only nice thing we found with the 6-Hour Bowl was the twist to lock top. Now, the results!
The positives
- Durable plastic and easy to carry
- Lid locks in place
The negatives
- Hard to clean lip
- Didn’t keep food as cold as advertised
- Didn’t keep food hot
Overall if you need a container with minimal insulative properties, this might do the trick, but trusting it to keep your food cold or hot for long periods could be dangerous. For this, we rate this as an “Avoid It.”
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