vingared rice for sushi

Most all the recipes on the net and books call for using a non-metalic pot with very washed short grained rice and a non-metallic cooling vessel to lay out the rice while the vinegar/sugar/salt mixture is added and fanned. The pot ratios are  1:1 with the later additions of the sweet vinegar and fanning to make a sushi rice. I've noticed that all of the grocery store deli and buffets use rice steamers/makers to make the rice. Anyone have any foodservice or similar recipes using an electric ricemaker to make this rice?

It is my understanding that the rice can be cooked in any pan.  You then transfer it to a large bowl and add the vinegar mixture.  After carefully strring in, you then proceed to  spread it out and fan for five minutes.  I made  some for my daughter in law's birthday two weeks ago.  It was delicious. (I did buy rice that is used for sushi at the Asian market.)

Dawn - I've been making Sushi 30+ years, lived in Japan a very long time.
 
You can cook the rice in anything.  I have long used a rice cooker which is an aluminum and teflon pot.  It's just so much easier and fool-proof than the stove top methods.  Plus we go through a lot of rice in our house, we use it probably 4-5x/week.
 
It's just when you start adding in the vinegar that you want a non-reactive bowl.  I use either a glass bowl or tupperware container.  The vinegar/salt/sugar combo can have some pretty fast reactions to some metals and your rice will pick up a tinny off flavor in just minutes.  Plus the metal bowl will get an oxidation haze over it.
 
There are specific sushi rice's, and it will call it that on the label, but even in Japan any decent short grain rice will do.  Sushi rice is just a little stickier than regular which is good for sushi.  Long grain, instant, brown rice will not do.  Too fluffy, not sticky, it just falls apart.

Perhaps you might find the following useful, although you have consulted the web.
 
There is the electric rice maker recipe, created by a restaurant owner, as per your original post.
 
http://www.youtube.com/wa...TE&feature=related
 
 
http://www.youtube.com/wa...7Y&feature=related
Gives good rice brand, good straightforward technique
I use small electric fan that I can depress & elevate: so much more simple.
Wooden bowl  also soaks up some excess moisture.

 
http://www.youtube.com/wa...ew&feature=related
Restaurant mixing/folding technique. Note area of wooden surface.
 
Some common rice brands available at Oriental groceries, suitable for sushi:
 
Calrose Nishiki, Tamaki Gold,  Koshihikari [USA] more expensive, Korean rices for Korean sushi.

Thank you all for the responses. My only real point of concern was the water to Japanese rice ratio when using an electric cooker vs the tradional pot method. Most of the recipes I've seen for the vinegar have been sugar and rice wine. One of the videos mentioned that Saki is part of the equation as well. This isn't anything that I'm jumping into quite yet at supermarket prices for the rice and vinegar until I get a chance to get to the only Asian market I know of that's quite a bit of distance away. I've seen the supermarket Sushi chefs make the sushi, but never have seen them do the rice beyond the large electric cooker they use. Thanks again all.

Like most everything else, you can get Sushi Rice and supplies on line. Here's just one source. There are others.
http://sushinow.com/

OK, barring the Zojirushi sophisticated  & superb rice cooker that I have not used, here is your rice to water ratio in the cooker: 1:1 AFTER doing the following:
 
1. Take new crop Japanese short or medium grain rice: Nishiki/Calrose [relatively cheap, not cheap], Koshihikari [expensive], Tamaki Gold [in-between].
Know HOW MANY DRY MEASURES of the COOKER MEASURING CUP of RICE you start out with, before you start washing.
 
2.Washing it gently in a bowl, or rice cooker insert, several times, moving the rice with fingers, until water runs relatively clear.
 
3. DRAIN rice in a colander that does not pool water at its bottom. Say 30 min in winter, 15-20 min in summer. Rice will look opaque white, chalky, & no free moisture on surface.
 
4. Place drained rice back into cooker bowl. You may wish to line bowl with rice cooker liner, optional, before adding rice; this is sold in Japanese mail-order groceries.
 
5. Using the COOKER CUP, add as many cups of water as there were of dry rice, i.e. 1:1. Then, gently use fingers to stir rice top to bottom so that water is evenly distributed all through and side to side.
 
6. If using kelp/kombu, take a small 2 inch rectangle and make a few slashes with a pair of scissors on the leaf margins. Place it in, or better yet, add a tiny bit of dashi [powdered soup stock, available in packets] to the water to give a little body to the rice.
 
7. Close the lid and COOK. No need for sake.
 
8. In the seasoning vinegar,  rice vinegar, sugar, salt, and occasionally, mirin, may be used. The mixture is gently heated until the solids dissolve & the mirin gives up its alcohol.
 
9. Generally, only rice vinegar, sugar and sea salt is to be found.
 
I don't know where sake figures into sushi rice. My knowledge is limited.  Mirin might. Mirin is NOT SWEET SAKE, a common and erroneous description. They are made by very different processes and contribute quite dissimilar effects to food.
To confuse things further, a substitute for expensive TRUE [hon] MIRIN sometimes is sold, named AJI-no- haha. This product begins life somewhat in the same manner as sake,  experiencing a small amount of yeast fermentation, that is absolutely absent in true mirin.