Too cold to enjoy or too hot to eat?
With some foods, I have better luck microwaving at half power for twice as long.
I do that too so it’s not fried on the edges and cold in the middle.
This is the correct answer. Full power is fine for liquids, but for solid food, twice the time at half the power. Perfectly heated food.
I microwave at lower power settings for longer times, and I stop to stir and taste at regular intervals. My microwaved food is usually the temperature I want it to be.
Using low power on a microwave almost feels like cheating. For anyone unaware, a microwave can only be on or off, so setting a microwave to 50% power really just makes the microwave run for only half of the total runtime. A minute at 50% will be on for 10s, off for ten, etc.
It cooks way better, especially things like stews or other semi-liquidy things that tend to get hot and cold spots.
Edit: looks like my info is old considering my microwave is from 2004, lol. In 2006, LG patented using an inverter to drive the magnetron. The main benefit (according to the patent documentation) is that it’s cheaper to produce. A secondary benefit is that you can, in fact, provide lower power to the magnetron. Seems like a handful of producers must be paying LG to use that method, but probably more will start when the patent expires next year.
I haven’t seen one in the wild, but they are out there.
That used to be correct. I bought a microwave with an inverter and it can actually heat constantly at different power levels. Curiously, it has a 0 Watt power level as well 🤷🏻♂️
I guess maybe it’s so you could do like a programmed cook that does have a 0 watt period?
No, pretty much any microwave by Panasonic actually lowers the power. The difference is dramatic. Look for their “Inverter” logo. I’m not sure about other brands.
Wait, how can that be true?
Most microwaves have a dial to set Wattage. Is that a lie?
I’ve never seen a dial set to wattage, but just a “power level”. Either way, though, changing a microwave to only be on half the time will cut the average watts in half.
Here’s GE’s explanation of it. There are probably some fancy newer models that can do some different things, bit for the most part, it’s just on or off. You can even hear it click on and off if you listen to it run.
I’ve owned 2 microwaves and they had that dial with specific Wattage. That why I was surprised
Wattage as averaged over a second, yes it’s a lie. Wattage as averaged over a minute, it might be true. ;)
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Most microwaves have a dial to set Wattage. Is that a lie?
I’ve never seen this. The power setting on every microwave in my life has modified duty cycle. 30% power is 3s on, 7s off.
I’ve owned 2 microwaves and they had that dial with specific Wattage. That why I was surprised
Same.
Sometimes the plate is burning hot and the food is cold. Best of both worlds.
Guess what, that plate is not microwave safe.
I use ceramic plates. But TIL pores or microscopic cracks could be the reason for hot plates. Or my microwave hates me.
oh is that what that means? literally all of my Tupperware and bowls do that 😂
Yea my dude. If your food containers get hot in a microwave, they are not microwave safe. Could melt your plastics or shatter your earthenware. Or just burn the shit out of you too I guess.
My microwave safe corel plates still get hot where the food is. That could just be normal thermal convection.
Yeah, that’s normal - ceramic and glass will get hot from the food or steam, just if the plate itself gets hot, it’s absorbing microwaves itself.
I know because I used to have a mug that would get hot when microwaved, and one day it exploded.
Cook for half the time and stir. One stir is a minimum.
Stirring helps to distribute the heat better and avoid this dilemma
Neither, I always microwave precisely when I mean to.
Neither… I tend to underdo it, check it, then put it back in.
(Depending on the model) if you microwave, for example, on 50% power for 2 minutes, it will alternate 10 sec of cooking and 10 sec of not cooking for 2 minutes, so in the end neither of your scenarios come to fruition
This is for the “cheap” microwaves. They cannot operate the magnetron at partial power, it’s all or nothing, so it actually powers off for a period to compensate for that.
Inverters however can operate at partial power levels. This means more consistent cooking power and better efficiency. But inverters are more expensive and most people never change the power level, so the cheaper microwaves don’t use them.
Double the time, half the power. It works so well. The difference between 1 minute and 2 doesn’t bother me, I’m off doing something else.
I know how my microwave works and so can time it.
At work it’s usually outside lava and inside arctic.
At work double the time and halve the power, it will cook more evenly for you. Even cheap microwaves normally have a power setting.
Cooks at 800W anf need to wait 3min.
Personally I don’t have a problem to wait longer but I think m co workers would crucify me xD
First the one, then the other.
I use Sensor Reheat. 😎
Hey now, not everyone can afford the Jaguar of microwaves
The reheat function on my microwave does a shockingly good job on uncovered foods. Tends to stop a bit early with an error when the food is covered
It probably has a steam sensor
Yes, it absolutely does
I find it disgusting when something is not at the right temp. So I’d rather wait and have it heated thoroughly.
I usually start with too cold and when I put it in for a bit more, I get it lava hot.
Put it on level 5 or 6 and microwave it for 5 minutes
I’ve never seen a microwave with levels before, is it a fancy one or are they just not popular in the UK?
Pretty standard feature in every microwave I’ve ever seen
Every microwave I think I’ve ever used here in the US has some form of power setting.
The problem is that it’s completely nonstandardized, so saying “power level 6” can’t be applied to arbitrary other microwaves to get a comparable effect.
I think that it’s rarely useful, because generally you might as well just run at full power for less time and then wait afterwards for heat to spread.
What I really wish we had would be at least semi-standard settings across microwaves. Like, instead of a time setting – microwaves apply energy at different rates – the base unit should be a number of watt-hours to be applied, something like that.
not popular in the UK
Trivia: the UK invented the gizmo that can output that shit-ton of power in the form of microwave radiation in a microwave. It was an absolutely critical technical development in World War II – it let radars be vastly more powerful then they had been, and it was a “Eureka” moment, a major nonobvious breakthrough that other countries wouldn’t have just gotten iteratively shortly.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cavity_magnetron
The cavity magnetron is a high-power vacuum tube used in early radar systems and subsequently in microwave ovens and in linear particle accelerators.
The cavity magnetron was a radical improvement introduced by John Randall and Harry Boot at the University of Birmingham, England in 1940. Their first working example produced hundreds of watts at 10 cm wavelength, an unprecedented achievement. Within weeks, engineers at GEC had improved this to well over a kilowatt, and within months 25 kilowatts, over 100 kW by 1941 and pushing towards a megawatt by 1943. The high power pulses were generated from a device the size of a small book and transmitted from an antenna only centimeters long, reducing the size of practical radar systems by orders of magnitude. New radars appeared for night-fighters, anti-submarine aircraft and even the smallest escort ships, and from that point on the Allies of World War II held a lead in radar that their counterparts in Germany and Japan were never able to close. By the end of the war, practically every Allied radar was based on a magnetron.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tizard_Mission
The Tizard Mission, officially the British Technical and Scientific Mission, was a British delegation that visited the United States during World War II to share secret research and development (R&D) work that had military applications. It received its popular name from the programme’s instigator, Henry Tizard, a British scientist and chairman of the Aeronautical Research Committee which had orchestrated the development of radar.
The mission travelled to the U.S. in September 1940 during the Battle of Britain. They conveyed a number of technical and scientific secrets with the objective of securing U.S. assistance in sustaining the war effort and obtaining the industrial resources to exploit the military potential of these technologies, which Britain itself could not due to the immediate demands of other war-related production. American historian James Phinney Baxter III later said “When the members of the Tizard Mission brought one cavity magnetron to America in 1940, they carried the most valuable cargo ever brought to our shores.”
The problem is that it’s completely nonstandardized
We have a similar problem in that I’ve seen microwaves that run anywhere between 800-1000W so microwave instructions on certain food items will often be useless. Though I have seen a few that specify the microwave wattage as well as the length, so you can just adjust the time in your head if you need to.
Pretty standard
