BIP BIP mf !

114 comments

Double the time but put power at 60%. You’ll never get frozen lava again.
You’re welcome.
- No way. My microwave has a single button. "Add 30 seconds". Anything else is just decoration.
  
  I just roll the dice and use the reheat button. 90% of the time it works every time
  
  I will never understand this one. Like, at least respect yourself enough to think you deserve literal seconds worth of effort
  Edit: maybe nobody has ever told you. Hey, you have value and worth. You're deserving of good things and worthy of reasonable effort to achieve them.
- Reason this is good is because the power setting really only affects how often the magnetron switches on and off (usually easy to hear). Lower power = more time off. Many microwave foods say to let it rest for a few minutes, this integrates that into the process(but they're all different so do experiment)
  
  Except with proper microwaves that actually reduce the power. I'm not sure if it's just Panasonic, but look for microwaves that mention inverter technology. Essentially they convert AC to DC, and then back to AC in a more controlled and adjustable manner.
- I've looked and looked over the years, but no microwave I've ever owned as let me adjust the wattage, even though I've often seen this tip. Is this just an EU thing, or a bougie microwave thing?
  
  No microwave I've seen has ever actually varied the wattage. It just essentially does pulse width modulation, so 60% power might be on (at full power) for 6 seconds and off for 4 seconds. It averages out to the desired power, but it's not exactly the same as what it kind of implies.
  
  Look up the manual for your current microwave. It may be able to, or it might have some programs that have varied levels of power. Some just don't have the option, tho, so that might be why.

Did y'all know that microwaves aren't magic and you need to mix your food?
- Also, you might want to double check what your bowl is made of, and that it's a microwave safe material. If the bowl is getting dramatically hotter than the food like that, the power is being absorbed by the bowl instead of being evenly distributed like neutral microwave-safe materials would.
  
  blue paints/colors tend to be the worst culprits.
- In a microwave oven, an assembly of cyprium, aluminium, and ferrum-impregnated clay is energized in such a way as to excite the aetheric medium, producing a beam of invisible energy which induces sympathetic vibrations in certain particulates in various solid and liquid foods, which results in heating of the food material.
  But tell me again how it's not magic.
  
  Maaaan, there ain't no luminiferous ether!
  
  That clay sure gets around, don’it?
- You do need to mix your food, but microwaves are obviously magic.
- microwaves aren't magic
  Well, any sufficiently advanced technology...
- If you cook it on half power for twice as long, you can do one less thing (also IMO it tastes significantly better)

The trick is not microwaving everything at 100% power, but for a longer time instead
- Or just get a better microwave safe container?
  
  Cooking for longer on a lower power setting will still save your food from being an over microwaved mess even with a better dish to cook it in. Lower power for longer results in more even heating across all the food and tends not to dry things out so drastically.
  
  Can you recommend something? I mostly I use crockery plates or glass containsers, which work, but can get pretty hot.
  
  Or just get an air fryer. Most things people make in the microwave can be made in an air fryer, and it almost always comes out leaps and bounds better.
- But I want it NOW!
  4th degree burns be damned.
  
  My mouth may blister but I have the stubbornness of a Scotsman and the self control of an American I will eat my lava and I will enjoy it.
- Also, add water. How much depends on the food. Water is opaque to microwaves, so it absorbs them extremely readily and thus heat up. If you have wifi that shuts down when a shower is going, that's why.
  
  Humidifiers are firewalls
  
  Bowls of soup (and the heathens that reheat coffee or boil water for tea in the microwave) disagree.

I hate that
I end up burning my hand and my hamster is still fucking wet
- Lmao but...
  Obligatory, do not do this, this is a joke, hamsters do not do well in microwaves.
  (Somewhere a kid is reading this thinking it's a good idea)
  
  Too late. The AI scanning the comments isn't smart enough to "see" corrections.
  
  They actually do.... https://interestingengineering.com/videos/1950s-reanimating-frozen-hamsters-in-microwave
  
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jr6tMinjE2M
- Too spicy for the NES version
- You reminded me of the old Joe Cartoon videos from the before YouTube times.
  Gerbil in a Microwave (NSFW warning for cartoon violence)

Literal child minded people.
You are using an incredible machine. Press more buttons other then +30+30+30+30start
- I feel attacked
- Wait till you find out that in Europe a lot of microwaves still only have two dials you turn, 0 buttons or only the very basic of buttons alongside.
  
  I've never really needed the other buttons. It has a whole ass numpad and loads of menus, when all I need is a dial for time and maybe one for power.
  
  That's because we use them for a) melting butter or b) heating soup
  They're fucking awful for cooking
  
  TIL that Europe doesn’t have microwaves that transform bell pepper soup into boiling hot lava in 38.2 seconds. The bowl is untouchable too
- My microwave has a popcorn setting.
  Every microwavable popcorn I ever bought said on the package not to use that setting.
  Same with all the others: What the fuck does the Pizza setting actually do?
  
  Olde time microwaves had a moisture sensor inside which allowed them to sense when popcorn was done popping, automatically. Really fancy ones have a microphone, and will listen for when the popping is done.
  But lots of microwaves literally just throw on a popcorn button that's just some arbitrary preset time duration. These do not get consistent result, and as such, popcorn makers just tell people to not use the feature at all as they can't guarantee results.
  
  In almost all microwaves, the control circuitry or mechanical switches only ever switch 2-3 power circuits: motor+fan(+bulb sometimes separately) and the heating (transformer+diode+capacitor+magnetron) high voltage circuit. It can therefore only switch the heat between 0 and max, usually in a slow (15-30s period) PWM cycle (that hopefully does not coincide with the tray rotation period). The inputs can be manual only, or sometimes there is also a scale, moisture sensor and microphone, along with thermal fuses for safety.
  I think the pizza setting is just generic medium one with short 50% cycles to allow the heat to spread. The popcorn setting can be much more interesting:
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Limpr1L8Pss
  
  Technology Connections on YouTube or a better alternative has done videos about the popcorn button at least.
  Fwiw I've never ever seen settings like that. Maybe it's only for American market?
- You fool, you know nothing of microwaves.
  +30 automatically starts it.
- POPCORN BUTTON!
  
  But only if you have a microwave with sensor cook. If it asks you to put in the weight just follow the directions on the bag.

Lower the power setting and put it on for longer, it will usually give the center of time to warm up.
- "center of time", that sound vaguely poetic. :)
  
  We're always in the center of time. Half way between the past and future.
  
  Whoops, definitely a typo but I like it
  
  Journey to the Center of Time - Wikipedia

Some of you need to learn to turn down the power on your microwave and cook your food for longer, it results in a more even temp across the whole plate and won’t dry things out as easily.
- Simply increase the instructions cook time by the inverse ratio of microwave radiation absorption coefficients for both energy levels!
  
  Or put your bowl in another bowl and nuke the fuck out of it.
- Or use the donut method, arrange your food in a donut on your plate, allowing it to get cooked from more surface area at once
  
  Oooorrr...
  Just not put your plate in the centre...

Easy solution to this is to put your food in an aluminium container before you heat it. Food is hot and bowl is not hot because it’s gone
- Genius! I can't wait to get this recommended by Google's LLM.
- You can improve the effect by putting a couple of forks or metal chopsticks deep into the food before starting the microwave. This will help conduct the heat further down into the food during the cooking process.
  Also, put a liberal sprinkling of pure silicon on top of your human food for human beings before placing it within your human consumption orifice.

Learning how to use the "power level" feature of a microwave is actually helpful here.
So like with an range oven I don't try to bake banana bread at 550 degrees F.
So dump the power level down some and divide the task into two or three heatings and then stir in between.

Always surprised how many people evidently don't know how to use a microwave. They are, like many things, useful if you use them right.
- I haven't had one in 4 years. The only thing I'd use it for at this point is to reheat coffee... Instead I just make a fresh cup now.
  I do miss having a dishwasher though. Might get a little one.
  
  Mini washers can be seriously noisy. Check the decibels first.