Cooking in the microwave is wild to me. I’m Mexican and we treat it as a reheating machine with a clock and a bunch of buttons that do nothing.
The dumb “nuke it on full for 90 seconds” one. No thought put into it, I just know it will be edible by my standards.
Most microwavable food is already edible because it is a dumb idea to use a microwave for much more than reheating food, because it requires time and microwaves consume a ton of power for the heat they provide. The advantage of microwaves is that they have very little heatup time which makes it good for short blasts.
“Palatable” would have been a better choice of words. I’m generally not very picky.
Double time half power gang. It’s so much better. I can wait an extra 90 sec for it to be evenly heated.
deep microwave lore here
Lower power basically does this automatically. Do extra time on lower power and it’s way better with no additional effort required
Interesting bit of trivia. Microwaves don’t actually have “high” or “low” settings. The magnetron, the microwave’s core component, only has two states - on and off. It can’t power the magnetron at 10% power level.
Instead, the “power” settings just control how often the magnetron is activated. So maybe at full power it’s on 100% of the time. At medium it’s 10 seconds on, 10 second off. At low it’s 3 seconds on, 10 seconds off. That kind of thing. The “power” setting is just a glorified timer.
You’re not qualified for this topic. You’re only allowed to share trivia about trees and erections
Unless you have a modern microwave with an inverter, which will power the magnetron constantly with varying levels of power.
Yep, that’s what I meant by doing it automatically.
I want a microwave that has a database of every possible food type that tells it the optimal programming for everything, supported by sensors measuring weight, humidity, maybe even an infrared camera inside, if those can survive microwaves.
Until I have that: 100% until stuff starts to steam/bubble/boil, take it out, bite into it, regret not putting it in for longer, eat mostly cold leftovers.
You can see a technology connection a mile away
I just remembered that this video is where I got the idea from and came to edit my comment to link it! It should be possible to build something like that in 2025, no? Why is every microwave I see in stores the exact same microwave my parents bought 30 years ago but in black?
My microwave does all of the humidity sensing stuff and has an inverter. Setting it to 70% doesn’t mean 70% of the time it’s on at full power (ie PWM), it means it’s running continuously at 70% power. I haven’t watched that TC video in a while but I’m pretty sure that’s a PWM microwave, so I think mine has the edge. It was made in 2024 and cost $140.
It’s so absurd that Panasonic still has exclusive rights to that. It was never a novel idea and they’ve been profiteering and holding back humanity for nearly a full human lifetime at this point.
Did they license it to others? Mine isn’t Panasonic.
Surprisingly, I looked up inverter microwave reviews on RTINGS and they said it’s mostly marketing fluff aside from a few edge cases, such as trying to soften a tablespoon of butter.
They do license it out. Interesting take from rtings, it’s the first time I’ve ever heard of them getting something wrong compared to my opinion/experience.
Yeah, gotta agree there. It does seem like the inverter works better but maybe it’s just because I’m now using the power settings much more often.
Black plastic doesn’t yellow like white. Microwaves are pretty much a commoditized item. Unless they’re trying to make it a “smart device” and sell you a subscription.
Interesting, I can see why it failed though. TCP’s ideal situation is that you buy a microwaveable item with a TCP code on the box, pop it in your TCP enabled microwave, punch in the code and done. But those items will still need instructions for people without TCP microwaves, so those aren’t really my problem anyway. I want to know how long I should microwave my leftover pasta (plastic container, 300g, from the fridge). TCP would have me… go to a website and look up the right code in a table? I could probably find the right settings for a regular microwave in much the same way and that way I might actually learn something useful instead of an opaque 4-digit code.
Ultimate convenience microwave - add a camera inside the microwave and use image recognition to identify the food and automatically cook it perfectly.
And this is how you end up with an AI subscription-based microwave that sells your data.
That would cost like $1500
Theres absolutely no reason an infared camera couldnt survive a microwave. All you would need is for the camera body to be outside, and to have a mesh blocking the sensor. You wouldnt be able to go through the door if the door is glass(not that ive ever seen a glass microwave door) because glass blocks infared, not sure about plastic. either way though, you could just cut a hole, remove the plastic, and then replace the mesh. Youd have to do some software work to ensure the camera is not picking up the heat from the mesh.
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I’ve gotten down air frying my frozen microwave breakfast sandwiches down to a science. They never felt right in the microwave no matter what I tried.
- Preheat to 350° F, set to 6 minutes, turn on turn reminder.
- Separate the bun, sausage, egg, and cheese while you wait for pre heat to be done. Set then in the fridge.
- Once preheated, put the sausage on a bun and egg on a bun in the basket and put it in the air fryer. Leave the cheese in the fridge for now.
- After 3 minutes the turn reminder will go off. The sausage and egg are cool enough to touch base handed still. Flip the sausage. Flip the egg too, but put the cheese under the egg as well.
- When it’s done it’s hotter so you might need to use something to grab it instead of using a your bare hands.
Perfection.
When I’ve tried just nuking it in full for X seconds in the microwave there is always something frozen in the middle.
Double time, half power. Everything just tastes better, it’s heated more evenly and less dried out/mushy
The amazing thing is I can’t get people to try it… Every time I mention it people look at me like I’m crazy to suggest they wait an extra 3 minutes for their food
80% of people probably have no idea that microwaves have power settings
.00001% - twice as long at half power, oh look the centre isn’t still frozen
Cheap microwaves have hot spots instead of even distribution of the microwaves inside the chamber. They use turntables to mask this issue, but the best option is to buy a high end microwave with even distribution. They will heat the food more evenly, and the lack of a turntable makes cleaning much easier
So based.
My microwave sucks in that the “one touch start” feature always uses full power. To microwave on 50% power, you have to first touch set timer. Then input the time in full. Then touch power. Then input 5. Then press start.
To work around this I made one of the programmable functions microwave at 50% for one minute. There is a handy +30s so I can just press that button if I need to extend it.
Too complicated. Put it on the never buy again list.
Yep ,90 secs at 100% does it for most things in mine
I don’t use the microwave that often, but doesn’t that result in explosion all the time?
And don’t we use Watt for that instead of percent?
Mine is only 1000w so I dunno if things pop in higher powered ones. Only things that rupture at 90 secs in mine are cheap chicken franks
Rice starts popping after 5 seconds on 850W in my microwave.
Hmm. Maybe there is a frequency variation between machines. Mine is barely warm at 1 minute
I am in Germany, maybe ours work differently. :)
Yes.
See this comment by me: https://feddit.org/comment/3984361
Neither. I’m 2m30s or 80% for reheating a meal.
Same. Calm, long heating for the most even results. When you know what makes microwaves work, it just makes sense. But it all depends on what type of results you’re looking to get, and what type of thing you’re heating. 🤷♂️
Never over 50% power. I’m always shocked by how many people don’t know how to use a microwave. I usually worked a long time on my food, I don’t want to ruin it through lazy reheating.
Full 900w every time, because that’s what the package asks for. Except when it asks for 1000w.
What do you mean, never? Do you never heat water, coffee, tea, …? Or just larger quantities where more power is no problem even for longer durations? This is not a fundamental thing, the optimum is different not just based on type, amount and distribution of food, additionally things like time constraints, container or cleaning matter.
Never for reheating leftovers, anyway, which is 99% of what I use a microwave for. I have a kettle for other stuff. Overly high heat is gonna turn your proteins into rubber and exaggerate the “flaming hot on the outside, still cold in the middle” effect. There’s also lots of other stuff like arranging things to avoid dead spots, making use of coverings to trap steam, not throwing your vegetables that will take a minute to warm up in at the beginning with the big hunk of pasta that’s gonna need several minutes to heat through, etc.
But yeah if you’re reheating your food on >50% power you are almost definitely making it turn out worse than it would be on lower power.
How does heat turn things into rubber? The meat I reheat was already cooked? Or am I always too gentle to experience that? I usually do not heat up to boiling hot since I want to eat it and not have to let it cool down first.
Again, your generalization does not make sense. 50 % of a 1000 Watts microwave is different to one with 600 Watts. Heating up a bit of leftover is different to something for multiple persons. Etc. etc.
The difference in heating is negligible, but the time saved sure isn’t. Always at 100%
That is why I do most reheating on the stove, in the oven or on the contact grill (depends on what it is).
Obviously not always an option to use an oven/stove if you are e.g. bringing a packed lunch into a typical office. It’s certainly a better option for some things (you will never get “crispy” from a microwave, period) but microwave still produces acceptable results for many things, particularly if you are willing to put some thought and care into how you use it.
Only time I use the power level selector is for poached eggs. If I’m reheating something where I actually care about how it turns out I’ll usually use the oven 😂
I don’t use the microwave. Also I didn’t know there were different heat settings.
The power setting makes the microwave cycle between ON and OFF at the given ratio. So at 50% power the microwave will only be heating for half of the cook time.
Modern LG microwaves have a variable power inverter so it’s not PWM. I would imagine they’re not the only ones.
Best my microwave can do is 650 W, 800 W, 1000 W?
Nope, pretty much all have a duty cycle. Like 30 seconds on, 10 seconds off, and they keep repeating that or similar for however long the cook time is. If you listen closely you can hear the magnetron kick on and off.
I believe Panasonic was the only company that sold an inverter microwave that lowered the power output.
LG makes inverter microwaves.
Okay, but I can’t set any percentage. I can set watts and a time.
Oh that’s cool. I’ve never seen one where you can set the wattage. Mine does duty time as well for power level which is also how my electric range heating elements work.
Every microwave I’ve ever seen was like this.
Is this some EU vs US thing?
I’m in Australia, generally, we have cooking instructions and microwaves that talk about wattage and time. Never duty cycle.
Eg a sauce packet says 600w 30sec. Press power button until 600w and put it in 30 seconds.
I know there’s duty cycles, you can hear them. I don’t know if that’s how it’s converted as a fraction of the 1500 watt maximum (40% duty cycle = 600w) but you hear it turn on and off most on the defrosting preconfigured buttons.
Either way, I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s all just the same underneath with regional translations.
This is more interesting than I would’ve thought. I’m also sick right now so I may not be of entirely sound mind.
This is what I recognise as a standard Mikrowelle control panel like I’ve been using all my life:
You punch in a wattage, turn the knob to set the time, and then you press start. Older models would have a knob for setting watts too. Note the lack of a “popcorn” button.
And this seems to be the standard when I ask Duckduckgo for “microwave”:
Wot?
It might be, where I live in the US all microwaves with a power setting ask you to set the power from 1-10 (implied to be percentages/10) with no hint as to the wattage except the label so you have to hunt for it.
Same
When reheating food on a plate, I just put protein first for 30-60s, then add carbs (rice, pasta, or potato) and heat it all together for more 30-60s or until it’s steaming. Always full power.
