• BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    38
    ·
    13 hours ago

    Every microwave I’ve ever had has lots of buttons for all sorts of things, but I have no idea what they do. All I’ve ever done is put stuff in and run it at full blast.

    • Random Dent@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      13
      ·
      10 hours ago

      I don’t even know what blast my microwave is at. I just put stuff in it, run for 45 seconds, if it’s not hot when it comes out = another 45 seconds. Repeat until food

    • vinyl@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      18
      ·
      13 hours ago

      My friend usually cooked stuff in the microwave at lower power with longer times and had better results but I just dont care enough

      • Honytawk@feddit.nl
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        7 hours ago

        You could just not put the food in the middle of the turntable and you would get equally good results.

      • hereiamagain@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        26
        ·
        12 hours ago

        I got a new fancy inverter microwave, and it’s an absolute game changer, for reheating.

        Running a traditional microwave, lower power modes are literally just lower duty cycles. Very coarse, too.

        30% power is something like “turn on high power for 3 seconds, turn off power for 7 seconds, repeat”

        Which means your good gets blasted at 1200w for 3 seconds, and then is given time to rest for 7 seconds, before starting over again.

        This is bad for things like fats and oils in food, which tends to heat up REALLY fast, and start splattering/burning the parts of the food they’re in.

        It works but could be better, smoother.

        Enter the inverter microwave. It can adjust the actual power output of the magnetron itself. So when you tell it 30% power, it will run the whole 10 seconds without cycling on and off, but it’s literally only putting out 30% of the normal full power.

        This is much more gentle on delicate foods.

        Caveat, at powers below 30% it starts to duty cycle again, I imagine because the magnetron can only operate so low before it can’t run normally.

        But still, pulsing a 30% powered magnetron on and off is a lot more gentle than a 100% powered one.

        This has made reheating leftovers much better.

        Instead of blasting it at full power, then stirring/mixing the food, and blasting it again.

        I just set it at 10 or 20%, take a quick shower, and come out to perfectly evenly reheated food. Takes 10 or 20 minutes instead of 5, but, way less work, and much better results. Win win.

    • Randelung@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      6
      ·
      13 hours ago

      Same with my washing machine. Delicates, wool, underwear, shirts, it’s all 1:10h and 40°C by default.