The microwave that came with my house is the first time I’ve ever had a microwave that had perfectly working popcorn setting. It has never burnt a bag of microwave popcorn.
Yes, I do, however it is not perfect. Microwave popcorn is more art than science and it takes years of experience to know when to stop the cycle. Too short and you’re left with a plethora of unpopped kernels. Too long and it burns.
I use the popcorn butter.
Unfortunately my fiancée does not like pocorn
My wife prefers the popcorn button and I prefer to mash +30secs. You have to hit the popcorn button three times to get the right setting, but then they’re both cooking for two minutes.
She gets there in four presses and it takes me five, but +30s is right next to Start so I’m not sure one is better than the other. I guess she’s causing less wear on the button
Don’t buy a microwave with just a dial. My last one had an actual keypad of buttons, I could just press 2 + Start and it was wonderful. Nowadays I have to scroll over hells creation to get the right setting, or change the clock, and it’s awful
The only preset button I use is the +30Seconds button, the rest are useless to me.
You don’t use the baby or snake presets?
Try the numbers if you have them. I recently discovered that hitting 2 instantly starts 2 minutes then +30 saves me having to press +30 five times for the equivalent.
I was starting to worry about how much abuse my +30 button could take.
4 times.
4 times extra but five times total to reach the equivalent.
Edit: just to be extra clear in the comment I’d be getting 2:30 with just one press of the +30 button
To make popcorn I push the 30 button 3 times, done.
You should check out this video, it’s very eye-opening when it comes to how microwaves work (only linking to YouTube because I couldn’t find a decent Invidious source): https://youtube.com/watch?v=UiS27feX8o0
It depends on your model of microwave.
Personally, my wife and I intentionally deprived ourselves of a microwave in the house because we recognized that it makes us more prone to heavily processed foods (we’re not crazy “5G/microwaves give you cancer”people or whatever). We just recognized that we like eating whole foods and having one on hand makes it tempting to start buying a lot of garbage foods.
I hoped for the link ;D
Exactly my feelings. Yes, you can quickly blitz veges in a microwave, but it’s just as easy to pop in a plastic pack of lasagne. And from-scratch meals taste so much better.
Funny you should say that about whole foods. I only use my microwave to cook (steam) fresh or frozen vegetables (not in a plastic bag), and to reheat meals I cooked myself. I never buy microwave foods because they always come out nasty, cook unevenly, taste horrible, and the box is 10 times the size of the contents. I do sometimes pop popcorn in the microwave, but I use a paper lunch bag and regular popcorn. WARNING: NEVER walk away if you use this method, it will start on fire if you don’t watch it.
Yeah, I’m not 100% “microwaves are bad.” I actually miss it sometimes because it was easier to make breakfast burritos in bulk then reheat them in the microwave.
But yeah, microwaveable dinners and the like are pretty gross.
I don’t have a microwave oven.
There are many buttons on my microwave. I have paid no attention to any of them but I know hitting the one at the bottom-right makes numbers go up by 30s per boop, while food go warm.
My microwave popcorn recipe is:
- Put in
- Boop liberally so you know it’s over 5 mins, probably 4–5 days
- When popcorn pops average about one every 3s, start counting to five
- If you reach five, serve
That’s an ominous “if”…
I see we share the same brain cell.
There’s two popcorn buttons. One setting is just an average of time to pop the standard popcorn bag.
The other is a humidity sensor that stops the microwave once it senses a whiff of steam from the bag.
Great video on it below.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Limpr1L8Pss
If someone has a non YouTube link I’ll edit my comment to post that one.
Technology Connections is the best. I was hoping to see this video here.
Mine has only 1 button, to open the door.
And I like it this way.
So, it turns on automatically when you close it? Should be a switch somewhere as well
These are 2 turning knobs. One for the strength (nearly always full on), one for the time.
[My microwave is] full of esoteric lights and dials and meters that I would never understand.
The microwave that came with my house
This is probably the reason why your popcorn button actually works. If your home already has a built-in microwave, it’s likely a higher quality one than what you could pick up from the hardware store. Most consumer-grade microwaves, regardless of the brand or model, are all identical, as they all use components sourced from one single manufacturer that makes one single version of them. The only thing that’s different is the plastic shell they put it all in and the logo they slap on the front, but the important things like the magnetron and control boards are all the exact same hardware.
But the microwaves that are usually built-into the home? Those are the good ones. Those are the ones where the builder spent some good money, because it was included in the design spec to begin with. Care went into the selection of that microwave. That microwave is more likely to have the moisture sensors needed to actually have functioning popcorn, reheat, and defrost settings that do more than just assume an appropriate time/power setting.
Having a proper microwave is a totally different experience. I had one at an old apartment of mine that was amazing. It had a button that just said “Reheat”, and required zero other inputs from me. I could put my food in, regardless of what kind of food it is or what quantity I was making, and press the Reheat button once, and it would bring it to the perfect temperature, hot all the way through. I wish I could’ve taken it with me when I moved out.
No. I buy kernals dirt cheap and make it on the stove with ghee
I eat popcorn with glee
Same, stopped doing microwave stuff years ago, it’s really easy in the stove and you can completely control the amount of salt/butter or whatever flavour you like.
I use peanut oil and often nothing else.
If you read the manual for your microwave you’ll learn a lot about what it is capable of. My Panasonic microwave not only has a sensor cook mode for popcorn, but you can specify the weight of the bag and you can even add or subtract 10-30 seconds to dial it in prior to starting.
I recommend microwaves that have inverters in them, as well as moisture sensors.
The rare time I make microwave popcorn, I just hit the 3 for 3 minutes on high and then listen for the popping to have ~2 seconds between them and pull it out. Never had issues with this in every microwave I’ve used this for.
