Literal child minded people.
You are using an incredible machine. Press more buttons other then +30+30+30+30start
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.
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.
That’s because we use them for a) melting butter or b) heating soup
They’re fucking awful for cooking
Chef Mike has his place. You just have to know what his strengths and weaknesses are. And not have a cheap ass piece of shit one, like most things, cheap usually means shit.
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
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.
The reason there’s tons of buttons and settings is because it looks better on the showroom floor, especially when sitting next to other microwaves. Same goes for just about every appliance: They’re not made to work particularly well or last long, just look better than the other guy in a big-box store.
The fact that I can’t test drive an appliance before buying it is very frustrating.
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?
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?
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
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.
Surely the microwave manufacturer is to blame?
Why should the popcorn manufacturer have to inform the user about a feature of someone elses product?
