Odd Microwave issue

[Rick Hughes]

Every morning I make myself a Latte coffee, taking milk from the fridge, put it in mug and heat in Microwave for 1 minute ... just to take fridge chill off the milk before frothing. Use the same mug every morning .. bought the thing on holiday years ago.

The milk comes up to about room temp ... mug is barley warm to touch, (conduction from milk) handle does not warm at all.

3 weeks ago reached in and picked cup off ... and the handle was so hot it gave me full thickness burns to 2 fingers .. actually burnt right into the fingers put in the handle to pick it up.

These were serious burns .... along with a few choice words.

Even several minutes later the handle was too hot to touch, you could feel heat from it more than inch away ... yet milk and rest of mug were normal luke warm temp.

I have since used same mug at least 20 times .. and it is back to normal.

# Why would handle only get so hot (way over 100 degrees C)

# Why only the once

# a mate commented that the reason was the handle had touched the sides of microwave (unknown) ... but how would that make a difference.

[Lino expert]

A film of something on the handle? (Maybe washing up liquid, milk - something that would evaporate off after getting to a high temp in the microwave).

[Peter Scott]

Any cracks in the handle or holes needed when the cup was fired? Water might have got in and boiled.

Peter Scott

[Vortex7]

I agree. Somehow water has soaked in to the ceramic within the handle. Is it cracked?

D

[fred]

In article , Rick Hughes writes

I'm no expert but you may have been the victim of localised superheating within the contents, near the handle.

Googling for microwave oven "localised" super heating brings up quite a few hits that may help.

Googling for "skin depth" in relation to microwaves might help more but nothing near the top of my quick search was helpful.

It's also possible that your microwave just started working properly after all these years, a half cup of milk in mine is toasty after just

30s (900W :-).

[Graham.]

it in mug and heat in Microwave for 1 minute ... just

(conduction from milk) handle does not warm at all.

gave me full thickness burns to 2 fingers .. actually

heat from it more than inch away ... yet milk and rest

microwave (unknown) ... but how would that make a

Does it have a turntable, and was it working? The microwave energy in the is very uneven within the cavity and the mug handle might have been in a hot-spot.

I take it there was no gold-leaf under the glaze?

[Tanuki]

I would go with this too: I had a mug where the glaze cracked round one limb of the handle and if you left it soaking in water overnight, enough worked its way in through the crack for it to cause some significant fizzling-and-spurting of steam when next used in the microwave.

back to normal.

the sides

difference.

fired? Water

[newshound]

As I'm sure you know, some glazes get really hot, presumably because they are conductive

Are you *absolutely* sure it was the usual mug?

Damned if I know either

[Skipweasel]

I presume there's a fault in the glazing and water had seeped in. That got hot.

We had a blue much which would get very hot in the microwave - I guess it had a glaze which absorbed RF.

[Osprey]

[e-mail]...

, put it in mug and heat inMicrowavefor 1 minute ... just

conduction from milk) handle does not warm at all.

it gave me full thickness burns to 2 fingers .. actually

eel heat from it more than inch away ... yet milk and rest

ofmicrowave(unknown) ... but how would that make a

It has a turntable ... the only guess I could come up with was that the handle had touched door or side and was not rotating .... but still at a loss why the handle would get so hot. It is just a plain handle ... ceramic , no splits .... and I still use it every day ... only happened the once. Scars still healing !

[Osprey]

100% certain .. it's my morning bucket of coffee mug ...

[<me9]

Moisture in the handle (glaze crazed and taken out of dishwasher before drying, or recently soaked) or contamination.

Cos other times it was perfectly dry and clean.

If conducting could arc across, but unlikely to be the case.

One of my pint pots has done the same very occasionally. I put it down to a porous handle.

[Tim Downie]

I would hazard a guess that you perhaps put the mug in off-centre, but with the handle dead in the centre so that whilst the mug was moving round through the microwave field, the handle as relatively stationary and consequently heated up a lot more than usual.

Easy enough to test. Let us know what happens.

Tim