Re: Cooking Beans in the Microwave Oven

I like to cook beans (bought dried) in a pottery bowl without

> a lid in my microwave oven
>
> So far, I have destroyed two microwave ovens by this habit.
>
> The beans did not get really soft in the /first/ microwave oven,
> so I tried to cook them for hours with maximum energy (adding water
> from time to time) once to see if this makes them softer, and then
> the oven stopped working with the beans still not being really soft. >
> When I cooked beans in the /next/ microwave oven, a lot of
> water ended on it's floor; it did not ventilate enough air
> around to stay dry inside. The water also seems to have gotten
> inside of that oven and then this oven failed too (too much
> water where no water should ever be).
>
> Now I have a /new microwave oven/, and I just tried to cook
> beans in my pottery bowl with no lid, and they got /very soft/
> within just about 90 minutes of cooking! (And the new oven also
> stayed dry inside.) (It might be possible to further reduce the
> time below 90 minutes the next time.)
>
> How's that possible? I got my theory:
>
> The natural way to cook beans with pot on a stove top involves
> heating the water /from below/ causing the water to boil rollingly.
> Without this rolling boil, the beans may not get enough heat. >
> My new microwave oven has /two magnetrons/, and one of them
> is /near the floor/. I did not buy it because of this; I only
> learned of this feature after having started to use it.
>
> I suspect that the bottom magnetron helps to heat the water at
> the /bottom/ of my bowl causing a more natural rolling boil.
>
> So by pure luck, I might have bought just one of the few
> microwave ovens that has the right construction for my
> unreasonable kind of cooking . . .
>
>

I had no idea!