That's true for many microwave ovens, in that they cycle their "full power" on and off, so that a "half power" setting means "on" ten seconds, "off" for ten.
But, and this is a BIG BUT, quite a few, even at the modest priced consumer level, do, in fact, reduce the microwave output.
For example,
Then I just use less cooking time. Full power will defrost to room temperature much faster than that pointless defrost mode. And if you're about to say it won't be even, so what? If it's for part of preparation of something else, it has plenty time to even out.
I worked for a company around 1970 that developed a few high power microwaves that were placed in area restaurants. The idea, now completely familiar, was the restaurant could prepare quantities of food, freeze them, and thaw on demand. Other companies had similar industrial ovens.
The core business of the company was industrial plastics preheaters which functioned at around 100 MHz rather than microwave frequencies. They completely missed the consumer microwave market that was to grow in the later '70s.
We always had a couple of the smaller preheaters hanging around engineering. They did wonders for stale donuts. Even the factory workers in the molding plants caught on. 'I bet if that thing can heat a phenolic biscuit to 300 degrees it would work on my sandwich.' We didn't explicitly mention it when installing new equipment other than vague cautions about not putting aluminum foil in the cavity. The larger models were 15 KW and could generate some Tesla quality fireworks.
As the various RF technologies like heat sealers made it to the workplace a whole folklore grew up. Working around them could either make you sterile or incredibly fertile, take your pick.
The technology has been around for over 50 years. What you find at Tesco is what sells.
I've watched countless Youtube videos of people abusing microwaves. The funniest one was a teenager who thought it would be a good idea to microwave one of those chemical lights - the ones you shake and they glow green. It exploded and got him in the eyes, followed by his father yelling "I told you not to do that!". I fell off my chair laughing.
I'm surprised people aren't going for "super fast microwave, cook your meal in 5 minutes" varieties.
Pretty much the same reason one doesn't always turn a conventional oven up to broil. 350º F. is a pretty common setting if my memory is working. T4 has a good example. It comes down to lack of demand.
Conventional ovens have to heat the food from the outside. Microwaves heat all the way through.
Well, the microwave cooking instructions on a lot of things say to stir halfway through cooking time. That would lead me to think microwaves have the same issue as conventional ovens with the evenness factor.
They heat about an inch into the food. Good enough unless it's a huge meal.
They do. Some microwaves had rotating wave guides hidden above the cooking chamber in an attempt to even things out. Haven't looked to see if they still do or just rely on the turntable, which doesn't work all that well. Suspect the density consistency and evenness of the water content of the item being cooked is the reason.
It was a question, not an answer.
Do not attempt to cook raw chicken livers in a microwave.
The preheaters were 100 MHz, not microwaves, but a fluorescent tube would light if it was in the RF cavity. This was handy so a tube was mounted in standard fuse clips which were bolted to the aluminum walls. It was amusing to watch old school plant electricians figuring out how a light with no wiring worked.
We also made use of the effect by taping a fluorescent to a broomstick and waving it around the RF cavity to see if it was leaking.
That may be another factor for high power consumer microwaves. Various government agencies get snarly if you're inadvertently running a microwave transmitter in the kitchen. More power, more shielding.
I don't eat meat, I prefer real food. Stuff that doesn't give me food poisoning if I cook it wrong.
Fluorescents are fun with Van de Graffs.
I can very easily defeat the door safety catches and leave the thing running with the door open in my garden if I wanted to piss them off.
Dean Hoffman formulated on Saturday :
I would expect the microwave energy to follow the inverse square law and the energy to rapidly drop off the deeper it has to penetrate the food, especially so if that food is a solid, with no convection currents as in a liquid. So more power, will cook the outside too quickly and leave the middle un-cooked or even cold.
Let me see: 900 / 1200 = .75. So a 900 Watt microwave has 3/4 of the power of a 1200 Watt microwave. Or looking at it the other way a 1200 Watt microwave has 1/3 more power than a 900 Watt microwave. That doesn't sound like a negligible difference. I know when I accidentally replaced my 1200 Watt unit with an 1100 Watt unit I noticed the difference. (I didn't look closely enough when I grabbed it off of the shelf.)
Bill
May I suggest /Amanita phalloides/, grilled for breakfast.
Not available in Tesco, with or without your strange / signs.
They do not trust you poms, most of our small domestic microwaves are
1000,to 1200 watts
Because that is not defrosting it is cooking, Not remotely like defrosting, methinks thou art a dill.
But the difference in temp between the outside and the inside of the food would be greater and this could result in food that was both over- and under-cooked. This is why microwave ovens have low settings, so food can cook slowly and evenly. Anyone who uses a microwave a lot will be well aware of this. For items where convection can assist conduction higher power can be fine, but not for large solid lumps of food.
Bill
They are used judiciously.
Bill
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