OT: Microwave cooking

Not as easy as that.

I depends on the oven but, with ours, I'd say 7/8.

Having said that, the times on the packets are only a guide.

on 15/09/2018, Another John supposed :

Not so simple as just double. Just microwave them, until they are both good and hot. I tend towards doing things with multiples of sessions, adding up to around the stated time, with a stir in between. Microwaves don't penetrate deeply into food, so the outer gets more heat. A rest and a stir, helps.

Cooking two of the same, as you are doing - I would cook 1 for 2.5, then 2 for 2.5, then 1 for 2.5, the 2 for 2.5 minutes. That way they both end up hot at the same time..

The more food you put in the more efficient the oven becomes. So no need to double the time, maybe allow 8 minutes.

Bill

And half way through, reverse the stacking order.

yup. But the increase in eta depends on the food quantity, and stacked food s don't get equal heating, and it changes the heat distribution. If you wan t an easy life just do each for 5 mins. If not, you're on your own - 8 mins might or might not be a fair starting point.

NT

Must admit I don't bother. We often cook two meals in a stack. Seems to work OK.

Sometimes when we cook in the motorhome we start the micro and let it cook as we drive. Two stacked meals mean I have to drive gently!

Bill

That probably why my cheap tesco one toasts the inside of a roll while teh outsiode is still frozen then.

What twaddle you do spout sometimes

You get about 10mm penetration on most foods, so what are you on about exactly?

The Natural Philosopher brought next idea :

You habitually post a great deal more twaddle!

Microwaves become weaker, the greater the depth they have to penetrate

- hence the need for the average power to be reduced by on/off switching when defrosting, to allow warmth to penetrate.

Well probably something in between. Basically the energy is absorbed in the water content and this heats things up, Most microwaves have a turntable to change the position of the food as standing waves are set up in the oven and hence there are hot and cold spots corresponding to cancellation and addition of the microwave energy. This is affected by height as well as horizontal position so its really hard to tell what will happen with vertically stacked packets. You also have the fact that from what I know all microwaves do not have power levels, they just shut off the microwave generation to make the duty cycle different so some of the time there is only cooking from the heat held in the food from the last lot of energy. This is why if you are too hasty you find your food both hot and cold in different parts. The other way that this occurs is if part of the food has a higher moisture content than other parts. Brian

Most/many microwave ovens give out less heat the longer they cook so I doubt if it is less than double the time. It depends on how well the cooling of the electronics works.

Stacking them will be a problem as one of them might absorb more energy than the other. Swapping them over halfway might help.

Yes, its best to check the stuff is hot before you eat it.

He wants to insult someone so his followers think he knows his stuff. Its obvious to him that if he insults someone then everyone knows he is right.

He must have thin rolls to heat up the centre before it conducts to the outside, even if bread is a poor conductor of heat.

Its always the centre that's still frozen when I heat up a bread roll on

Can you cite and article that backs this up?

I doubt it very much but happy to be proven wrong.

My microwave has a heavy transformer and the only electronic components are a diode and a capacitor, excluding the magnetron of course.

Generally says not to stack such things. They may not heat evenly.

All do, but they're all designed to operate at full whack for 15 minutes be fore they have to go into pulsing mode to avoid overheat, so you'll seldom encounter the issue. It's a classic gotcha for folks that want to tin food in a nuke.

NT

may is meaningless waffle. Microwaves suffer from duff advice, including from manufacturers who don't want to deal with resulting claims from the uninformed or careless.

NT

snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com submitted this idea :

Like the catch all instruction - don't put any metal in the compartment. You can, but you need to know what you are doing.

Generally better to be safe than sorry? Is a few minutes really that important?

I'm sure if you've done some proper tests with your individual appliance, you might well be OK piling stuff up. Hardly rocket science - are both piping hot all the way through?