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.
There's been a lot of nitpicking in this thread.
All microwaves reduce power by cycling between 0 and 100% power. The relative power level is the duty factor of that on/off cycle.
Older microwaves switch the INPUT to the power transformer. That also runs the filament. The time to heat up the filament is the limiting factor in how short you can make the on-time. You get a minimum of about 10 seconds on-time. That minimum time is plenty to make food explode.
Better microwaves are called "Inverter" microwaves. I believe they're all licensed from Panasonic. When I bought mine, it seemed that all the licensees had dried up leaving Panasonic as the only locally available units.
It's my understanding that they heat the filament independently and can have very short on-times. Duty factor is the same as the older microwaves, but the on-time can be much shorter.
Foods don't explode on low power like they used to.
Food is not uniform. The effectiveness of microwaves decreases as the food thickness increases. There's a thermal time constant. So, if you cook at lower average power for longer time, you can warm the inside without seriously overcooking the outside or having local boiling that makes food explode.
The minimum on-time really helps with that. I haven't had food explode since I got an Inverter microwave. The defrost cycle really does work well.
They're slightly more expensive, but it's worth it.
I've never exploded food on a non-invertor microwave. Maybe I don't cook thick enough stuff. Or maybe they should work more on making the microwaves more even so you don't get so many hotspots.
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.
Boring
Try microwaving an egg in its shell sometime.
Yep, you vegys don't.
That's not the problem. The problem is that with something large like a leg of lamb, the microwaves get absorbed on the outside so that if you blast it with full power of say 2KW you will burn the outside and leave the inside uncooked.
People are free to microwave at a lower power if they wish Rod. Nothing wrong with increasing the maximum available Mr Speed.
We eat real food Rod, not pre-prepared stuff already digested Mr Speed. I guess this is why my cats shit so much, because there's so little nutrition in meat that they have to eat so much of it.
Not everything in a microwave is large Rod. You're always free to select a different output level for larger pieces of meat Mr Speed.
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
As a rule of thumb, I prefer doubling the power/speed/etc. If I'm going to upgrade my computer's CPU, hard disk, etc, I get one that's twice as good. Less than double just ain't impressive. Same goes for cars, a 2 litre engine is more fun than a 1 litre engine, but adding one third? Why bother? 1.0 litre, 1.3 litre, they're both shit.
And whoever keeps deleting the crossposts, fix your newsreader.
May I suggest /Amanita phalloides/, grilled for breakfast.
But not in big enough chunks to see the effect being discussed.
Guess again. When humans eat nothing but meat and some do that, they shit rather less than if the only eat vegys, much of which doesn't get digested.
But that's the stuff that wouldn't do as well in a 2KW microwave, stupid.
Says the pathetic excuse for a troll that had previously proclaimed that there is never any need to have anything less than full power.
Not available in Tesco, with or without your strange / signs.
Fuck off Rod.
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.
Why do you persist in posting waffle about which you know absolutely nothing, twould be better to post on subjects you know or ask and educate yourself about the other
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
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