Microwave oven for warming plates?

Aliktren · 14 March 2008 at 3:33PM

yep, a little water is better, the plates get far warmer that way

isofa · 14 March 2008 at 3:45PM

A google, as usual, finds plenty of advice, and most concur you shouldn't do this. This post below is a good example of advice, giving more detail about the magnetron damage which I mentioned earlier. Taken from: http://howthingswork.virginia.edu/page1.php?QNum=1524

Can I warm plates in my microwave oven? — AC

Yes, but it's not a good idea. Depending on the type of plate, you can either damage your microwave oven or damage the plate.

If a plate is "microwave safe," it will barely absorb the microwaves and heat extremely slowly. In effect, the microwave oven will be operating empty and the electromagnetic fields inside it will build up to extremely high levels. Since the walls of the oven are mirrorlike and the plate is almost perfectly transparent to microwaves, the electromagnetic waves streaming out of the oven's magnetron tube bounce around endlessly inside the oven's cooking chamber. The resulting intense fields can produce various types of electric breakdown along the walls of the cooking chamber and thereby damage the surface with burns or arcs. Furthermore, the intense microwaves in the cooking chamber will reflect back into the magnetron and can upset its internal oscillations so that it doesn't function properly. Although magnetrons are astonishingly robust and long-lived, they don't appreciate having to reabsorb their own emitted microwaves. In short, your plates will heat up slowly and you'll be aging your microwave oven in the process. You could wet the plates before putting them in the microwave oven to speed the heating and decrease the wear-and-tear on the magnetron, but then you'd have to dry the plates before use.

If a plate isn't "microwave safe," then it will absorb microwaves and heat relatively quickly. If it absorbs the microwaves uniformly and well, then you can probably warm it to the desired temperature without any problems as long as you know exactly how many seconds it takes and adjust for the total number of plates you're warming. If you heat a plate too long, bad things will happen. It may only amount to burning your fingers, but some plates can't take high temperatures without melting, cracking, or popping. Unglazed ceramics that have soaked up lots of water will heat rapidly because water absorbs microwaves strongly. Water trapped in pores in such ceramics can transform into high-pressure steam, a result that doesn't seem safe to me. And if a plate absorbs microwaves nonuniformly, then you'll get hotspots or burned spots on the plate. Metalized decorations on a plate will simply burn up and blacken the plate. Cracks that contain water will overheat and the resulting thermal stresses will extend the cracks further. So this type of heating can be stressful to the plates.

totalsolutions · 14 March 2008 at 4:12PM

So, everyone will still continue to do so because thats what they want to do and will not be told otherwise, because it works for them...D'oh

robnye · 14 March 2008 at 4:33PM

a colleague of mine many years ago, couldnt work out why his microwave kept breaking, until his then teenage son (but was much younger when they broke) admitted to using the timer switch on the microwave to time games that he and his friends where playing...... and used th 'bing' at the end as the final whistle

vyseyboy · 14 March 2008 at 4:43PM

+1 Vernall

A small cup of water in the microwave when it's nearly empty or heating something small/with little water stops resonance getting out of hand, and wrecking the magnetron.

maryfrench · 14 March 2008 at 6:49PM

I've been warming my plates in the microwave for years and years.

isofa · 14 March 2008 at 7:14PM

elkieluca wrote: »

I've been warming my plates in the microwave for years and years.

But that doesn't mean it's safe or sensible to do this. :rolleyes: The scientific opinion states you will slowly damage the magnetron (the large component that produces the microwave energy), so your microwave will be much more inefficient nowadays than when it was new, let alone the hidden damage to the coatings inside too.

People used to think smoking had health benefits 80 years ago...

prost · 14 March 2008 at 9:09PM

a bowl of water rather than a small amount I think. I turn my oven on for 5 minutes at 100deg C. The heat lasts. Heat for longer if you want it hotter.

Microwaves put negative magnetic energy in food. So I now use a cooker for porridge.

I live on my own & use a small cooker with 2 rings, a grill & an oven(Russell Hobbs 12667) & is a little bigger than a microwave.

Zahc · 14 March 2008 at 9:16PM

I told my Brother not to put an egg (in it's shell) in a microwave, it will explode. He didn't believe me, went ahead and did it and blew the bl**dy doors off. I, of course, got the blame for planting the seed....... kid Brothers, sheeeesh.
:rotfl:

Zahc

davethetaller · 14 March 2008 at 9:41PM

davethetaller wrote: »

I had always believed that a microwave oven should never be used empty.

(I know that there would be no good reason to do that!), but,my daughter

uses hers on the microwave cycle,for just a minute, to heat up two dinner

plates. It does an excellent job, but is it causing harm?

And here am I, thinking I would get one reply, with a yes,or a no!

Thanks to all for making it clear! lol.:T

Microwave oven for warming plates?

Comments

Categories

Get our FREE Weekly email full of deals & guides - and it’s spam-free