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Microwave Problem

bluess

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bluess
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Oct 22, 2001
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Here's a question ...

We have plates that are microwave safe. However, they hold and conduct heat much too efficiently. As a result, everyone in my family has been burnt. The plates are not being kept in the microwave for very long - they got hot enough to cause damage after a minute.

Typing with one hand is not fun, and we also have a small person in the house. We are now transferring heated food from the original plate to a new cool plate.

What is the best type of material for the new plates? Correlle, stoneware ...? Help.

Bluess
 
bluess said:
Here's a question ...

We have plates that are microwave safe. However, they hold and conduct heat much too efficiently. As a result, everyone in my family has been burnt. The plates are not being kept in the microwave for very long - they got hot enough to cause damage after a minute.
Click to expand...

Ouch! That sounds terrible.

bluess said:
Typing with one hand is not fun, ...<snip>...
Click to expand...

I don't know, you get used to it. I have... err. I mean...

Yeah.

bluess said:
What is the best type of material for the new plates? Correlle, stoneware ...? Help.

Bluess
Click to expand...


Stoneware has worked for me. I would suggest for the little one special cookware for the microwave. IIRC there's a line for wee ones that's plastic that works well. I'll see if I can find the link.
 
My personal taste is correlle, they are durable as diamond and so convinient in size and shape. They may appear a bit too spartan for some, but I enjoy their simple colour.
 
Khalid01 said:
My personal taste is correlle, they are durable as diamond and so convinient in size and shape. They may appear a bit too spartan for some, but I enjoy their simple colour.
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Agreed, Corelle works well, and doesn't seem to heat up. However, although you can play frisbee with the plates and use the teacups to drive tent pegs, for some reason the small bowls do break more easily, I'm not sure why.

I agree with Fowlsound that it might be worth considering getting a special plastic setting for the kid, but with the caution that some kids get very attached, even a little obsessive, about their special stuff. If your kid is like that, you might want just to stick with the Corelle, or else you'll be in trouble when the pet plate cracks or the kid comes out for a drink and the one and only mug is in the dishwasher, etc.
 
You folks are the best. Looking forward to the link, Fowlsound.

Blue2 and I spent a hysterical evening NOT buying dishes off the web. Nothing beats the peals of laughter from a small person.
 
bluess said:
You folks are the best. Looking forward to the link, Fowlsound.

Blue2 and I spent a hysterical evening NOT buying dishes off the web. Nothing beats the peals of laughter from a small person.
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Ok I can't find the exact page tupperware used to have, but they have a line called "Heat N Serve" that is really good for not being too hot out of the microwave. I wuold sugegst that, and also poke around at the kids stuff on there, as there may be more specific products for you to get in terms of the little one and microwaved food.
 
bluess- they hold and conduct heat well. On the face of it, that seems improbable, as they combine the properties of conductors and insulators.

What are these made of? Are they possibly some sort of ceramic with a thin metallic coating? What happens if you put one in the microwave for say thirty seconds with no food on it at all? Does it still get hot?

It seems to me that a ceramic should not respond to microwave radiation by heating up. The heat in the plate is coming, by conduction, from the food which has responded by getting hot.

I would suspect you are just leaving your food too long in the microwave, but as you say not I wonder if maybe you have a commercial 1000W model and are using timing settings for a domestic 800W version?

Experiment and reveal all.

But get the kids some cardboard ones in the meantime. Saves washing up.

Actually- the old oven gloves might be the way to go.
 
Actually, I have something to add here.

Some of our glazed cookware and cups gets extremely hot in the microwave. I have a dark-glazed tea cup (some sort of bluish glass/ceramic, the outer serface is black). If I use it to heat water for tea, the thing will literally sear my skin upon contact. THe same thing happened with a metallic-glazed coffee mug I had (that one, though, was more obvious).

Now, none of these were specifically labelled microwave safe, but it may be an area to look into. Microwaves are known to cause some electircal type phenomena, which might be responsible for some heating...but I'd think this would be only for specific pieces of cookware, not in general.
 
Soapy Sam said:
It seems to me that a ceramic should not respond to microwave radiation by heating up.
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It appears that some ceramics can absorb microwave energy, but I have no idea why. Perhaps some materials contain air bubbles that can heat up?

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Q: While my new dishes don't have a manufacturer's warning against use in a microwave oven, I don't want to risk damaging them. How do I know they are safe to use in the microwave?

A: Try the dish test. Place the dish and a cup of water next to each other in the microwave oven and microwave on high for one minute. If the dish is warm and the water cool, the dish is absorbing microwave energy and should not be used in the microwave oven.
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Microwave ovens are tuned to heat the water in food. Therefore any material with a high water content will absorb microwave radiation and heat up. I suspect that plates which become hot may have some water locked into their molecular/crystaline structures and materials which do not become hot do not have much water locked into their structure.
 
Soapy - as you can see, this is not my strong suit. We've recently switched microwaves, but had the same problem with the ancient one that was replaced. (How ancient? The 70s, that's how ancient.) It takes appx 1.5 minutes to heat a cup of refrigerated soy milk to hot drink temperature. The set of mugs that came with the dinnerware cannot to be touched. Other mugs (the usual miscellany that any household collects) are fine. This leads me to believe that it is the particular materials that are the problem.

Huntsman, you may be onto something. Unlike the other stoneware plates we used to have, these have a shiny glaze on them. The non-shiny mugs do not heat up.

Looks like we'll be making a trip to the store to find Correlle or plain stoneware.

Thanks everyone!
 
patnray said:
Microwave ovens are tuned to heat the water in food. Therefore any material with a high water content will absorb microwave radiation and heat up.
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Your first statement is false, yet your second is true. The reason microwaves work better on water than other substances is not the MYTH (false!) that they are "tuned" to the frequency of water. Most microwaves are in the 2.4Ghz range, and the resonant frequency of water is on the order of 10x that number. The reason that microwaves work so much better on water than other substances is that water is an excellent dipole(*), which is what a microwave actually is affecting. That water is one of the stronger dipoles is a happy coincidence.

I suspect that plates which become hot may have some water locked into their molecular/crystaline structures and materials which do not become hot do not have much water locked into their structure.
Click to expand...

While that makes sense to a layman, anyone who's worked with ceramics can assure you that all water is removed during the kiln firing.

(* -- has a? I'm no physicist)
 
We have a glazed ceramic mug that worked just fine in the microwave for years and years. Then the glaze developed some small -- just barely visible -- cracks at the base of the handle.
Now we can't use it in the microwave because the handle gets incredibly hot. Second degree burn hot. It's fine, otherwise.
 
These little buggers also say they are both microwave and dishwasher safe. I guess the manufacturer meant they wouldn't explode in the microwave.
 
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