Correct me if I got anything wrong, TA!
this post was submitted on 24 Oct 2023
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There is a random phenomina called "bumping" that occurs with heated up fluids in any form of smooth/glass container.
As you heat up the fluid, it can actually not go through its phase change to gas if it doesnt have a catalyst point to start off of. If the container is too smooth, it doesnt turn into a gas (yet)
When you introduce any kind of rough material or expose it to moving air, or literally just agitate it a bit... like say dip a spoon in, or shake it a bit, or stir it, or your hand isnt steady, suddenly a lot of the fluid, all at once, turns to a gas as it is in an unstable state.
What happens is very abruptly all the force of the boiling water happens very suddenly all at once, and the water explodes. Typically if its pretty hot this shatters the container, blows the water all over the place, and it's all boiling hot and can cause first and second degree burns.
Its a common problem, if you google it you can find videos of people demo'ing the phenomina.
If you have ever seen those videos where a water bottle is carefully "frozen" but still liquid, and the person smacks it and the entire thing very suddenly freezes all at once, its the exact same effect but instead of all of it freezing at once, all of it boils at once.
Mythbusters did an episode on this one and was able to very reliably reproduce the effect.
The phenomenon doesn't sound "random" as it can be predictably mitigated, it might involve randomness on the micro level but not the macro.
You're also describing heating water far over the boiling point. It takes as much energy to vaporize about half of a cup of water as it does just to heat four cups of water from room temperature to boiling point. Just don't do that, don't put the water in for much longer than it needs to be. In fact there is no reason to bring the water to boiling temperature, it will be perfectly good for steeping tea or coffee at just below boiling temp. Still concerned? Put the spoon you are going to use to stir the tea in the measuring cup. Heat on a lower power level for longer.
I don't take any of these precautions though. I know how long it takes to heat water. Your first time using a specific microwave you could use a thermometer and heat in half minute increments, that way you know exactly how long it will take in the future because the appliance is predictable, especially for heating straight water.
Regardless of safety it just makes sense from an environmental perspective to not heat water for longer than it takes to get to the temp you need it to be at.
You are now recommending the act of putting a metal object in a microwave as a solution to how already dangerous it can be to microwave water in a glass.
You are actively spreading dangerous disinformation that could cause a person serious harm. Stop that, bad internet stranger, bad.
Metal was your assumption. But also metal objects can be safe in a microwave. A metal spoon it is an optimal reflector of microwaves but in this case it is surrounded by water which is an optimal absorber. It's dangerous to heat metal by itself but that is a moot point because it is also dangerous to microwave nothing at all..
I'm not spreading dangerous information, you are assuming dangerous operation. Cooking can be dangerous. But you are doing something akin to telling someone not to cook with oil because it can splatter and cause terrible burns, rather than informing them on safety precautions when cooking with oil. Rather than fear mongering about superheated fluids being an inevitability, you could tell someone to avoid superheating fluids, the simplest way being not overcooking. Which is very easy to do with a microwave because they are predictable and shut off on their own.