But I constantly hear some bullshit myths about it, too. Like superheating water so it boils over when you grab the cup. If you’ve ever seen this happen IRL, you know it doesn’t boil so violently it splashes outside of the container. It’s also incredibly easy to prevent by just using a toothpick or putting something in the water so it has nucleation points.
Superheating water can absolutely fuck you up. Steam is like 700 times less dense than water so what happens is a steam bubble forms inside the superheated water at a nucleation point and explodes the water out of the cup. It might not splash out every time but it happens often enough to make superheating water extremely dangerous.
The first time I heard about superheating in the microwave was in the mid 80’s.
We tried (as dumbass kids do) to try to do it. Repeatedly.
It takes a pristine container and a lot of heating.
Distilled water works best, because it lacks minerals (fewer nucleation sites).
The risk is waaaay overblown. I boil water in the microwave almost every day, and haven’t superheated it since trying to do it back in the 80’s.
Edit: Quote from an article I once found discussing the risk
The prominence of the warning is disproportionate to the documented injury frequency, even though the underlying physics is sound.
Microwaves have been commonplace for 50 years now. How many people boil how many millions of cups of water, per day, in a single US state. If it were a commonplace occurrence, or even not-so-commonplace, we’d have plenty of records of it all the time.
It takes a narrow set of conditions to produce, so it happens even less than “rarely”.
The easiest way to get it to happen is using distilled water that you let sit in a cup overnight in the microwave. That gives the cup time to off gas the O2 that is diffused in the water. You don’t even really need distilled water in that case.
The big problem people had was leaving their cup of water for morning tea in the microwave overnight. This led to degassed water in the morning more likely leading to a superheated scalding when you put the teabag in. Once more people were aware of this problem it became less likely to happen.
I have for sure experienced the explosive boiling over of superheated water, but like a couple times in my life and I’m an old guy. It’s crazy when it happens though. The water looks like it didn’t get to the boiling point, but when you disturb it, it starts insanely boiling over. Got boiling water on my hand, but not badly burned.
I use my microwave for so much more shit.
But I constantly hear some bullshit myths about it, too. Like superheating water so it boils over when you grab the cup. If you’ve ever seen this happen IRL, you know it doesn’t boil so violently it splashes outside of the container. It’s also incredibly easy to prevent by just using a toothpick or putting something in the water so it has nucleation points.
Superheating water can absolutely fuck you up. Steam is like 700 times less dense than water so what happens is a steam bubble forms inside the superheated water at a nucleation point and explodes the water out of the cup. It might not splash out every time but it happens often enough to make superheating water extremely dangerous.
The first time I heard about superheating in the microwave was in the mid 80’s.
We tried (as dumbass kids do) to try to do it. Repeatedly.
It takes a pristine container and a lot of heating.
Distilled water works best, because it lacks minerals (fewer nucleation sites).
The risk is waaaay overblown. I boil water in the microwave almost every day, and haven’t superheated it since trying to do it back in the 80’s.
Edit: Quote from an article I once found discussing the risk
Microwaves have been commonplace for 50 years now. How many people boil how many millions of cups of water, per day, in a single US state. If it were a commonplace occurrence, or even not-so-commonplace, we’d have plenty of records of it all the time.
It takes a narrow set of conditions to produce, so it happens even less than “rarely”.
The easiest way to get it to happen is using distilled water that you let sit in a cup overnight in the microwave. That gives the cup time to off gas the O2 that is diffused in the water. You don’t even really need distilled water in that case.
The big problem people had was leaving their cup of water for morning tea in the microwave overnight. This led to degassed water in the morning more likely leading to a superheated scalding when you put the teabag in. Once more people were aware of this problem it became less likely to happen.
I have for sure experienced the explosive boiling over of superheated water, but like a couple times in my life and I’m an old guy. It’s crazy when it happens though. The water looks like it didn’t get to the boiling point, but when you disturb it, it starts insanely boiling over. Got boiling water on my hand, but not badly burned.
Whoa, microwaved toothpick tea …