I had no idea I could.

[opabinia]

I just exploded a stick of butter in the microwave. I mean, like,

BOOM!

and now the whole inside of the microwave is yellow.

Comments

[bottleimp.livejournal.com]

Chisel once put a bag of microwave popcorn in the oven and set it for EIGHT MINUTES.

And then FORGOT IT.

That turned the inside of our oven brown.

[lepidosiren.livejournal.com]

sephardic frequently carbonized popcorn in the microwave because she didn't trust the "Popcorn" button.

[sephardic.livejournal.com]

oh no you didn't

OH NO YOU DID NOT JUST GO THERE

*okey now i'm gonna explode more butter - and this time YOU will get to clean it

[lepidosiren.livejournal.com]

Aw, baby, don't be like that. I made you us pork chops and beer bread!

[sephardic.livejournal.com]

mmmm. meat and bread did make things better.

for the record, i still have no idea how the 'popcorn' button works.

[rapha.livejournal.com]

That's a neat trick.

[iscari0t.livejournal.com]

What did you set it for? I wanna try it.

[lepidosiren.livejournal.com]

The oven was set on High for one minute to melt one entire stick of butter in a small bowl. I intended to interrupt the irradiation partway through the phase change. (I've performed this operation with success in the past.) I believe steam formed between the melting butter-stick and the bowl's surface, and the bubble could not escape fast enough to prevent superheating and exploding.

[iscari0t.livejournal.com]

So just

Step 1: place entire stick of butter in small bowl

Step 2: place bowl, with butter, inside standard microwave oven

Step 3: heat on High for 1 minute

Step 4: ???

Step 5: profit


???

[lepidosiren.livejournal.com]

Almost exactly.

Step 3 is misleading: The butter did not require an entire minute to explode.
Step 4 is dead accurate: You may or may not duplicate my latest results.
Step 5 appears subjective and ambiguous, so it might make your paper difficult to publish.

[sparkgrrl658.livejournal.com]

yeah, most of the time the butter just melts, true (boring) story.

[bottleimp.livejournal.com]

Next up: an egg!

Boiled or not. No, really. It doesn't matter.

[tygerwillow.livejournal.com]

i microwave butter all the time for bread recipes. and exploding happens frequently and sucks. the best way i've found to get around it is to melt it in 20- to 30-second increments, then let it sit for a minute or two before zapping again.

[latemodel.livejournal.com]

My theory is that the shape of the butter stick focuses the microwaves into the center of the stick, liquefying the middle while the outside stays solid.

No, not really.

[industrialsteve.livejournal.com]

next try a cd for about 10 seconds :) shiny side up of course.

send an email to mythbusters see if they can tell you why.