There are two things making noise in the microwave when it’s running. There’s the transformer that’s making the high voltage for the magnetron, which is you 120 Hz noise you’re hearing.
The other noisy thing in the box is the fan. The fan is most likely a three blade metal fan running on a little shaded pole induction motor. That motor is very simple, just one moving part, and two poles. Two poles at 60 Hz gives us 3,600 RPM, which the motor can’t quite reach because as the RPM gets closer to that magic number of 3,600 rpm, the motor draws lesa current and makes less power. This difference between the speed the motor is trying to run (“syncronous speed”) and the actual speed is called the “slip” and is probably around 3%-5%. This gives us a fan speed between 3400 and 3500 rpm.
I don’t know if that is giving you the second noise you’re hearing, or if it’s mixing with the transformer noise to make it. But now you’ve caused a situation where I’m going to be caught holding a guitar tuner to my microwave.
Yes, wild yeast and spontaneous fermentation are things in the beer and wine world. Yes her beer is possible. Also it will be possibly very bad. Or fine.
You could totally make a sourdough by rubbing your butt cheeks in the starter every day and I don’t think your friends would notice.
Its funny, because 200 years ago there were no commercial good products. To make beer you basically had to let it sit out for a couple days until enough wild yeast colonized your food. This is also true of kimchi, saurkraut and a bunch of other ancient foods.
There is a fan running and then the actual microwave itself. If you lower the power setting, you can hear the fan stay on consistently but hear the microwave shut off and on. If the power is at 100%, the microwave runs the entire time.
A few microwaves don’t do that because they’re able to continuously run the magnetron at less than full power by using an inverter instead of a transformer.
Do you also observe this when running the microwave on max power? Usually, when a microwave states its 800 watts but you can adjust it down, it actually only changes the duration that power is supplied. So 400 watts would be 50% of the time the power is supplied at max.
I mostly use mine for reheating stuff, but cook the occasional two minute noodles or frozen pie. Never had it be disgusting, at worst it can be cold if not done long enough. Cutting the food up and stiring it around halfway through helps.
Yup, also primarily use it for reheating food. Sometimes, when I’m lazy and just want sth to eat, I’ll make myself microwave potatoes. And I also use it to defrost frozen vegetables or fruit sometimes.
However, when I was living in a one bedroom apartment, which didn’t have an oven in the kitchen-corner, I had a microwave with integrated oven and with that I was able to bake myself anything that fits into a pizza sized round baking tray. Still love that thing. It’s a 30 y/o hand me down Siemens from my uncle that still works perfectly. It’s also rather large (about twice the size of a normal microwave) and sadly doesn’t fit into my current kitchen…
Microwaves are fantastic cooking tools, and I’m pretty confident you’re not using yours to its potential. Defrosting, reheating, steaming, boiling. Does it all in half the time with half the mess. All those settings on the keypad do something good. Most people just wack a few numbers in and let the microwave literally cremate the food on full power. Those reheat and defrost settings apply microwave then switch to low or no power, leaving the applied heat to radiate internally before repeating. Different densities and starting temperatures are accounted for.
Obviously you wouldn’t cook a stir fry or a steak in a microwave. Potatoes before roasting though? Dumplings? Frozens? Yes please Mike.
I don’t think I specified, but much like cooking rice on a stove top you won’t run it at the same temperature. The microwave will use less energy than a traditional stove top, not sure about induction ones. And after learning to boil things with it, I do it all the time.
Just get it to boiling then 450 then if needed 300
It does passable baked potatoes too, but if you microwave it for about half the time and then toss it in some oil, kosher salt, and pepper and put it in a hot oven, you get great baked potatoes in far less time than in the oven alone. You’re basically boiling the middle and baking the outside. Great combo.
I like how instead of imagining there might be something you don't know about microwaves, you just kind of assumed everyone bought a dust and popcorn machine for no reason. It's such an "am I so out of touch?" moment.
Yes, microwaves are a poor substitute for an oven but they work fine for vegetables that you might otherwise use a steamer to cook. Stuff like broccoli, beans, carrot pieces etc. Corn on the cob works well too, just give it a few minutes in the microwave with the husk still on.
The second harmonic from 60hz is 120, which is close to where your hearing it? For what its worth, i get a peak at 100hz, which for the australian grid would make sense?
I checked against a tone generator, and realized that the lower frequency was actually 120, not 60, so I’d guess you’re probably hearing that. That puts the higher frequency at 212-214, which I also checked and that range matches what I’m hearing (for 100hz, it should be at around 177-180).
Okay, ew… but for what it’s worth brewers yeasts are very specific strains of yeast that have been bred for the purpose. One of the most important aspects of these brewers yeasts versus regular bakers yeasts or wild yeasts (like a sourdough starter) is that they can thrive in higher alcohol environments, allowing them to convert more sugar into alcohol (e.g., I think champagne yeasts can give you a higher ABV). Brewers yeast will also likely be more efficient and convert sugar to alcohol faster than wild strains (sourdough is also a much slower process than using bakers yeasts), which might have implications for food safety if the yeast cannot outcompete other nastier microbes. You can make alcohol with wild yeasts but it’s not as controlled of a process.
One of the most important aspects of these brewers yeasts versus regular bakers yeasts or wild yeasts (like a sourdough starter) is that they can thrive in higher alcohol environments, allowing them to convert more sugar into alcohol…
And it was this aspect that I learned about just a few days prior that led me to question the whole thing. For the purposes of making what average people would consider beer, it seemed like you couldn’t just swap in whatever you wanted.
You definitely can use wild yeasts to make alcohol. It probably won’t work as well or as consistently, but I’m sure you can make some good stuff just by letting things ferment naturally. I bake a lot of sourdough and it’s very fiddly compared to commercial yeasts. You also technically can use bakers yeast for brewing, but I think it’s not ideal for various reasons, like the flavour can be different and I think it doesn’t clump together as much so it’s harder to remove.
Without any additional research beyond my homebrewing experience, it’s possible but very unlikely - almost everything would be against you. Brewing is a pretty fragile process and whilst homebrewing with wild yeast is possible, its a struggle to keep it alive long enough for it to reproduce to sufficient quantities to do it’s thing. And that’s if it can even get the alcohol content high enough and you don’t get any bacterial or mold contamination.
They can, to an extent, if you had lots time and a staffed lab. Crossbreeding yeast strains is kind of tough as most of the ones used in industrial fermentation (ie the stable, commonly used ones) don’t breed well with others and when they do crossbreed, the resulting new strain is often infertile itself. It’s possible, but difficult, unreliable and the resources required put it well beyond the scope of people who don’t own a brewing company.
Amouranth just apparently dropped $17mil on some fruit farms, so money isn’t a problem for her, but who knows if she would go to the trouble, since it sounds pretty error-prone.
I told myself I wouldn’t do it but I did the research: turns out there’s one company who claims to brew with “donor” yeast and that’s the company she’s talking about partnering with. As far as I can tell from everything I’ve found reporting on them these claims are unverified so everything below should be taken with a large amount of skepticism.
Their websites are pretty sparse with information (and unsurprisingly creepily neckbeardy) but looking at what’s available and been reported I’ve been able to piece together what I think is happening. They talk around it and try to couch it in scientific jargon, it sounds like they’re using it to produce lactic acid only, so no alcohol, which is then sterilised and filtered to death before being used as an additive.
All in all it seems that the steps they describe between “donor” and beer that would result in no actual yeasts from the “donor” in the beer at any point, or even any yeasts cultivated from the originals - Which would seem to be the ultimate intent, probably for food safety law complaince. And this all assumes that they aren’t just lieing about it.
They talk around it and try to couch it in scientific jargon, it sounds like they’re using it to produce lactic acid only, so no alcohol, which is then sterilised and filtered to death before being used as an additive.
Seems like a lot of work to make sour beer, but I have no doubt these will sell out in no time regardless, due to the provenance.
And this all assumes that they aren’t just lieing about it.
And I had to ask, because it sounds a lot like a recipe for snake oil.
Also just to add I did more reading and technically they’re using a Lactobacillus which is a bacteria and not a yeast. Which makes more sense as that’s what’s responsible for yeast infections, just to add to the yuck factor.
I think its like peppers, they’re all the same specie but we’ve bred strains for different purposes, so you’ve got the whole range from bell peppers, to habaneroa, to shishitos.
It might work, I know there’s types of beer based on wild yeasts, but it probably takes special care and is going to take more effort to get the flavor your want from it.
I just learned about this whole God forsaken idea from this post, and it’s disgusting. However, one thing I know for certain is that the type of people who would buy vaginal yeast brewed beer(typing that almost made me gag) ain’t buying it for how it tastes.
They do consume a tiny little bit. I have a Measurement thingy that yoj plug between your outlet and whatever is plugged in which is accurate to 0.1 W. I tryed 3 chargers, one shows 0.1 W, the other two show 0.0 . I still know they consume a tiny bit, but less than 0.1 W is almost nothing. 0.1 W would come out to a consumtion of 0.876 kWh over a year, wich costs me 0.30 €.
You can always get a Kill-a-watt (or similar if those aren’t available for the EU) to see how much power something uses in standby
I remember there being special power strips you could get to detect and stop phantom loads like this. But according to that article, there are now regulations to keep this power draw low, so it’s probably not a major problem with modern devices.
i have a couple of those power strips at the office. i'm always forgetting about that 'feature' and end up with stuff 'mysteriously' shutting-off or draining battery instead of charging.
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