Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Optimizing your Microwave Oven Performance using an Appalam

A far-out post on 'optimization' and 'parameter estimation'.

No two microwave ovens behave the same way even if they have the same power rating and capacity, and over time they show increased randomness in terms of energy usage and solution quality. Each one has its idiosyncrasies and as you move between apartments over the years, it is irritating to adjusted to a new oven. After you invest all the time in figuring out that the optimal settings to warm your cold coffee is 50 seconds in the previous home, using the same timing with the new one results in a lot of spilled coffee. Furthermore, objects get heated slightly quicker when placed in certain locations of the oven. What is a quick way to optimize your vessel placement and minimize your turn-around time? Enter, the Appalam.

The Appalam or the Pappad as it is called in Northern India is a circular, flattened, wafer thin dry mixture of lentils and spices. It is an almost fat-free, delicious snack if you microwave it although it can also be fried. In particular, the best brand for this test is the Lijjat Pappad. This one is hand made (or used to be). The Lijjat company rose from a tiny all-women cooperative start up in rural India (based on Mahatma Gandhi's principles of self-reliance, theirs is a remarkable and inspiring success story) and is still going strong, producing outstanding Pappads in a variety of flavors.
 

The idea is pretty simple: The Lijjat Pappad (LP) has a relatively large surface area that covers 75-100% of the circular glass tray in most residential microwaves. Microwave the LP for about 60 seconds and note which of its parts get heated up first (visually seen via a change in color) and how the cooking progresses. Within 60 seconds, you should be able to figure out the hottest and the coldest spots in the oven. In my current residence, the middle of the oven turned out to be the coldest, which was the exact opposite of the result in my prior residence. Of course, this is not intended to be a universal setting and only applies to a subset of foods being heated up.

Why the LP works relatively well for such a test:

1. The consistency of the LP mix is quite remarkable. It is neither thick to resist microwaving, nor too thin and very rarely exhibits any significant warping even after 120 seconds of microwaving (it will simply get carbonized before it warps).

2. The material naturally does not conduct heat well and convection doesn't help much either, so the localized heating effects show up visibly.

3. You can make a meal of your experimental subject once your test is complete. No test goes waste!

1 comment:

  1. Great article about Microwave performance. I like this article very much. Really it is very informative details about Microwave Testing. I will share this information between our friends... best microwave oven in india

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