haklesup:
Yes my oven isnt rated that high so i guess that's why i need the lid.
I dont keep the water boiling really when they are cooking, i just like
to bring it back to a boil after i add the spagetti, then turn the power
down to just keep it hot. It does however take less power to keep hot
with the lid on than with it off, for what it is worth.
Foaming detector sounds interesting too. I could easily build this as
you say. How would i get it to contact the bubbles though if the lid
is on and the pot is rotating with the turntable? BTW, when the pot
is rotating the mix heats more uniformly so i would hate to stop it
from turning. I dont think i can glue it to the inside of the lid
because the pot rotates. Any other ideas about this?
Im not too worried about actually stopping the over electronically,
i dont mind getting up to shut off the oven when the 'alarm' trips
because i would want to set the new time and power setting anyway
as soon as the alarm sounds.
On your last comment about the possibility of not rotating the whole
pot...
Remember that once the water boils (with spagetti in there too) i
turn off the oven and set if for a much lower power setting that
does not cause boiling but simply maintains the heat level. This
means the food does not move much once the lower power setting is
set. The rotation helps keep the heating even during this time.
I could try it i guess without rotating, but i have found in the
past that every food seems to cook more evenly when it rotates
because the waves are more concentrated in one part of the oven
than the other, and by rotating the entire contents of the pot
(or bulk of material) gets subjected to the same energy level.
If it doesnt rotate then some parts of the bulk gets lower
power than others, and it seems to be quite significant (on
the order of a 2 to 1 ratio, or 50 percent for some areas and
100 percent for other areas).
I've also tried careful timing, like say 7 minutes and then shut
off, but with my power line the power getting to the oven varies
quite a bit so the time period to boil with spagetti changes
quite a bit too. In fact, this is how i first found out that
microwave ovens are very sensitive to a change in line voltage,
where the power reduces very greatly with a relatively small
drop in line voltage. It ends up being something like related
to the fourth power of the voltage ratio, but then there is some
point at which no cooking at all takes place (maybe 85 volts).
Ceasar:
Well sometimes i let the water boil more than other times before
i put the spagetti in.
BTW, the foam comes up after the spagetti is inserted and the
water is heated to bring it back to a boil (the spagetti cools
the water down even if it was boiling so it should be brought
back to a boil).
When they say the food is cooked from the inside out i think
what they originally meant was that the heat is generated
*inside* the food, which is really true, but then people started
to think that somehow the heat came from the exact *center* of
the food, which it doesnt unless the food bulk is fairly thin.
Thus, the microwave does cook food from the inside out, but
how deep inside is quite shallow as compared to what most people
would think on hearing that statement.
Also, because most foods have a fairly good amount of bulk
the heat developed in the outer layers of the food still has to
conduct and partly convect into the deeper regions of the food
as im sure you know. Looking at this shows that the heat is
in fact developed *inside* the food itself, but most of the
food gets cooked as a result of conduction and convection.
It's also true that as the moisture content of the outer layers
reduces as the result of heating that the waves can penetrate
deeper and deeper, meaning that the heat layer would move
closer and closer to the center of the food, although there
must be some limit unless the food dries up completely
LEDs vs Bulbs, LEDs are winning.