Can you put spoons in the microwave

My brother once covered a plate with a pan's metallic cover, which was perfectly "round" - no spikes or whatsoever -. Well, the microwave was, after some seconds, VERY nasty to look inside, with sparkles and flashes happening. The fact that the oven contains metal doesn't mean other metal is safe. The metal of the oven itself will be shaped and positioned so as to not do harm. The oven gets harmed from arcing or from reflecting too much energy back into the generator, not from metal per se.

Add a comment. There are actually two things worth considering with metal in microwaves. Journeyman Geek Journeyman Geek 2, 14 14 silver badges 26 26 bronze badges. Grapes in a microwave are amazing. I wouldn't mess around with putting foil in the microwave.

When I was a kid, my friend and I blew out the light in his parent's microwave with a single twist tie like what comes with garbage bags. It was exciting. A twist tie has sharp points. If you don't get the physics, don't try this please. JourneymanGeek I get the physics. It's just that even in the link you point to, it has 6 caveats and then says "If you see arcing sparks , immediately remove the foil shielding.

It's very hard to predict whether it will arc. Unless you are a physicist or engineer in a relevant field, it's not worth it unless you are prepared to pay for fixing your micro or getting a new one. In this case though, you have a smooth piece of metal with no points, away from anything metal, which is why it didn't spark. Show 2 more comments. Something that doesn't belong in a microwave can be heated in more or less three ways: By being a lossy material, absorbing radiation and heating up.

Food gets heated that way. By being an effective dipole antenna with a resistive load attached - very dependent on object geometry; a inch strip of tinfoil is a good example.

By arcing. Ecnerwal Ecnerwal I'm probably missing something, but why do you say it evidently arced? I can't find any indication of that. Jefromi It's not the greatest picture, but I see what appears to be a blackened spoon that's possibly only an artifact of the picture location, I guess , and at full-scale view I see pitting along the edges. I see, could be. To me it just looked like a dark photo and a banged up old spoon.

I've done the microwaving-a-CD thing a few times, and in my experience if you put any water in there with the CD, the water absorbs all the microwave energy and the CD is unaffected. Sorry for bad photo. Spoon is not blackened or banged up; it came in that shape. It's possible that the edge is pitted. I recently did an "experiment" with tin foil: Putting just one piece into the microwave did basically nothing, but having two pieces together created sparks between them and burned them away.

Peter Mortensen 1 1 silver badge 5 5 bronze badges. It takes about 30 kJ to melt an entire spoon a typical 25g stainless steel spoon , about half of which is bringing it up to its melting point.

So there was definitely enough power to melt the spoon. But the water probably absorbed almost all of the microwaves in this case. Understand that the way radio waves of a certain wavelength interact with objects is extremely dependent on the shape and size of the object. Real life antennas don't come in odd shapes because they are modern art. And a W heat source is plenty enough to set something on fire. A 13W soldering iron can. Can you give some sources for your information?

It looks pretty interesting, but your answer would be better with some references. I had not heard that thickness is the primary factor. Thin metal will heat up like hell because a there is little solid mass to absorb the heat, b resistive heating if you get a dipole effect is intense, and both can lead to c some of the metal vaporizing and building a plasma. Reflection can happen with thick metal just as well, and that is what can blow the magnetron if it happens at the wrong angle.

The case is made of steel because reflection is exactly what you want - but in an engineered and controlled pattern Had to downvote because it can be read as "you're safe with thick metal in a microwave every time" which is dangerous advice - especially in the framework of "you're safe if Sign up or log in Sign up using Google.

Sign up using Facebook. Sign up using Email and Password. Post as a guest Name. Email Required, but never shown. Featured on Meta. Now live: A fully responsive profile. A microwave can induce superheated water which can be dangerous. One way around this is to place a chop stick or object into the water while it is heating. This will prevent that nasty surprise when you make your earl grey, hot. Now, putting metal into a microwave does no necessarily cause sparks.

In fact, you can actually put tin foil in a microwave at times and not create sparks Disclaimer!! Do not try this at home. The sparks are caused when you have very thin pieces of metal. So when tin foil does spark, it is at the very edges where tearing has caused the material to be thinner than the bulk. Other fun things to do with a preferably someone elses They can be heated beyond boiling point without appearing to boil. For example, visible bubbling or boiling when the container is rmoved from the microwave oven is not always present.

This will prevent delayed boiling. Sparks could irreparably damage the glass on the inside of the door. Sign up to join this community. The best answers are voted up and rise to the top. Stack Overflow for Teams — Collaborate and share knowledge with a private group. Create a free Team What is Teams? Learn more. Should I place a spoon in a cup of liquid before heating it in a mircowave? Ask Question.

Asked 5 years, 9 months ago. Active 3 years, 9 months ago. For longer than I care to admit, I was convinced that leaving a fork on a plate in the microwave would lead to certain death or at least the house burning down. As it turns out, some metals are perfectly fine to be in the microwave. Heck, many of the components of the microwave itself are made out of metal and things like Hot Pockets require being microwaved inside of an aluminum-lined sleeve that has small amounts of aluminum in it.

As explained in this video from HuffPost Science , the type of metal and the shape of the object really dictate how disastrous it will be to microwave a utensil.

While spoons are generally okay, forks can create sparks due to a built up negative charge in the tines.