I’ve already did my research on this. Like a true 5yo I looked it up on Youtube and I found this:
[Triangle Popped Corn Chips made by SYP5804T rice popper – YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kw7IEy70cCw)
But I still don’t know how it works. Why do the chips “pop”? Where does the air come from? Where do the kernels go?
In: Technology
The pop and air comes from water/moisture that is trapped in the kernel expanding due to the heat. This is why popcorn pops too.
Here’s a pic of the popcorn as it’s loaded. Then it’s squirted with steam. They all pop within a fraction of a second. All the material is actually wet at that moment, and that water is driven out byt the heat as steam. The wet and pressure fuse all the popped kernel material into 1 chip. The shells are all in there just like regular popcorn. https://imgur.com/a/bE3sj5n
When popcorn heats up, the starch inside melts and boils. It’s the steam from this process that presses against the hull and eventually causes it to break. This releases the starch, which momentarily explodes outwards in its liquid state before rapidly cooling back to a solid. The end result is kind of like an explosion frozen in mid-air. (Pro tip when popping your popcorn, cooking the kernels slowly to start out liquidizes the starch as much as possible, which gives you bigger, fluffier kernels. Popcorn cooked too fast will be dense and chewy)
In an ordinary pot or even microwave bag, each popping kernel does its own thing. There’s enough space and time between pops that the kernels stay separate. Judging from that video, the trick to get one big mass is to keep all the kernels confined in a very small space and apply heat in such a way that they all pop at roughly the same time. This creates one big glob of molten starch that all coalesces in the shape of the mold you started with.
I don’t know the answer but damn are Popcorners getting expensive. Used to be like $2.99 a bag now it’s almost $6
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