what purpose does the Hot Pockets sleeve serve?
In: Physics
It is called a susceptor, and it heats up in response to the microwave energy. Microwave energy heats up water and typically won’t get hot enough to crisp without drying out. The sleeve heats up like a pan and adds a nice brown crisp.
That sleeve is called a *susceptor*, and its job is to apply heat directly to the surface of your food.
A susceptor is a film, usually plastic, with a layer of metal applied to it via a process called vapor deposition. This creates a very, very thin layer of metal on the plastic, which is important: you don’t want a lot of metal in a microwave.
What the metal does, however, is absorb the microwave radiation inside the oven and convert it to thermal radiation (heat). When the susceptor fits snugly around the food, it creates a slight browning and crisping of the surface; when there’s a gap between the food and the susceptor film, it creates a much higher degree of browning and crisping.
In the case of Hot Pockets, it makes sure that you have a crispy product rather than something soggier and less defined.
It reflects and traps some of the microwaves so they bounce around in the sleeve repeatedly and supposedly make the crust crisper.
It reflects the microwaves back in as heat to crisp the outer layer. Without it, the hot pocket would be soggy.
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