I have no idea what the right flair for this is, sorry.
In: Physics
Popcorn pops because of steam pressure. The inside of the kernel contains starch and water, which are contained in a hard shell. When you heat it, the starch liquifies and the water turns to steam. When the steam pressure gets high enough, the shell explodes, the starch instantly solidifies, and the corn is popped.
If the shell is broken, steam won’t build up. Bad kernel
If it is too dried out, not enough pressure will build up. Bad kernal
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In my experience usually it’s because they don’t get hot fast enough and so the shell just cracks letting all the steam out and they never explode. The best way to get around this is to heat the pan with the oil in it to about 350° and then put all the kernels in. This way you have very few old maids left at the bottom.
Popcorn kernels that don’t pop usually pop on the second go, due to the heat they already had and are now having
Source: popcorn machine owner
All the kernels have different amounts of water inside. Water heating causes popping. Some kernels don’t get as much heat as others, some have less water. Too cold, or too dry, no popping.
I now use a thin aluminum popper, the Whitley-Pop, and I almost never have “old soldiers” anymore.
Mythbusters did an episode on this. Everyone tried to get the most popped kernels out of their batch. I don’t remember what happened tho.
Popcorn kernels pop because they absorb heat energy until they reach a critical level and pop. When there are lots of unpopped kernels, most of the heat energy gets absorbed by the kernels. But when most of the kernels have popped, less energy gets taken in by kernels. The heat levels haven’t gone down though, so the excess heat energy goes into the already popped kernels more and more. At a certain point the popped kernels start to burn. Since you don’t want burnt popcorn, you stop the cooking before that happens.
To piggyback off of this. I know you can overcook the whole bag but even when stopping the microwave at the perfect time, what keeps the early poppers from burning?
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