Tips From The Boat Galley
By Carolyn Shearlock, author of The Boat Galley, with over 350 FREE articles to get the most out of your boat kitchen with galley tips, insights & equipment recommendations. A few recipes, too - plus an active Facebook community to ask questions and share tips with other readers! The Boat Galley Cookbook, written with Jan Irons, is now available at Amazon and other retailers.
Hate burnt popcorn? We do... yet we seem to forget one important thing when making microwave popcorn on the boat... (Continues after photo)
Today's Boat Galley Topic: Using a Microwave on an Inverter
My husband, Dave, does not cook. Well, I should say that he doesn't cook anything other than microwave popcorn. But he's an expert at that!
Dave is also the type of guy who is always hungry, snacks like crazy and never gains an ounce. Yes, he drives me nuts.
Aboard Que Tal, Dave would make a bag of microwave popcorn 4 or 5 times a week. We had a huge array of solar panels and plenty of power for him to run the microwave off the inverter.
During the winter, however, we'd often spend some time at a marina with shore power - and he'd continue with his habit of popcorn in the afternoon.
With one exception. He'd always burn the first bag he'd make when we were back on shore power, despite setting it for the same amount of time and using the same size and brand of popcorn bags.
And so, as he made some popcorn this afternoon, he said I should write an article about this. Okay, honey - here's your article!
Basically, when you run anything off an inverter, it doesn't have as much power just due to inefficiencies in the system. With our microwave, it took about 25% longer to cook anything than when it wasn't on the inverter (i.c., on shore power or generator). And Dave would inevitably forget and set the microwave time the same for the first bag at the dock... and then we'd suddenly smell the burning popcorn. And when we left the dock again, he'd do the opposite - set it for the "shore" amount of time - and it would only be partially popped.
So, if you have a microwave on board and use it both from the inverter and from shore/generator power, remember to adjust the time! Depending on your microwave and inverter, it may be more or less than the 25% difference that ours was, but in talking with other cruisers it seems that everyone did notice a difference.
About the Author
Carolyn Shearlock is author of The Boat Galley, with over 350 FREE articles to get the most out of your boat kitchen with galley tips, insights & equipment recommendations. A few recipes, too - plus an active Facebook community to ask questions and share tips with other readers! The print edition of The Boat Galley Cookbook, written with Jan Irons, is now available from Amazon and other retailers - electronic editions are coming but slightly delayed.
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