Mine has only 1 button, to open the door.

And I like it this way.

[My microwave is] full of esoteric lights and dials and meters that I would never understand.

There are many buttons on my microwave. I have paid no attention to any of them but I know hitting the one at the bottom-right makes numbers go up by 30s per boop, while food go warm.

My microwave popcorn recipe is:

1. Put in
2. Boop liberally so you know it’s over 5 mins, probably 4–5 days
3. When popcorn pops average about one every 3s, start counting to five
4. If you reach five, serve

There’s two popcorn buttons. One setting is just an average of time to pop the standard popcorn bag.

The other is a humidity sensor that stops the microwave once it senses a whiff of steam from the bag.

Great video on it below.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Limpr1L8Pss

If someone has a non YouTube link I’ll edit my comment to post that one.

Yep, worked great.

No. I buy kernals dirt cheap and make it on the stove with ghee

I hit a random number of minutes then pull it based on the sound

So there are two kinds of microwaves:

• those that use sensor for popcorn (typically it is on top, there are some that use audio)
• those that have no sensor and just use a timer (those ask you how big is the popcorn bag)

You should use the popcorn button on the first ones, with the second type it is better to follow the instructions on the popcorn bag.

If you read the manual for your microwave you’ll learn a lot about what it is capable of. My Panasonic microwave not only has a sensor cook mode for popcorn, but you can specify the weight of the bag and you can even add or subtract 10-30 seconds to dial it in prior to starting.

I recommend microwaves that have inverters in them, as well as moisture sensors.

I used to have a microwave that the popcorn button worked perfectly in and it was amazing.

After it died we replaced it with the same make and model and the new one’s popcorn button is crap. I’ve now timed how long the bags need to be in, so I just put that in instead. Never use the popcorn button anymore. It’s annoying but effectively it just is two extra buttons before starting so it’s not horrible.

Although now I have one of those electric kettle popcorn makers like the movie theater and pretty much only use that now. But it definitely can’t match microwave popcorn for convenience.

I do popcorn at 30% power until the first pop and then switch to full power until the popping is really slow; it really cuts down on unpopped kernels.

You can do 50% power, but I feel that the slower 30% power really helps to get every kernel up to a nice baseline before you go full power.

Microwave popcorn is just nasty though…

Air-popper + microwave for the butter.

Yeah, I don’t have a piece of shit microwave, the button makes perfect bags every time, regardless of brand or type.

The quality of the button is almost directly proportional to the quality of the microwave. Basic ones just are a timer, which is useless. As you work your way up you get various sensors for things like humidity and even microphones to determine kernel pop timing.

The quality of all of those programmed buttons is directly related to those more advanced sensors.

Have a new ge with settings like that. nukes everything.

Have a LG at a different place with fancy settings and it sings to me and sometimes sends me texts. Works perfectly every time.

Nope. 1,200 seconds for popcorn. No more, no less.