I eat a lot of microwave popcorn. I imagine a lot of people do.

I am also notoriously cheap. It burns me that i have to pay so much for all the packaging of microwave popcorn. I figured that there must be a way to make my own microwave popcorn.

I bought the actual kernels yesterday. I put them in a ziplock bag, leaving a little opening for steam to escape. I put it in the microwave and hit start.

I heard them pop! I was exited! but they weren’t popping very much. Not a lot of popping going on.

I opened the microwave. The ziplock bag had melted onto the bottom. Nasty! So I had to get all the hot unpopped kernels out, and then scrape off the melted plastic.

Hmm…

Maybe I needed to use a paper bag.

OR MAYBE i needed to ask the internet how to do this.

I found THIS article.
Very interesting. This poor little science nerd decided to see which was the BEST popcorn brand. His criteria was just that the most kernels popped without burning.

I would be interested in a brand that tasted good, but perhaps that is not easy to define scientifically.

He actually tried his own method of popping corn, using a paper bag. He soaked the kernels in water overnight to increase their water content. The water is apparently what the microwave uses to heat.

And it worked!

But he never saw the true genius of his experiment. He didn’t realize that he could bypass the whole paying extra for the packaging and make his own homemade microwave popcorn.

I did find THIS recipe. It’s a good guide for ratios and cook time.