Pickles GLOW in the Microwave!?!?!

General Questions
#1

Link:
http://homepages.ed.ac.uk/ah05/microwave.html
Click on: Why do pickles glow when you heat them in a microwave oven?

The question is has anyone ever managed to successfully make a pickle glow in the microwave? I’ve wasted half a jar or Vlasik Cosher Dill Pickles and nothing happened :frowning: one of them eventually dried out and started to give of smoke but they didn’t glow. Does anyone know of a right way to make pickles glow in the microwave? (brand, cooking time, power settings) Or is the website a hoax?

#2

See http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Launchpad/6603/instructions.html

Maybe you need a large dill pickle from a deli.

#3

A little off track, but I personally have made a grape spark. If you take a grape, cut it in half almost all the way, just so the skin on one side is intact, open it, put it in the microwave, cut side down and turn it on. After about 5-10 seconds you get a mini fireworks show. This seems to work about 80% of the time I do it by my self and about 5% of the time I try to show it to others.

#4

My guess is the pickles you’re using are already too large, and there isn’t enough energy to create an electrical arc in that size pickle. Joey P’s post seems to confirm this. If I were to try this, I’d use a smaller pickle or maybe half of a big one. Disclaimer: there’s a possibility you could damage your microwave, so do this at your own risk.

#5

There’s a more reliable (though possibly dangerous) method proposed by Penn & Teller in their very funny book, “How To Play With Your Food”. Run 110v through it. Turn out the lights before turning on the juice & the glow should be easily visible.

#6

I’ve never heard of microwave ovens causing pickles to glow. As rowrrbazzel says, maybe you need a really huge pickle. Jamming a big nail into the end couldn’t hurt. I’ll have to try it, and add it to “Unwise Microwave Experiments”

On that site, the actual URL for the pickle question is http://homepages.ed.ac.uk/ah05/faq.html

#7

When I was a kid I used to put light bulbs in my moms microwave to watch them light up.

#8

Perhaps the salts used in the pickling brine are fluorescing?

#9

You don’t need to turn the lights out - the glow is quite visible in normal room light. The simplest way to do it is to cut the end off an extension cord and solder nails onto the wires. Stick the nails into the pickle and plug in the cord. Be sure to do it in that order - you don’t want to handle 110V without protection.

This trick doesn’t work with sweet pickles - only with sour pickles.