Cooking popcorn in a coffee pot with your microwave?

 

I saw a video on Facebook that shows a couple putting popcorn and butter into a coffeepot and microwaving it to pop it and I thought I’d give it a try.
I can’t post that one here,but I followed the instructions and can say with authority:

Do not do this.

The instructions are easy enough: add popcorn to the pot, then tent three slices of butter on the lid, where it can melt down onto the popcorn through the holes in the lid.

Like this: 

Then they just set in in the microwave, hit the popcorn button and waited for it to cook. But I saw problems right away.

There are enough kernels in there to fill that pot several times over. Also, notice the metal ring around the bottom? This can cause problems, as I will show.

I tried it this way, but with just enough kernels to cover the bottom in one layer. I put the butter on top the same way and tried it with the popcorn setting. Hardly any if it popped, so I added two minutes, then one minute, then one minute more. I noticed that the uncooked kernels did not stay oin the bottom, so they did not stay in the fat and did not cook correctly. After seven minutes I took the pot out, holding it by the handle.

And the pot fell apart. The metal ring got so hot it melted the plastic to which it was attached and the pot hit the floor. Luckily, it did not break! And now I have this:

This is not repairable. Luckily, this was a spare pot that has been sitting on a shelf for quite a while, so we’ll still have coffee to wake up to.

The popcorn was a bit burned and about 10% of it did not pop. If the pot had not fallen apart, I might have tried it again, but I would put the butter directly on top of the kernels. However, I usually cook popcorn in a frying pan and that works just fine and takes half as long, so I’m not going to repeat this. I have learned my lesson.

Here is the link to the Facebook video if you want to try this anyway. Let me know in Disqus below how it turns out.