Popcorn's perfect recipe revealed
They found that when the popcorn reached a threshold of 180C, the outer shell burst open regardless of the size and shape of the grain. The research also revealed insights into the way that popcorn jumps as it breaks open, and the sound emitted as water vapour is suddenly released, BBC News reports. The results appear in the journal Royal Society Interface. The whole process of bursting, jumping and popping occurs in hundredths of a second. But the physicists Emmanuel Virot and Alexandre Ponomarenko studied each stage in detail to understand its underlying scientific basis. Using high-speed cameras that record at 2,900 frames per second, they observed the popcorn as it was heated in an oven. The researchers cranked up the temperature at increments of 10C over a period of five minutes. Moisture inside the corn began to turn to steam as the temperature passed 100C (212F), but when it rose to 180C (356F), the pressure inside climbed to around 10 times the atmospheric pressure at sea level. Read more
