[Avodah] Kashrus - Microwave Ovens

[Micha Berger via Avodah]

On Sun, Aug 21, 2016 at 06:06:05PM +1000, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah wrote:
: The tray/turntable may be warm/hot - that's from the heat of the hot water
: being conducted to it.

: So even if the steam is dairy or meaty, it hardly gets to the walls of the
: microwave and what may get there is well less that YSoledes.

So you're wondering why anyone would need kashering of anything but the
floor or turntable?

I do know the walls can be damp, even if we're not talking about enough
hevel to fog up the windows. And a small amount of liquid might be hot
when it hits, and cool immediately. I am not asserting, just suggesting
it be checked out.

Certainly after I kasher the office microwave, the walls are hot and
wet. But that's an unrealistically long run of entirely water -- the
stuff the waves work on.


I have my own hevel question... My company has a Keurig machine. Among
the cups they stocked was a hot chocolate I wouldn't drink. Well,
Keurig machines insert pins into the cup and the drink is being forced
out through that pin. If you are having tea after someone else's coffee,
it's not great tea. So I avoided using that machine. I got facilities to
keep one Keurig machine on our floor limited to K-Cups with hekhsheirim.
(I wasn't going to start with them about plain coffee or plain tea not
needing a hekhsher.)

But because of that taste issue, there is now a Flavia machine next to
the Keurig (And a Nespresso!) Flavia uses bags with a valve on top,
and the liguid falls straight from the bag into your cup. The only issue
I could see is the hevel from someone's treif drink. Which gets to the
question of how inclosed does something have to be in order for hevel
to be an issue?

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

PS: Decades ago, R/Dr David Berger quipped in shul (roughly) that he
finally understood the famous line in Qoheles. Shelomo haMelekh spent most
of his day in the royal court, around politicians. It was on a day that
it all got to him that he wrote, "Hot air, hot air, it's all hot air!"
Did I say "a day"? Exasperation with all that hot air appears in the
book 36 times! <grin>

-- 
Micha Berger             "I think, therefore I am." - Renne Descartes
micha at aishdas.org        "I am thought about, therefore I am -
http://www.aishdas.org   my existence depends upon the thought of a
Fax: (270) 514-1507      Supreme Being Who thinks me." - R' SR Hirsch