Infrared thermometers like the one used in this article are (typically) calibrated for an emissivity of 0.95. If you use one on a material with a lower emissivity, it'll give inaccurate readings. This can be cheaply solved by sticking a piece of electrical tape on the surface, and measuring that.<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emissivity" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emissivity</a>
The main problem here is that the moisture in the toast has not yet completely exited. So what I do is I toast at a lower temperature (if your device allows this) and / or leave the toast in the toaster for a few minutes after it's done. You'll notice that if you put your hands on top of the toaster after it's done, water is still evaporating like crazy. Imho this works better than a cooling rack or putting the bread on its side. Then you can reheat a bit if you want to, too. Is it weird that we've all thought so much about this?
For a pseudo-scientific analysis ... it's a shame the units of measurement weren't defined up front.<p>(I live in one of the 190+ countries that use Celsius, but I know that 99.8% of things on the Internets are written by people from just one of those three other countries that doesn't. I'm also aware that for reasons that are a bit bewildering, everyone in those 190+ countries politely goes out of their way to make it clear that we're talking metric, because we're now used to the idea that if people don't mention units then they're probably from North America, and consequently are almost definitely using gallons (US, not UK gallons), miles (US, not UK miles), Fahrenheit and other deprecated units. We should probably stop being so considerate.)
Were tests done beyond the 53C temperature, to see if this resulted in a total elimination of toast sweat?<p>I realize that this may make the plate "too hot to handle", but I'd gladly eat breakfast with one hand in an oven mitt if it would result in better toast.
I have never had problems with toast sweat: Just stand the two slices upright on the plate so that they look like a T from above. It's very easy and stable and after a minute the steam is out so that they won't sweat anymore.<p>I never measured it, but I had the feeling that the A form (looking from the side) slightly interferes with the rising steam.<p>How do you do it?
I'd enjoy a follow-up where they test different materials against the 'keep-toast-dry' 53 degree temperature of clay plate.<p>Would something like neoprene/polystyrene plates (as insane as it sounds) provide a solution to slightly soggy toast at a lower temperature?<p>It's one thing to find an optimal temperature, but a completely other beast to find a practical solution to it!
Today we learn about dew points?<p>This is no different than why you have vapor barriers in certain climates.<p>Without trying to sound dismissive, i was not aware there was a lot of experimentation here necessary to figure out the temperature at which the water would stop condensing on the plate again.<p>Still a fun article, of course :)
This is amazing.
Keep up the good work.
I'd be quite happy if governments would give small grants to this kind of every day useful research. I personally eat large amounts of toast so this is an issue very close to my heart. Here in the UK toast is often balanced on it's side against something to avoid this. I believe you can also buy a small toast rack for this purpose. (However I often fear that this cools the toast too quickly.)<p>I'd be interested to know next if it's possible for the plate to be <i>too</i> hot?
Toast sweat is on par with pizza sweat. As a pizza retains its heat for much longer than toast, I usually just put it on a rack or slide a large knife underneath to prop it up.
Also I'd be interested to know how the room temperature affects it. If I eat my toast in my fridge will I get less toast sweat? What should I set my house thermostat to? My guess is setting the room temperate as high as possible (and as close to Murray temperature as possible) would be best but I'd like to know for sure.
I love this! I am also regularly saddened by the phenomenon of toast sweat. I looked in vain, though, for an RSS (or Atom) feed so I could follow your site, but didn't see one. Did I miss it?
C'mon, no need to experiment. Just make a toast teepee -- stand those suckers up against each other and let them evaporate before making that sammich.