I have never had a potato explode in the microwave, white, red, or sweet potato. Ever. Only thing I've ever exploded was those marshmallow peeps and that was on purpose!

I do as previous poster - 5 minutes or so, out of the wave and wrap in aluminum foil to finish cooking.

Does a cotton bag makes the taste better?

In the winter, I bake them in the oven - the oven keeps the kitchen warm and saves on oil! Rub with oil, sprinkle with salt (oooohh bad! :) ) and the skin gets nice and crispy. MMMMMnnnnn when's dinner?

Tried new batting, all cotton fabric, still caught fire ! Not for me and I warn others about this !

I use ziplock steamer bags, or a regular zip lock bag with the top not zipped completely to vent. I do all my veggies like this. Love it! No dishes!

I learn the niftiest things on this board....not all of them sewing related! LOL

This thread reminds me of the late comedian Mitch Hedberg and one of his jokes... "It takes forever to cook a baked potato in a conventional oven. Sometimes I just throw one in there, even if I don't want one. Cause by the time it's done, who knows?" (OK, it's funnier if you hear it in his voice, he had a very unique delivery...)

I had many types of cotton batting. I cut a piece of each and put it in the microwave to test it. The warm and natural didn't even get hot after 6 minutes. The 100 % cotton started to turn black fast. None of the batting lasted up to 12 minutes in a microwave. Some microwaves are higher wattage then others so will get extremely hot faster. I use the microwave bowls to heat food not cook it. 3 minutes is long enough to heat soup piping hot with the low wattage ones. 1 minute with the high wattage.

There are Pellon rules 2 min at a time and no more then 8 min total in microwave. Potato batting and 100% cotton thread, plus I use only 100% cotton fabric.

So has anyone used the bag regularly? Am wondering now if I should make any? Would hate to give one and then it cause a fire, when I originally read a thread about it, it said all cotton was ok. I saw the batting with the elfin, and didn't buy it. Hope someone has had good luck and will share!

I bought the special potato bag batting that is 100% cotton and followed all the rules (all cotton everything) and my sister-in-law had one of her bags catch fire - she sent me pics of the bag - it was in the seam line - my husband said maybe there was too much thread buildup? I don't know what really happened - however I had a friend tell me if you leave them too long in the microwave they will catch fire. After that incident I quilt making potato bags and I no longer sell them either.

Recently I made microwave bowl holders for re-heating food. Used the special batting and have had no problems at all, but this makes me leery of giving some as gifts. My holders are basically a square with darts on the sides, so that it holds the bowl and you can remove it without burning your hands.

What I have heated in these doesn't go over 3 minutes, max.

I think I"ll pass on this project, too. Sorry about your microwave :(