The Easiest Way to Get All Unopened Popcorn Kernels
Posters on TikTok tend to exaggerate their position. They make all sorts of promises to “blow your mind” and “change the way you do xyz” and love to tell you that you’ve been “doing it wrong” all this time. But put aside all exaggerations, and there is often a grain of truth in their statements.
The above video, for example, contains a pretty good way to rid a microwave popcorn bag of those pesky unpopped kernels. It all starts with the woman telling you to refrain from touching the slit at the top of the bag because “there’s a slit for a reason,” implying that the slit was designed to help the popcorn lover get rid of the beans. (That’s the hyperbole I’m talking about. The main “reason” for this gap to exist is to allow steam to escape during release, but you can actually use it for kernel removal purposes. Yes, I know I’m being pedantic. )
The procedure for removing kernels is simple. Flip the bag over, give it a shake, and small, unbursted pieces of corn will fall out through the crack, leaving popped corn. At first my incision was too small so I had to open it up a bit, but other than that I followed the instructions exactly.
I turned the bag over, cut it open over the bowl and started shaking. After several vigorous shaking, the grains began to fall. I kept shaking until the cores stopped falling, then I opened the package to see if there was anything left inside.
Much to my surprise, there were no unopened grains left. Each fell out of the gap and fell out of the package – 100% success! So the next time you’re craving a bag of grain-free microwave popcorn, don’t touch that slot. Flip and shake and you have a packet of completely crumbly, fluffy corn ready to be chewed.