Defrost by weight (auto defrost)
You choose the kind of food and enter its weight, and the microwave works out the defrost time and power itself, often stopping to ask you to turn the food.
What it is for
Weigh the frozen food, choose the category (bread, mince, a joint, chicken), enter the weight and follow the beeps to turn or shield it. Leave the standing time the manual gives — Panasonic says 10–15 minutes for bread and at least 1 hour for a whole chicken or joint.
Makes differ, check your microwave’s manual: the same drawing can start a different programme on another brand, and only your model’s manual gives its exact watts, weights and times.
- What it looks like
- A snowflake with a small weight, a “kg” or “g”, or a snowflake with a number for the food type; you then turn the dial to a weight.
- Names makers use
- Auto Weight Defrost — Chaos Defrost (Panasonic); Auto Defrost (Dacor); Defrost programmes with a weight range (Bosch)
Where makes differ
The categories and weight limits belong to each model: Panasonic’s NN-CD58 takes bread from 100 to 900 g and meat joints from 400 g to 2 kg; Dacor enters weight in pounds in 0.1 lb steps; Bosch’s programmes run from 0.2 kg. Outside the limits the oven refuses or the result is poor, and you defrost by time instead.
What it does not mean
It does not weigh the food for you — there is no scale in the oven; the time is only as good as the weight you type in.
Other symbols with the same shapes
Sources
No published standard we could check defines microwave control icons, so this meaning is taken from 3 makers’ own manuals and support pages, each fetched and read on the date shown:
- Panasonic: Panasonic — Operating instructions and cookbook, convection/grill/microwave oven NN-CD58JS — “Auto Weight Defrost - Chaos Defrost: With this feature you can defrost frozen foods according to the weight. Select the category and set the weight of the food”; bread 100 g–900 g, mince/chops 200 g–1200 g, meat joints 400 g–2000 g, “Standing time of at least 1 hour”. Checked 2026-09-28.
- Dacor: Dacor (Samsung) — Use and care manual, over-the-range convection microwave oven PCOR30S — “Auto Defrost automatically defrosts ground meat, steaks, chicken pieces… Enter weight by touching the number pads… The oven will stop and directions will be displayed”; “The weight can be entered in increments of 0.1 lb.” Checked 2026-09-28.
- Bosch: Bosch Ireland — Microwave symbols and settings — “Select a weight for the chosen programme”; programmes such as “P 02- Defrost pieces of meat, Weight range in KG: 0.20-1.00” and “P 03- Defrost chicken, chicken pieces, Weight range in KG: 0.40-1.80”. Checked 2026-09-28.
Written in our own words; quotations are the makers’ wording.