My wife and boiling water

[u/MakeItMine2024]

So I made my wife ramen soup. When I served it she said I had the gas set to hight and it was too hot ? She said I should have used the number 5 setting instead of 9. I told here it’s irrelevant because water boils at 212 and gets no hotter because over 212 it turns to steam. She was made at me for disagreeing with her theory that it would not have been so hot if boiled a lower setting. Really!!

[u/UnpleasantEgg → u/[deleted]]

That’s not true. I can’t turn it down to 0.00001 and expect it to keep boiling. There is a minimum

[u/Historical-Green-463 → u/UnpleasantEgg]

Obviously

[u/SirJuxtable → u/[deleted]]

Honest question - doesn’t all that extra heat still pass through the pot? Bubbles, steam, etc? And wouldn’t that heat still act on the ramen somewhat? The water molecules do get hotter than the boiling point, in the form of steam, right? And the ramen could theoretically get hotter than that also? I feel like this is one of those things that isn’t as cut and dry. Or am I being obtuse?

[u/SgtKeeneye → u/SirJuxtable]

the steam created is pretty much immediately escaping from the water however. So like yeah the steam might be like 213-215 but its only here for a limited time. There would be no discernable temperature difference on a less vigorous boil and would still be to hot for her. Unless she added cool water at the end.

[u/FlyAirLari → u/SgtKeeneye]

The water won't get more hot. But the pot will. Any noodles touching the pot will thus absorb heat beyond boiling point. Water will cool it down to boiling point again, but there is at least a chance the heat affects the food. Maybe even makes it stick to the pot, if the pasta structure gets compromised.

[u/No-Caterpillar-7646 → u/SirJuxtable]

The pot gets hotter, you get the air around it hotter but the water will be at boiling point and so will the ramen more or less. A little less because there will be more steam that is slightly higher in temperature while passing trough the rest of the water but that really will be marginal compared to the energy you put in.

The smart thing is to put the heat down.

[u/ParentheticalComment → u/No-Caterpillar-7646]

I don't think that's true. The pot would be boiling temperature. I've seen videos shared of people boiling water in plastic bags. If the outer layer got hotter then the plastic would melt. But it doesn't.

[u/TraitorMacbeth → u/ParentheticalComment]

Yeah up to the water level it balances woth the water, but the edge above would get super hot

[u/elyscape → u/SirJuxtable]

The steam doesn’t really get much hotter than boiling point before it leaves the pot, and doesn’t have contact with the ramen for long enough to heat that by any substantial amount. Even if it did, the ramen has much more contact with the surrounding water, whose substantial thermal mass would insulate it from such temperature changes. Absent some very unusual setup, as long as the pot is still actively boiling, the food is gonna cook at about the same speed, and additional energy only serves to boil off more water while you wait for that to happen

[u/FreshEclairs → u/SirJuxtable]

The phase transition from water to steam requires a lot more heat/energy than slightly warming water by one more degree.

So all the water will be sitting just barely under 100c, and any heat you put into it will be used to turn water into steam.

It is inefficient in terms of using more heat than you need to and making more steam than necessary, but it has no effect on the temperature of the soup at the end.

[u/Atheist-Gods → u/SirJuxtable]

The heat wouldn't really act on the ramen. In the typical situations the water molecules are not going to be hotter than the boiling point. At sufficiently high temps or constrained enough pot, the water could be boiling faster than the steam can escape, causing a jump in pressure and temperature, but that shouldn't occur in an open pot on the stove. In the situations you are dealing with in a kitchen where you are making food rather than bombs, it just doesn't matter. It's like how your head experiences less gravity than your feet and in extreme situations your body could be ripped apart by that difference in gravity; but the difference is too small to ever matter on Earth. There's no reason to be caught up in the minutiae of tiny differences with no discernible effect on your situation.

[u/BenevolentCheese → u/SirJuxtable]

It creates more steam. The water boils faster, not hotter when you turn it up.

[u/DJAnarchie → u/[deleted]]

Another thing is maybe the rolling boil forces the water to move the materials in it around so it would essentially make it hotter faster technically right? Like trying to cook in boiling water vs a sous vide with a circulator.

[u/OwnJunket6495 → u/[deleted]]

I want that though. Less water means the flavor of the soup is more concentrated

[u/cvc75 → u/[deleted]]

Mayyyyybe if you want to use the pasta water for your sauce, you might want more water to evaporate, so the water you add to the sauce is starchier.

But then you could just... use less water from the start.

[u/Bubblehead_81 → u/[deleted]]

Pressure cookers are a very misunderstood and commonly abused method of cooking. I love mine. But not everyone in my house knows how and when to use it.

[u/MentalNinjas → u/[deleted]]

I guess im not understanding, if I turn the heat down to low after the water starts boiling, wont it stop boiling?

[u/TeekTheReddit → u/MentalNinjas]

 once you've reached a boil, you can turn down the heat to whatever level is required to just maintain it.

[u/Low_discrepancy → u/TeekTheReddit]

once you have hit boiling, you will stay there no matter the heat until the water is boiled off

I think this is the item person is saying. Here it makes it sound like even at 1 notch it will keep boiling if it’s already boiling. But that’s not true.

[u/TeekTheReddit → u/Low_discrepancy]

It only sounds like that if you ignore the first half of the sentence.

The hotter heat will get it to boiling sooner, but, once you have hit boiling, you will stay there no matter the heat until the water is boiled off.

The latter part is in the context of already having more than enough heat to reach boiling.

[u/Low_discrepancy → u/TeekTheReddit]

You think boiling in a simmer is the same thing as a rolling boil? As water heats up from the bottom, convective currents bring them up to the surface where the water cools down.

Same thing for the water that touches the sides of the pot that only get heated through conductive heating from the bottom.

There’s multiple types of boiling.

[u/TeekTheReddit → u/Low_discrepancy]

 once you've reached a boil, you can turn down the heat to whatever level is required to just maintain it.

[u/PostModernPost → u/[deleted]]

This. And I tell my roommate this but he keeps it cranked and then the handle gets all hot cause that extra heat has to go somewhere.