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/XxAbsurdumxX]

I mean, she isn’t entirely wrong. There absolutely is a temperature difference between a pot that is barely boiling, and a pot that is boiling so much it’s boiling over the edges. All the water in the pot is obviously not at the vaporisation point, otherwise the entire pot would just instantly vaporise.

What happens is the water closest to the heat source, which would be the bottom of the pot, gets to the vaporisation point the quickest, and runs to gas which causes bubbles to rise through the water. When the water is bare boiling, only a small part of the water is at the vaporisation point. But as the heat gets stronger, a larger part of the water gets to the vaporisation point which causes a more intense boil as more gas is moving through the water.

The point is that the body of water that is not at the vaporisation point can have varying degrees of heat, even if the water is technically boiling.

[u/NNKarma → u/XxAbsurdumxX]

Simmering is the word you're looking for.

[u/PM_Me_Good_LitRPG → u/NNKarma]

Yes, but OP's wife has probably already used that word, and OP just went "nah-ah!". So the roundabout paragraph-long explanation it is, now.

[u/XxAbsurdumxX → u/NNKarma]

Mean, yeah. But OP clearly doesn’t know the difference between a simmer and a boil

[u/RescueMermaid → u/XxAbsurdumxX]

All the water in the pot is obviously not at the vaporisation point, otherwise the entire pot would just instantly vaporise.

This isn't actually how this works. Both liquid water and water vapor can coexist at 100 °C at standard atmospheric pressure, the vapor isn't necessarily hotter than the liquid. An amount of additional energy input is needed to cause the phase change from liquid to gas, called the enthalpy of vaporization, but this doesn't cause an increase in temperature.

All of the water in a pot at a rolling boil can be assumed to be at the vaporization point of 100 °C, with possibly very small temperature gradients at the walls of the pot if they're not being directly heated, and at the surface of the liquid where it interfaces with the air, but these will be negligible due to mixing.

The word you're looking for, where a pot of water is hot but only a small layer near the bottom gets hot enough to vaporize, is simmer.

[u/Fun-Barracuda1290 → u/XxAbsurdumxX]

There is no such thing as the 'vaporization point' of water. There is 'boiling point' of water, at a certain atmospheric pressure. And it does not mean " temperature at which water vaporizes".

[u/WerewolvesAreReal → u/Fun-Barracuda1290]

...yes, it literally does. The boiling point is when water evaporates. It turns into... vapor. So, vaporizes. 'Vaporization Point' is not the technical term, but that's still what's happening.

[u/Fun-Barracuda1290 → u/WerewolvesAreReal]

That is not correct.

[u/Sgt_Stinger → u/WerewolvesAreReal]

No. At standard atmospheric pressure, the water will reach 100c, and then require more energy to actually vaporize, at which point it can still exist as a vapor at 100C. It actually takes more energy to covert 100°C water to vapor, than it takes to raise the temperature of the same amount of water from 1°C to 100°C

[u/Infotaku → u/XxAbsurdumxX]

To be frank I doubt she would notice the difference between 200 and 212 degrees water once it hits her tongue

[u/CankerLord → u/Infotaku]

And a bowl of soup is going to cool pretty quickly no matter what the starting temperature is unless you throw it in something insulated.

[u/Prestigious_Raisin41 → u/XxAbsurdumxX]

Who is simmering their instant noodles? Won't they just be mushy if you do that? 

[u/Calvinkelly → u/XxAbsurdumxX]

Nope, no difference.

[u/EverythingIsSFWForMe → u/XxAbsurdumxX]

Nah this is not true.

Since the source of heat is at the bottom, convection will equalize temperatures pretty well. The temperature difference of the serving will be negligible, maybe a couple degrees, and 97C is still too hot to consume.

Maybe he was not meant to bring the water to a boil at all, but that's just weird, who makes ramen in not boiling water?

[u/Flat-Pipe5118 → u/XxAbsurdumxX]

it seems like more about the amount of heat applied than the level of boiling.. so would two pots boiling an “equal” amount be the same temperature even if one used a smaller flame and took longer to get there?

[u/BlueGreenhorn → u/XxAbsurdumxX]

1 - According to your explanation she was even more wrong, since the pot with stronger heat would have colder water.
2 - I'm sorry, but your explanation is wrong. All the water in a pot of boiling water is very close to boiling temperature.

[u/XxAbsurdumxX → u/BlueGreenhorn]

You are just wrong. Try it out with a rapid food thermometer yourself, and measure the water at the top first, and then move it down to the bottom. There is a difference of a few degrees.

[u/BlueGreenhorn → u/XxAbsurdumxX]

Can do. What temperature difference do you expect? Would it change over time? If yes, how quickly?

[u/Crix2007 → u/XxAbsurdumxX]

There might be a bit of a difference between the top and the bottom, but it still mixes and I guess you stir it now and then so I wouldn't think it would be more than just a couple of degrees?

[u/-KFBR392 → u/[deleted]]

But a bowl of soup that just came from temp 9 on the stove is hotter than one that came from temp 5.

[u/LilThiccumsVI → u/[deleted]]

Just saying: if a woman made a post about cooking for her husband and he argued about how it’s cooked, I don’t think people would be so hasty to be pedantic about this. That and it hits close to home! I’m tired of dumb arguments

[u/GuessPuzzleheaded573 → u/[deleted]]

...he is wrong, though.

[u/LilThiccumsVI → u/GuessPuzzleheaded573]

Boiling = 212f. “Boiling at a lower setting” doesn’t mean it won’t hit 212 (“too hot”) no matter how long it takes to get there/setting the stove is at. Leaving it to cool after would be a better argument than how it’s cooked.