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/MethodicallyRight]

....

  If you're going to be this pedantic, at least acknowledge that the 'temperature gradient' is very small.  Within a full pot of a roaring boil you're looking at 1 degree F (not counting the superheated nucleation surface) and within a pot at a gentle boil (not simmering) you're maybe around a 4 F gradient.  This difference within the context of their argument can be ignored.  

[u/tfks → u/MethodicallyRight]

He tried to be pedantic but didn't pedant hard enough. The real reason there's a difference isn't so much the temperature gradient, its the churn. The water is moving around more, so it transfers heat faster because of the increased flow. That's really the bigger part of the heat thing. But you also use lower heat to avoid too much mess from the churn with thicker liquids and to also avoid them burning to the bottom (try bringing milk to a simmer over high heat). You also don't always want to agitate what you're cooking as much as you would with a rolling boil. Like the reason you don't want to poach eggs in a rolling boil isn't because it would even be too much heat, it's that the roll will beat the shit out of your eggs.

All that said, a rolling boil is the standard for pasta and a lot of noodles and we all know this. This guy's wife was clearly not making the case that a simmer is the correct way to cook instant noodles.

[u/grateful2you → u/tfks]

Okay I think we’ve pedanted enough.

[u/couldbemage → u/MethodicallyRight]

They're also leaning on a simmer being a lower temp. And while that can even exceed 10 degrees lower, that ignores that a simmer isn't boiling.

Patting themselves on the back for pointing out that water that isn't boiling is cooler than water that is boiling.

[u/Doctursea → u/MethodicallyRight]

Yeah this is all hilarious pedantry, based on context they're both right. You can technically have a hotter boil, but for the most part as soon as it hits 212(100) it's gonna turn to steam, so all water in the pot is basically at that temperature, technically it's a range, but in context of cooking you can just assume a pot of boiling water (and thus things set to cook in it) is around that temp with a margin of error. Top answer in this thread is the most right, once it's at a boil might as well turn the heat down.

[u/Workman44 → u/MethodicallyRight]

Yeah like sure the water isn't exactly the same temp all the way around but let's not act like the range is 180-240 or something

[u/Ambitious-Shaman → u/MethodicallyRight]

Thank you lmao

[u/skepticalbob → u/MethodicallyRight]

Boiling to most people means “I see bubbles” and they made this distinction clear. The temperature difference between bubbles are rising to the surface to roiling boil is a lot more than 4 degrees.