Wednesday, April 1, 2015

How Hot is Your Boiling Water?

How hot is your boiling water?  Well, that depends.  The main thing is elevation.  How far above sea level are you when you are boiling that water.  The purity of the water also can change the boiling point.  At sea level, pure water boils at 100 degrees C or 212 degrees F.  There are a lot of people who live on the plains and they spend a lot less time cooking than those who live in the mountains. Up at about 2000 meters or 6500 feet, water starts to boil at 93 C.  Now, if you just climbed up on top of Mount Everest and you want a hot cup of coffee, good luck.  Up there water boils at 70 C.  The higher you are, the lower the boiling point, and the longer it takes to cook foods.

Dang, I don't know what made me think of boiling water.  Guess I want a cup of coffee.  OK, going to head on out to Wally World and get us some supplies.  Now don't spill any boiling water on you but have a great day, you hear?.

25 comments:

  1. No Dizzy, don't post stuff in 'C an' meters. This is America, we don't do that stuff.

    Now today's post bout boil'n water makes me wonder why we both had this on our minds this morn'n. I was wonder'n what the temp of water can reach when it's boiling. Think'n super heat here. It's got to go beyond 212 degs....don't ya think?

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    1. Ok, never mind....Google is your best friend.

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    2. Ha, I knowed the old Billy Bob was right. A pan of water was placed on the stove an' brought to a boil. Temp was taken...212,.0 an' hold'n. Burner was turn to high, water was a roaring boil. Took temp....213.5.

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    3. My wife was ready and waiting on me to go to Wally World, so I was in a hurry when I wrote it. And you and me both having it on our minds. . . well, that just goes to show you that great minds run in the same track.

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  2. If you put the water under pressure, it raises the boiling point. Less pressure, it lowers it.

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    1. I am well aware of that Dizzy, But the boiling point weren't what I was talk'n bout, I was talk'n water temp. Did you not read the test I just did...water temp raised at the same pressure with the application of more heat.

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    2. I guess you had super heated water or had the thermometer close to the bottom of the pan.

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  3. You ought to try baking a cake at high elevation... THAT'S when you really can tell that altitude has an attitude!

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    1. I bought a sealed bag of chips near home then went on a trip to the western mountains and the sealed bag blew up like a balloon.

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  4. Back in the mid seventies we with on a two week vacation to Mexico. We went all the way down to Acapulco. We were pulling a Lovebug, a predecessor to the Casida, a fiberglass trailer. We kept the porta potty under the front bed which was a fiberglass cabinet base.

    I had to go poop real soon and couldn't wait. So we pulled over to the side of the road and I went back to the trailer. We were almost to Mexico City, which is at 7500' elevation. You can guess the rest. When I went to pull out the potty it had swelled up too much to come out from under the bed. I realized what the problem was and slowly stepped on the flushing pedal, slowly very slowly releasing the pressure till I was able to pull the potty out to take care of business.

    Acapulco is at sealevel and Mexico City is at 7500'. Quite a difference.

    Wade in NW Florida

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    1. Just imagine how hard it is for astronauts on their way to the moon to get a hot cup of coffee, but I bet they figured out a way.

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  5. The Sinton water is far from pure so that alone will raise the boiling point enough to measure.

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    1. Yep, any impurities changes he boiling and the freezing points as does atmospheric pressure.

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  6. By the way I work well in metric or antiquated American.

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    1. I do too, but I still think in inches, feet, and miles.

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  7. maple tree sap boils 7 degrees above water. there is a special glass tube with a glass bulb on the end that measures the density of the sap to let you know your sap is syrup. Basically you take a cup of hot boiled down sap that looks like it might be thick enough to be syrup. When the glass bulb is placed in the cup if half of the bulb sinks then you know you have reached the syrup stage. I don't have one of these bulbs. My syrup is on the thin side, I'm afraid of burning it so I stop the process of evaporating water a bit early. It taste good, I'm happy.

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    1. Even if it isn't as thick as you like, it is still sweet and oh so goooood!!

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  8. The old absorption chillers I use to work on boiled water at 38 degrees F (under a vacuum) . They were used in the northeast a lot for air conditioning. Strange beast, remember that old movie, Mosquito Coast? Harrison Ford fired up one of those suckers to dazzle the local folk in the Amazon.

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    1. Dang Jim, I guess you would have to drink iced coffee at that boiling point!!

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  9. I had enough of metric the 3 yrs I lived in Ireland. About the only one I can relate to now is kilometers while walking or hiking.

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    1. I unit of measure can be anything. Back years ago, a foot used to be the length of the king's forearm I was once told.

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  10. Being from Canada we have metric, but I was raised with Inches, feet, miles and Fahrenheit. But spend 6 months in the USA so and comfortable with both.

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    1. When I was designing and creating detail drawing, I would use what ever form of distance the customer required. Could have been either metric or English.

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    2. That does happen to us mechanical designers during the course of a career.

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    3. I used Autodesk's AutoCAD, Mechanical Desktop, and Inventor. Loved Inventor because I could do animations with it.

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