Great Topic! Steve Mynott wrote:
Ken Brown <k.brown@ccs.bbk.ac.uk> writes:
On a tangent a friend claimed Americans didn't have electric kettles for boiling water.
Can anyone confirm whether this is true?
I have never seen an electric kettle for boiling water for tea. Why boil water for tea on a stove or in an electric "kettle" when you can put a mug of water in the microwave and have it on the verge of boiling in 60 seconds? Probably uses less energy too. Tea you can pick in your back yard. Mike
On Thu, 4 Jan 2001 mmotyka@lsil.com wrote:
Great Topic!
Steve Mynott wrote:
Ken Brown <k.brown@ccs.bbk.ac.uk> writes:
On a tangent a friend claimed Americans didn't have electric kettles for boiling water.
Can anyone confirm whether this is true?
I have never seen an electric kettle for boiling water for tea.
It is false. I have an electric kettle for boiling water. It gets used for tea fairly often. (Or it did, until I bought a new tea kettle.) Why some people believe these urban myths... alan@ctrl-alt-del.com | Note to AOL users: for a quick shortcut to reply Alan Olsen | to my mail, just hit the ctrl, alt and del keys. "In the future, everything will have its 15 minutes of blame."
Obligatory cypher tie-in: Remember the Lava Lamp used to create random numbers? Bubbles in a boiling liquid might also be suitable. Electric kettles are common in the UK and Canada. Black and Decker makes a model (in 1/2 quart and 1-1/2 quart sizes) available in some department stores, kitchen stores and catalog stores in the US. Electric kettles will boil several cups of water faster than a microwave. For a smaller amount, it's a toss-up (depending on the power of your microwave). If you want to make a full pot of tea, an electric kettle is faster and more convenient than a stovetop or microwave solution. Energy consumption is favorable or better than a stovetop as very little heat goes other than to heat water (versus a stove, where heat disapates around and under the pot). Like an automatic drip coffee maker, it's wise to periodically clean the inside of the kettle with a vinegar solution. This eliminates build-up from minerals in the water. Here endeth the lesson. -- Greg On Thu, Jan 04, 2001 at 01:40:11PM -0500, mmotyka@lsil.com wrote:
Steve Mynott wrote:
Ken Brown <k.brown@ccs.bbk.ac.uk> writes:
On a tangent a friend claimed Americans didn't have electric kettles for boiling water.
Can anyone confirm whether this is true?
I have never seen an electric kettle for boiling water for tea.
Why boil water for tea on a stove or in an electric "kettle" when you can put a mug of water in the microwave and have it on the verge of boiling in 60 seconds? Probably uses less energy too.
Tea you can pick in your back yard.
Mike
mmotyka@lsil.com wrote:
Why boil water for tea on a stove or in an electric "kettle" when you can put a mug of water in the microwave and have it on the verge of boiling in 60 seconds? Probably uses less energy too.
Bad idea: http://rabi.phys.virginia.edu/HTW//microwave_ovens.html "Why does water react in a violent and dangerous way when overheated in a microwave oven? CA Water doesn't always boil when it is heated above its normal boiling temperature (100 0C or 212 0F). The only thing that is certain is that above that temperature, a steam bubble that forms inside the body of the liquid will be able to withstand the crushing effects of atmospheric pressure. If no bubbles form, then boiling will simply remain a possibility, not a reality. Something has to trigger the formation of steam bubbles, a process known as "nucleation." If there is no nucleation of steam bubbles, there will be no boiling and therefore no effective limit to how hot the water can become. Nucleation usually occurs at hot spots during stovetop cooking or at defects in the surfaces of cooking vessels. Glass containers have few or no such defects. When you cook water in a smooth glass container, using a microwave oven, it is quite possible that there will be no nucleation on the walls of the container and the water will superheat. This situation becomes even worse if the top surface of the water is "sealed" by a thin layer of oil or fat so that evaporation can't occur, either. Superheated water is extremely dangerous and people have been severely injured by such water. All it takes is some trigger to create the first bubble-a fork or spoon opening up the inner surface of the water or striking the bottom of the container-and an explosion follows. I recently filmed such explosions in my own microwave (low-quality movie (749KB), medium-quality movie (5.5MB)), or high-quality movie (16.2MB)). As you'll hear in my flustered remarks after "Experiment 13," I was a bit shaken up by the ferocity of the explosion I had triggered, despite every expectation that it would occur. After that surprise, you'll notice that I became much more concerned about yanking my hand out of the oven before the fork reached the water. I recommend against trying this dangerous experiment, but if you must, be extremely careful and don't superheat more than a few ounces of water. You can easily get burned or worse. For a reader's story about a burn he received from superheated water in a microwave, touch here." -- ----------------------Kaos-Keraunos-Kybernetos--------------------------- + ^ + :Surveillance cameras|Passwords are like underwear. You don't /|\ \|/ :aren't security. A |share them, you don't hang them on your/\|/\ <--*-->:camera won't stop a |monitor, or under your keyboard, you \/|\/ /|\ :masked killer, but |don't email them, or put them on a web \|/ + v + :will violate privacy|site, and you must change them very often. --------_sunder_@_sunder_._net_------- http://www.sunder.net ------------
At 01:40 PM 1/4/01 -0500, mmotyka@lsil.com wrote:
Steve Mynott wrote:
Ken Brown <k.brown@ccs.bbk.ac.uk> writes:
On a tangent a friend claimed Americans didn't have electric kettles for boiling water.
Can anyone confirm whether this is true?
I have never seen an electric kettle for boiling water for tea.
That's because Real Americans don't drink tea - we have electric coffeemakers. The Mr. Coffee machine got most people to switch over from percolators to drip-filter coffee, though some people still drink (yecch!) instant coffee. Other than tea and instant soups or similar things, most foods that require boiling water involve cooking them in pots, which you do on the stovetop. Thanks! Bill Bill Stewart, bill.stewart@pobox.com PGP Fingerprint D454 E202 CBC8 40BF 3C85 B884 0ABE 4639
participants (5)
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Alan Olsen -
Bill Stewart -
Greg Newby -
mmotyka＠lsil.com -
sunder