Hot or Cold water to Boil water question

[msmofet]

The comment you bolded was in response to the previous comment by someone saying oxygen made it taste better. I believe it was Andy M who made the comment about the taste of oxygen. I was doing research on MY question, and reporting that there was nothing in my research that indicated anything about oxygen and taste. Do you have some research to share? Or is it just anecdotal evidence you are sharing?

just my opinion like andy. sometimes we have to boil our drinking water due to broken water pipes in the area and is usually recommended by the town and county health officials. the boiled water even after chilled in fridg tastes flat due to boiling out the oxygen. my comment is from experience with boiled drinking water vs water straight from the tap.

 

[Alix]

Gotcha. Thanks. Like I said, nothing I found indicated any taste difference because of aeration. You and my husband would get along well, he likes the "taste" of tap water and I keep telling him that water shouldn't have a "taste" LOL. Standing argument in our house.

 

[SRL]

My questions were actually about how to "dissolve" oxygen. And as I found out, the oxygen is not dissolved at all.

Sorry to hijack back and I know this isn't really the place for Chemistry 101, but yes, oxygen is soluble in water. A true solution at the molecular level, not merely a suspension or even an emulsion (a solution has little or nothing to do with tiny bubbles, which we can leave for Don Ho to sing about).

It's difficult to get your head around this without having the basic chemistry vocabulary to understand it. In first-year chemistry, students spend a lot of time learning about solubility. Even to what a "solution" actually is. The dictionary definition of "a homogeneous mixture" is correct, but inadequate because it doesn't explain what that means/requires at the level of molecules.

Sorry to continue so far afield, but this isn't the first instance here where misinformation has been accepted because it was couched in pseudo-scientific terms. Beware the deadly ions.

 

[msmofet]

Gotcha. Thanks. Like I said, nothing I found indicated any taste difference because of aeration. You and my husband would get along well, he likes the "taste" of tap water and I keep telling him that water shouldn't have a "taste" LOL. Standing argument in our house.

i agree with you about water not having a taste. some tap water i have had has tasted metalic (i assume from the pipes yuck!!) to water that tastes like fish tank water (ummmmmm long story about a bet with my cousin when i was little and a fish tank. i KNOW what fish tank water tastes like. LOL). i am not really talking about the "taste" so much. i can't really explain it, it's just flat. (it is so frustrating when you can't verbalize something. and it makes you look/sound like a loon. i'm sorry, i wasn't trying to be quarrelsome.)

 

[Alix]

SRL, thanks for the Chem lesson and what the heck, this thread is so far off we might as well just run with it now.
All the information I have seen is not talking about oxygen being soluble at all, it is talking about microbubbles. Maybe that is incorrect?

msmofet, I get what you mean by flat. My husband uses the same words to describe it. I still prefer my distilled water.

 

[archiduc]

When doing the dishes by hand in the kitchen sink, with our single faucet tap expelling hot water from the mixer, my wife decides to fill the electric kettle to boil water for a coffee or pot of tea or whatever.
She insists on running the tap until cold water comes out then proceeds to fill the kettle.
Then I have to run the tap again to get hot to come out so I can finish the dishes.
I tell her that shes wasting heat energy and water by doing this.
She claims that there is a valid reason to use cold water for the kettle.
Whos right?

Hi NZDoug,

It may be both of you or neither of you!

I live in Edinburgh, Scotland.

The "hot water" tap is from my water tank which stores water. I can switch on my immersion heater and let it heat up, use the water, let the residue cool down and heat up again every day. If I don`t heat up the water in the "hot water" tank it will be cool or cold in winter! This would be the water that I bathe in, but would I want to drink it? Alternatively, I could in theory allow the "hot water" tank to hold/store water for a week/month before I switch on the immersion. I could use hot water via an instant shower or use a kettle. I wonder if I would like to drink water from the hot water tank after it has been sitting in the tank for a week/month? Who knows what bacteria will grow and yes bacteria will grow on undisturbed, unheated water - but I wouldn`t want to drink it! If you don`t believe me, buy a bottle of water, drink it, refill from the tap and just leave it - a cloudy scum of micrrobes will be delighted to grow for you!!!

Actually, I wouldn`t want to consume tepid water and will always run the tap until it is cold. Most folk in the UK would drink from anything other than the "cold water tap" as the cold tap to the kitchen sink is the drinking tap. Could be a legal requirement???

So. in the UK we have a cold water tap, in the kitchen which gives good, clean and drinkable water. If one does not like the taste then so be it, but that is very different from saying the water is undrinkable!

So, find out where the hot water comes from and the source of the cold water!

All the best,
Archiduc

 

[luckytrim]

Legionaire's Disease has been connected with domestic hot water heaters............

 

[Alix]

Legionaire's Disease has been connected with domestic hot water heaters............

Oh NICE! Like we weren't off topic enough LT!

 

[luckytrim]

In for a Penny...............

 

[Alix]

Bad boy!

 

[msmofet]

In for a Penny...............

i'll take a pound of tongue and don't put your thumb on the scale!!