Any helpful life hacks?

What? I put the eggs in water and turn the flame to high and walk away. I realize walking away is why they’re boiling over but then I lower the heat to medium. Not simmer.
All you need is a few bubbles so you know the water stays at 100C. Any more is wasted energy.
 
What? I put the eggs in water and turn the flame to high and walk away. I realize walking away is why they’re boiling over but then I lower the heat to medium. Not simmer.
Incredible Egg's "recipe" is pretty hard to screw up.

 
Why? You should get the water boiling and then turn it down to a simmer before you put the eggs in, and put the lid on. There is no reason to have it boiling so vigorously that it boils over. That’s just a waste of energy, because the water can’t get any hotter than boiling point, no matter how strongly you heat it.
I am forwarding this to my wife. She persists in this notion that vigorously boiling water is hotter than simmering. I've offered pretty much your explanation but a second opinion (especially from a chemist) may help.

Also I've heard that the shells are less prone to crack the simmer method.

A relative has an even more efficient method that yields a near-HB egg (stays in one piece, can be peeled, but has a touch of moistness to the yolk) which is basically put eggs in, cover pot, shut off stove, retrieve eggs in seven minutes.

(if you're an egg hater like me, still awful, but others seem to like his near-HB)
 
I am forwarding this to my wife. She persists in this notion that vigorously boiling water is hotter than simmering. I've offered pretty much your explanation but a second opinion (especially from a chemist) may help.

Also I've heard that the shells are less prone to crack the simmer method.

A relative has an even more efficient method that yields a near-HB egg (stays in one piece, can be peeled, but has a touch of moistness to the yolk) which is basically put eggs in, cover pot, shut off stove, retrieve eggs in seven minutes.

(if you're an egg hater like me, still awful, but others seem to like his near-HB)
No I like them but I don't eat a lot: a salade Niçoise now and then - and I also put chopped hard boiled eggs into kedgeree and smoked haddock fishcakes, which I do from time to time. I stop the shells cracking by puncturing them at the air sac end before putting them into the boiling water. I have a patent needle device for that, which I must have bought about 30 years ago.
 
Cool a drink fast with salt and ice…

Adding salt to ice water lowers the freezing point of water, making the ice melt faster and absorb heat more quickly which will chill your drink in minutes. A good hack for summer camping trips and other times when you’re nowhere near a frig. and only have a cooler to work with.
 
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Cool a drink fast with salt and ice…

Adding salt to ice water lowers the freezing point of water, making the ice melt faster and absorb heat more quickly which will chill your drink in minutes. A good hack for summer camping trips and other times when you’re nowhere near a frig. and only have a cooler to work with.
But then you won't have ice for very long...:) It is how they used to melt ice on roads in the winter (rock salt) and how they speed up making home made ice cream.
 
Cool a drink fast with salt and ice…

Adding salt to ice water lowers the freezing point of water, making the ice melt faster and absorb heat more quickly which will chill your drink in minutes. A good hack for summer camping trips and other times when you’re nowhere near a frig. and only have a cooler to work with.
Yes that should work.

Though what I generally do is take, in the cooler, a cooling jacket designed for a wine bottle, which I keep in my freezer. That works surprisingly quickly, but only for wine bottles, as the dimensions are designed for one to fit inside snugly, making a good thermal contact. And I only have one, so only good for a single bottle.

Freezing point depression occurs because the dissolved salt ions add entropy to the system, which makes the entropy change on freezing even more -ve than it is for pure water, thereby making it more of an "uphill"process and hence requiring a lower temperature to bring it about.
In terms of the good old chemist's thermodynamic formula, ΔG = ΔH -TΔS, ΔG must be -ve for the process to occur, i.e. the free energy of the system after the change must be less than before, as it moves to a lower energy state.

ΔH is the Latent Heat of Fusion, which is -ve for freezing because heat comes out, i.e. less is left afterwards. So that term favours freezing.

However ΔS is also -ve, because the molecules have to arrange themselves into a highly ordered state in the crystal, so the crystals have a lower entropy than the liquid. Since minus of a minus is a plus, the -TΔS part is +ve and fights against the ΔH term. Which one wins depends on T, the (absolute) temperature.

Since -TΔS is more +ve for salty water (not only do the water molecules now have to order themselves to make a crystal, they also have to get all the salt ions out of the way to do so), T has to be lower to make the -TΔS term small enough for ΔH to win.
 
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Yes that should work.

Though what I generally do is take, in the cooler, a cooling jacket designed for a wine bottle, which I keep in my freezer. That works surprisingly quickly, but only for wine bottles, as the dimensions are designed for one to fit inside snugly, making a good thermal contact. And I only have one, so only good for a single bottle.

Freezing point depression occurs because the dissolved salt ions add entropy to the system, which makes the entropy change on freezing even more -ve than it is for pure water, thereby making it more of an "uphill"process and hence requiring a lower temperature to bring it about.
In terms of the good old chemist's thermodynamic formula, ΔG = ΔH -TΔS, ΔG must be -ve for the process to occur, i.e. the free energy of the system after the change must be less than before, as it moves to a lower energy state.

ΔH is the Latent Heat of Fusion, which is -ve for freezing because heat comes out, i.e. less is left afterwards. So that term favours freezing.

However ΔS is also -ve, because the molecules have to arrange themselves into a highly ordered state in the crystal, so the crystals have a lower entropy than the liquid. Since minus of a minus is a plus, the -TΔS part is +ve and fights against the ΔH term. Which one wins depends on T, the (absolute) temperature.

Since -TΔS is more +ve for salty water (not only do the water molecules now have to order themselves to make a crystal, they also have to get all the salt ions out of the way to do so), T has to be lower to make the -TΔS term small enough for ΔH to win.
In other words, salty water has to be colder than regular/non-salted water, in order to freeze.
 
I am forwarding this to my wife. She persists in this notion that vigorously boiling water is hotter than simmering. I've offered pretty much your explanation but a second opinion (especially from a chemist) may help.

Also I've heard that the shells are less prone to crack the simmer method.

A relative has an even more efficient method that yields a near-HB egg (stays in one piece, can be peeled, but has a touch of moistness to the yolk) which is basically put eggs in, cover pot, shut off stove, retrieve eggs in seven minutes.

(if you're an egg hater like me, still awful, but others seem to like his near-HB)
That's the method on the incredible egg website, except they put the eggs in the cold water. Bring to boil, cover, remove from heat and come back in about 9 - 15 minutes depending on the size of the eggs.
 
In other words, salty water has to be colder than regular/non-salted water, in order to freeze.
Yes exactly. I just went on a bit of chemistry riff because what interests me is the process responsible.

This freezing point depression is why they salt the roads in winter, to stop ice forming or to melt the ice that is already there.
 
This freezing point depression is why they salt the roads in winter, to stop ice forming or to melt the ice that is already there.
Up on the hills near where I reside, they salt the roads so that bison can wander onto them and lick the salt off them and glower at you if you try to edge past. That is the bison perspective, anyway. Humans think it's about Raoult's law or reducing automotive accidents or helping auto parts dealers by accelerating corrosion on undercarriages. What humans mostly forget is that bison are willing to get out there and depress the freezing point by compressing the ice with all that weight concentrated on their small hooves, which pays back for the amount of salt they're ingesting. Bison instinctively understand the Clausius-Clapeyron equation. ;)
 
Keep a can of wd40 handy, it can be used for multiple things around the house.
 
If you ever decide to come to Russia, take a piece of plywood and a hammer with you. When a bear attacks you on the street, put plywood in his paws, and when the bear grabs it with its claws, quickly nail its claws to the plywood with a hammer. The bear will be neutralized.
 
When you are nailing trim or moulding and using wood that is prone to splitting or cracking, turn the nail upside down and tap it gently. The nail's point will be dulled slightly but will still penetrate the trim and with less chance of splitting.
 
What if street attacks by bears in Russia is not a real problem?
Теват, каждый иностранец должен знать, что в России по улицам бродят стаи голодных медведей, которые боятся только пьяных мужиков с шапке-ушанке, с гармошкой наперевес. Вы любите играть на гармошке, Теват?
 
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