4 ms·

> When the water boils, pour in your pasta. Why even wait for the water to boil? I always pour my pasta into the cold water right from the start, and it doesn'

> When the water boils, pour in your pasta. Why even wait for the water to boil? I always pour my pasta into the cold water right from the start, and it doesn't seem to make any difference.

thewebcount 4y ago
Wouldn’t that increase the time it takes to get a boil going? Doesn’t that increase the thermal load (or whatever the appropriate term is)?
- nielsbot 4y ago
  maybe not? if the water and pasta are at the same temp to start with. I'm assuming heating pasta also takes less energy that heating water.
- wtallis 4y ago
  The term you're looking for is heat capacity. Water has a much higher specific heat capacity (on a per unit of mass basis) than most other everyday materials, and it comprises most of the mass of a pot+water [+pasta] system being heated, so the time and energy required to boil won't be changed significantly by the presence or absence of the pasta.
discardedrefuse 4y ago
Different stoves take different amount of time to boil water. Kinda hard to follow the timing directions on the box if you start with cold water.
- mertd 4y ago
  Hint: There is a direct way to tell if pasta is almost done.
  - chihuahua 4y ago
    Oooh, maybe we can build a $400 IoT device that requires a $60/month subscription around this idea? Oh... just tasting a piece of pasta? Never mind.
    - antisthenes 4y ago
      You could maybe call the device Pastero. It would need to have several precisely calibrated pressure sensors to test the done-ness of pasta. With machine learning of course.
deleted 4y ago
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wtallis 4y ago
I suspect that makes it harder to get the timing right, because how long the water takes to heat up varies a lot more than how much it cools down in the first ~10 minutes after turning off the burner.
deleted 4y ago
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andoli 4y ago
this might work for you barbarians, but for us italians this a big no-no ;)
- kevin_thibedeau 4y ago
  Did you confirm with the Chinese?

> When the water boils, pour in your pasta. Why even wait for the water to boil? I always pour my pasta into the cold water right from the start, and it doesn't seem to make any difference.

thewebcount 4y ago

Wouldn’t that increase the time it takes to get a boil going? Doesn’t that increase the thermal load (or whatever the appropriate term is)?

nielsbot 4y ago
maybe not? if the water and pasta are at the same temp to start with. I'm assuming heating pasta also takes less energy that heating water.
wtallis 4y ago
The term you're looking for is heat capacity. Water has a much higher specific heat capacity (on a per unit of mass basis) than most other everyday materials, and it comprises most of the mass of a pot+water [+pasta] system being heated, so the time and energy required to boil won't be changed significantly by the presence or absence of the pasta.

discardedrefuse 4y ago

Different stoves take different amount of time to boil water. Kinda hard to follow the timing directions on the box if you start with cold water.

mertd 4y ago
Hint: There is a direct way to tell if pasta is almost done.
- chihuahua 4y ago
  Oooh, maybe we can build a $400 IoT device that requires a $60/month subscription around this idea? Oh... just tasting a piece of pasta? Never mind.
  - antisthenes 4y ago
    You could maybe call the device Pastero. It would need to have several precisely calibrated pressure sensors to test the done-ness of pasta. With machine learning of course.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

wtallis 4y ago

I suspect that makes it harder to get the timing right, because how long the water takes to heat up varies a lot more than how much it cools down in the first ~10 minutes after turning off the burner.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

andoli 4y ago

this might work for you barbarians, but for us italians this a big no-no ;)

kevin_thibedeau 4y ago
Did you confirm with the Chinese?