Boiling hot water

Fabritzo

What's wrong with boiling water to make tea from the hot tap? Are there side effects due to the water being held in a copper tank?

simu

Fabritzo wrote:

What's wrong with boiling water to make tea from the hot tap? Are there side effects due to the water being held in a copper tank?

Habit? People tend not to use hot water for consumption by default.

Capt'n Midnight

Best asked on the DIY forum.

AFAIK the cold water pipe comes into the house and the kitchen tap is taken off there. It then goes into the attic and into a storage tank (which may not be covered - dead pigeons etc.) and then into toilets, other taps and the heating system. So the water won't be as fresh and may contain more dissoved solids.

Funnily enough that program on Beeb4 reckoned that lead in the pipes wasn't much danger to the Romans since limescale deposits in the pipes would sealed the lead pipes. Instead they ate lead acetate which is reputed to have a sweet taste "sugar of lead" ?

seamus

Capt'n Midnight wrote:

Best asked on the DIY forum.

AFAIK the cold water pipe comes into the house and the kitchen tap is taken off there. It then goes into the attic and into a storage tank (which may not be covered - dead pigeons etc.) and then into toilets, other taps and the heating system. So the water won't be as fresh and may contain more dissoved solids.

That's pretyt much it. On top of that, hot water will be sitting in the pipes waiting for you to open the tap, stagnating, and afaik hot water corrodes coppers pipes moreso than cold water.

The unwanted effect is cumulative rather than immediate.

tribble

Yeah, it's genearally not reccomended to drink water froam any tap other than on connected directly to the main (cold kitchen tap) for health reasons.
There tends to be more contaminants (sp?) in stored water.

Reyman

Most of the points being made are valid, however if you find yourself down in places with poor quality water eg. Africa / Asia. and happen to have no access to bottled water. A good tip is to drink from the hot tap .

Apparently holding water for long periods at 40/50C has a pasteurising effect and renders the hot tap water much safer to drink than otherwise.

angeldelight

Reyman wrote:

Most of the points being made are valid, however if you find yourself down in places with poor quality water eg. Africa / Asia. and happen to have no access to bottled water. A good tip is to drink from the hot tap .

Apparently holding water for long periods at 40/50C has a pasteurising effect and renders the hot tap water much safer to drink than otherwise.

Holding water at that temp is ideal conditions for bacteria to grow really..... Most grow best at or just above body temp! it should be hotter to pasteurise it (milk done around 80/90). If boiled for few minutes any water should be as safe as its gonna get

GuanYin

angeldelight wrote:

Holding water at that temp is ideal conditions for bacteria to grow really..... Most grow best at or just above body temp! it should be hotter to pasteurise it (milk done around 80/90). If boiled for few minutes any water should be as safe as its gonna get

Basically its down tothe fact that water storage tanks (especially older ones) don't heat water uniformally. In older houses there was always a danger of water contamination and if enough of the bug was consumed, illness. In cases of bacteria like Legionella sp. this can lead to fatal conditions.

Its not so much an issue in newer houses but you're best off with fresh water.

Ciaran500

But is the water from the tank still boiling when it comes out of the tank. After years of experience making tea for my dad I've noticed if the water isn't freshly boild it doesn't make a decent cup of tea.

Capt'n Midnight

Ciaran500 wrote:

But is the water from the tank still boiling when it comes out of the tank. After years of experience making tea for my dad I've noticed if the water isn't freshly boild it doesn't make a decent cup of tea.

AFAIK that's due to fresh water being aerated since the kitchen tap usually has a thingy to allow air to get dissolved. so when making tea you should use empty the kettle and fill it again.
maybe there is a market for a kettle with a built in sparger ??

If on the other hand you are making tea with water that is not quite boiling hot then you are not really making tea. The higher temperature of boiling water allows certain substances to be extracted that would not happen at a lower temperature. This is why you should scald the pot before putting in the tea and reboiling the kettle after scalding the pot. You can't make decent tea by putting a tea bag in a cup because you just won't get hot enough to extract the full range of components needed for the proper flavour.

Coffee grounds on the other hand have the opposite problem - if the water is too hot (>85 c ?) then you extract more bitter compounds and so it tastes worse. Solution - buy a caffeteire.

Stark

Coffee beans also release carcinogens when coffee is made with boiling water.

On the subject of the hot tap, I find the hot water in my house contains a lot of sediment which isn't really noticeable normally, but if you left the tap run for too long you'd notice it.

Esel

Remember reading somewhere that water from the hot tap contains sixty time the amount of copper as that from the cold tap.

How much are you saving anyway - esp by the time you run the tap for the water to flow hot?