Cooking is all fun and games until the h2o in your pot boils over and your cooktop becomes a viscid mess. Not surprisingly, this leaves many habitation cooks like you and me wondering if there was some secret mode to continue the water in our pots from humid over.

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I was researching this topic on the Internet and kept coming across the usual superstitions (similar how adding salt to your pot keeps the water from humid over), until I stumbled upon a trick that seemed and then uncomplicated and then effective, I found it hard to believe.

After testing this play a joke on out for a week, I can confirm to you that it really works. And I've been using it e'er since.

In this post, I'm going to tell yous all almost it.

To keep the h2o in your pot from boiling over, put a wooden spoon beyond it. As the spoon isn't submerged in the water and wood is a poor heat conductor, the spoon will stay drier and libation than the pot. When water bubbles come up in contact with the spoon, they'll flare-up because of its dry out, absurd, and rough surface.

This flim-flam works primarily when boiling starchy foods. Here'south the scientific reason why.

Why a Wooden Spoon Keeps Water From Boiling Over

Starch is a carbohydrate that's naturally nowadays in vegetables, like potatoes, beans, lentils, peas, chickpeas, and corn, likewise as in grains and flour products, similar rice and pasta noodles.

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Starch dissolves in water and swells up in the presence of heat. When you add starchy foods to a pot of boiling water, the water strips away some of the starch granules on the food's surface. These starch granules dissolve and swell, causing the formation of bubbles.

The bubbles form because the starch granules absorb increasing amounts of water until they finally burst, sending starch molecules into the water which results in white foam.

This is likewise the reason why your cooking water turns white when you make pasta.

In that location's one concluding piece to the puzzle I need to show you before y'all sympathize why a wooden spoon keeps water from boiling over.

When you bring a pot of water to a boil, the water boils in continuous cycles called convection currents.

Here's an illustration of how these convection currents look similar:

In physics, density is a mensurate of an object'southward mass per one unit of volume. Submerged in water, less dense objects will float and denser objects will sink.

When the temperature of water rises, its density decreases. Which is why the water molecules that sit down the closest to the bottom of your pot volition heat upwardly and go less dense.

Equally the molecules on the lesser rut up and lose density, they will rise up to the surface and go replaced by denser and cooler water molecules.

This happens once again, and again, and once more in cycles—until y'all remove the pot from the rut.

No thing if yous knew this before coming to this post or not, yous've probably noticed it already because the bubbles in a pot of boiling water volition form in cycles. When too many bubbling abound too big too quickly and lump too much together, the water will boil over.

Think of information technology every bit a cocky-reinforcing loop. Starch bubbles oestrus upwards, smashing up, and burst, heating upwardly other starch granules and turning them into bubbles in the procedure. The bubbling go structurally stronger and create multiple layers of foam.

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As the cooking water becomes starchier and thicker, the bubbles on the surface forestall steam from escaping from the bottom of the pot, causing the liquid and bubbles in the pot to rise.

Putting the lid on won't help. If you do it, the h2o will only boil over faster because the steam is going to take a harder time to escape.

Putting a wooden spoon over the pot works because the foam will eventually come across the spoon equally the foam bubbles up. The spoon sucks up the thermal energy from the bubbles then that they don't abound too large, lump too much together, or abound structurally stronger.

"That makes lots of opportunities for bubbles to start absorbing and wicking into the wood. This stretches the bubble," Scott Beaver, Doctor of Chemical Engineering science and creator of Learn Science with Dr. Scott, tells North Carolina Idiot box station WRAL.

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"The stretching strength to pull the bubble apart becomes greater than the force of surface tension to hold the bubble together. So the bubble collapses." When this happens over and over, the foam goes down.

Try this trick out for yourselves and let me know how it worked out for y'all.

Don't Cook All of Your Food in a Rolling Boil

When you ready the heat on your cooktop to high and place a pot of h2o on the burner, the water will eventually reach a rolling boil.

A rolling eddy is when the water in your pot reaches a temperature of 212°F (100°C), also known as the boiling point of h2o, and bubbling start forming and bursting vigorously every bit a result.

It'due south also when starchy h2o can boil over the easiest because the internal temperature and convection currents of the water create the perfect conditions for it to happen.

Reverse to what some folks recall, you lot don't actually need to cook near of your soups and stews on loftier (or even medium-high). Bring the water to a boil, then turn down the heat to medium or medium-high. By doing so, you lot reduce the hazard of your cooking water humid over.

You should but cook pasta in a rolling boil. Since pasta noodles rehydrate and cook fast—and adding cold or room-temperature ingredients to a pot of h2o causes information technology to drop temperature—y'all desire your pot to recover speedily. This makes timing easier.

Does Adding Table salt Continue the Water From Boiling Over?

Calculation salt to a pot of boiling water won't keep the water from boiling over.

While it'south truthful that salt dissolved in water raises its boiling point to a temperature above 212°F (100°C), the quantity of salt that yous use when cooking isn't big enough to make much of a difference.

Decision

At present you know why putting a wooden spoon over a pot of starchy h2o volition keep it from humid over. Only call back that, sooner or later, it'due south a good idea to turn the heat downwardly 🙂 .

The next time you cook pasta noodles or brand lentil soup, try putting a wooden spoon over the pot and share how information technology worked out for you lot in the comments below.

Founding Editor

When Jim isn't in the kitchen, he is normally spending time with family and friends, and working with the HCW editorial team to respond the questions he used to ask himself back when he was learning the ropes of cooking.