does water boil quicker at higher elevations?

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I read a couple articles that talk about the different temperature requirement at different elevations, but does this change the time required to boil said pot of water? if the temperature to boil the pot of water i’m assuming the time to boil it will also be lower? but perhaps the air pressure changes something that i’m not aware of

also chemistry? is that the right flair? sorry if it’s not

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6 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Yes.

Basically, you need to put less heat into it in order to make it boil. Less heat transfer means less time.

In fact, at certain pressures (i.e. very high elevation), water boils instantly.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Everything else being equal, yes. Temperature rise is a direct function of how much heat you put in. If you use the same heat source (like a camp stove) to heat up the same mass of water at two different altitudes, they will heat up at the same rate. But since the boiling point of water is lower at altitude, the water at altitude will reach the boiling point sooner.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Air pressure is the main factor in the variation of water’s boiling point at different altitudes – higher altitudes have lower air pressure, and water’s boiling point is correspondingly lower. FYI this is an issue for canning and other cooking/food preservation. Canning recipes have to be adjusted to account for food safety concerns, because lower temperatures may not be sufficient to kill the bacteria that causes food to spoil.

Anonymous 0 Comments

The boiling temperature is lower. Quicker, not necessarily.

For the same amount of heat put into it, yes!

Basically, the boiling point of a liquid goes down as the pressure goes down. Atmospheric pressure is lower at high altitude, hence the boiling point of water is at a lower temperature.

Note that this can affect cooking as sometimes doing something in boiling water is more about the temperature than the water actually boiling. If it’s about boiling something off, it’s different obviously, but if you want to make pasta at high altitude, you might have to keep the pasta boiling for a little bit longer unlike you like them very al dente.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Yes it will boil quicker but if you wanted to cook something it will take longer because of the lower temperature. A hard boiled egg at sea level takes about 6-7 minutes, at 10,000ft, it takes 15 to 20 minutes.

Anonymous 0 Comments

https://chem.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Introductory_Chemistry/Introductory_Chemistry_(CK-12)/13%3A_States_of_Matter/13.20%3A_Phase_Diagram_for_Water

Water will boil at a a lower temperature at a lower pressure. That’s the diagonal line on the phase diagram. Earth’s atmospheric pressure drops as you go higher in elevation.

A vacuum pump can be used to take advantage of this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum_drying and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freeze_drying

The time required to boil does require the assumption that the amount of heat per time is the same. However, a gas-air fire at altitude will have less air, so gas flow has to be reduced: https://www.reddit.com/r/Cooking/comments/v5cojr/are_gas_cooktops_at_high_elevation_less_effective/