Why does food release water vapor more visibly when you turn down the heat on a frying pan full of food?
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Because that’s not water vapor.
Water vapor, water that’s actually in gas form, is totally invisible.
So when you’re still pumping a lot of heat into the pain, all the water leaving it has plenty of energy to turn fully into a gas.
But when you turn the heat off/down, the water that’s fully turning into vapor, and the vapor that you can actually see is super tiny water droplets, which is what makes it visible.
So there’s always water leaving the pan, it’s just that when you turn the heat down it stops fully changing to water vapor and some of it is just super small water droplets getting carried by the rising hot air.
Actual water vapour – water in the form of gas – is invisible. It’s also known as humidity.
What you see from above a pan isn’t the water vapour itself, its many tiny drops of liquid water floating around in the air, like a cloud. These are created when water vapour cools down.
So when the heat is high there’s of heat that stops the water vapour condensing into visible drops just above the pan, and the hot air moves faster to spread the water vapour out more. If it’s spread out enough it won’t turn into droplets.
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