Why does water stop boiling when you lower the heat source (but is still more than the boiling temperature)?

Question

I have observed this while cooking, but if you boil something at high flame and then turn the flame low, the liquid stops boiling. E.g. Water boils at 100C. On high gas, it starts boiling. That means the water temp is now 100C. Then if I lower the flame, the water stops boiling even though the flame temperature is greater than 100C at all times. At high flame, the water has reached 100C, so if I lower the flame the water temp should still remain 100C.

In: Physics

Answer 1

When your pot of water reaches 100 C it doesn’t turn to steam all at once. It take additional energy to convert the water from liquid to gas. This is called the latent heat of vaporization. It takes a lot more energy to turn water into a gas than it does to heat it from room temp to a boil.