Water Works II - Recap
Alton sits on his couch, watching the end of Water World. When a voice over claims it may be one of the worst films ever made, Alton admits that he loves it. Because except for the part where Costner had gills on his neck, that could all happen.
That’s because water, Alton says, covers 75% of the planet’s surface. Spinning a globe, Alton notes that the oceans contain 321 million cubic miles of water, and each of those cubic miles contains 1,103,984,640,000 gallons of water. And that doesn’t count the 5.7 million cubic miles locked up in glaciers and ice caps. If all of that melted, Alton warns, that Colorado ski resort just might become beachfront property.
Water is the only substance that exists in the nature in solid, liquid, and vapor forms. The previous episode focused on how water gets to the home. This one will look at what cooks should do to get the most out of it in the kitchen. Consider it, Alton concludes, a thirty minute owner’s manual for water, a substance that is nothing if not... Good Eats!
The EPA, Alton says as he fills a pitcher, enforces quality standards. But their responsibility ends when the water leaves the mains. And, clean and safe water may not taste or smell good. Finally, depending on the health of the homeowner, EPA standards may not be good enough. Alton promises to discuss remedies, but before he gets to that, he reviews the properties of water.
What element has an atomic mass of 15.9994 and an atomic number of 8, but is number one in our hearts? Oxygen, that’s what element. Alton welcomes oxygen, a man dressed in a pale blue, vaguely disk like costume. Oxygen replies that it’s good to be there, and Alton gets right into it, noting from its position on the periodic table, that it is a very negative element. Looking down, Oxygen tells Alton he’d be negative, too, if he had a big zero on his chest! Alton laughs, and continues, saying that only fluorine is more negative – so negative, he hasn’t been out if bed since 1987!
Most people don’t flock to Oxygen’s kind of negativity... but certain atoms do. Alton demonstrates by covering Oxygen’s two stubby hands with a pair of red mittens, each bearing the letter “H.” Now, he says, where we used to have a lonely oxygen atom, we have a new molecule called water. But because of the hydrogen’s attachment, that molecule has an unbalanced charge. At the top, where the hydrogen atoms mostly live, the molecule has a positive charge. At the other end, it has a negative charge. All of this, because the hydrogen atoms don’t just “stick out of the sides” of Oxygen, but instead from an angle. It means water is a polar molecule, and that, Alton crows, means it will never be lonely again!
The former Oxygen, and newly christened Water, asks why. Alton replies that as he passes through ground water he will rub up against all kinds of compounds, and many of them are polar. They’ll stick to him. Alton demonstrates by plastering Water with bits and pieces taken from a large plastic bin. Before long he has festooned Water with these trinkets. Its polarity makes water an excellent solvent that can dissolve carbohydrates like sugar, and proteins like collagen, making possible everything from simple syrups to chicken stocks. Noticing a few standoffish bits, Water asks about them. Alton tells him those are hydrocarbons. Because they are not polar, they won’t stick to water. He tells water to forget them and celebrate that he is now Mineral Water. Water wonders if people will pay a lot for him, and Alton tells him they will, if he contains at least 250 parts per million of dissolved solids.
The other side of this is that water can collect too many polar chemicals. Hydrogen sulfide makes it taste and smell like rotten eggs, while iron turns white sinks brown. Lead, a poisonous metal, leeches from pipes. And some soils contain dangerous arsenic, another poisonous metal. And that isn’t even the worst of it!
Worse yet are... critters. The nature of water makes it perfect as a home for critters. A puppet appears on Water’s should and, concerned, he asks Alton. Alton identifies the creature as Escherichia coli, a pathogen. Water now wonders if he is “double dog doomed” and Alton assures him that the water treatment plant can disinfect and remove these troublemakers, and does so in millions of gallons of water daily. Usually, treatment plants use simple chlorine for this. Alton sprays a bit on the E. coli and it cringes and then falls away dead. Water comments that he smells like his cousin who lives in a pool. Alton tells him that smell is just residual chlorine, and it’s kind of like a molecular bodyguard.
Alton segues to the topic of fluoride treatment. According to the CDC, adding fluoride is one of the ten most important health upgrades of the twentieth century. Even as little as four parts per million strengthens growing teeth.
Most water enters the home clean, but the homeowner and cook may still have to contend with impurities. The easiest way to handle them is filtration. Alton shows a simple carafe style pitcher that works because the water passes through a filter cartridge. But how does that cartridge work? To learn, Alton takes one to a bench and saws the top off. Inside are two components: plastic balls impregnated with ion exchange resin, and activated charcoal. Alton talks first about activated charcoal.
On his blackboard, Alton shows how activated charcoal has tremendous surface area – a gram of it can have the surface area of two tennis courts! A wide range of substances will stick to this surface via adsorption (not absorption, Alton quickly points out). Activated charcoal is so effective that it has seen use in masks for use in tainted atmosphere. But it leaves behind a lot of inorganic contaminants.
To get those, the filter uses a second kind of purifier – plastic beads covered with an ion-exchange resin. Alton compares this resin to a briefcase full of ions. When water flows by, the resin exchanges one of its good ions for a bad ion from the water; when the resin fills with bad ions, the filter is full and no longer effective.
Suddenly, Water is worried. He sees a clear ball full of... something... stuck to him, and asks Alton about it. Alton opens the ball and, to Water’s revulsion, eats one of the squirmy things from inside – a gummy worm. Together the ball and contents pose as a bacterial spore. Certain organisms create such spores in adverse conditions; they are small, hard shells that even resist chlorine’s disinfecting power. That means they can even get by most municipal water systems. This is usually not a big deal, because most such organisms must infect in large quantities before they cause serious harm. But very young children, very old adults, and immunocompromised patients are far more vulnerable to this sort of infection. Families with members of this sort, or even (Alton adds) the just plain paranoid, can solve the problem with a spore filtration system. Most filters have a five micron screen, but spores can fit through screens with openings as small as one micron. To be effective, such a system must specify an absolute maximum pore size of one micron, or must comply with NSF standards 53 or 58 for cyst removal.
Under the sink, Alton shows off a filter that mounts directly in the water supply. Such a filter offers greater pressure, but still contains cartridges and the homeowner must periodically replace these. Cartridges left installed for too long become bacterial breeding grounds, defeating the purpose of the filter.
In some parts of the country, ground water passes through limestone, chalk, dolomite, or marble, collecting calcium and magnesium along the way. Water suggests that this might make him healthier, and Alton agrees. It’s healthier for drinking, but far less useful for washing. Calcium and magnesium react with stearate (and other fatty acids) in soaps to form an unpleasant scum that prevents lathering and renders soap less effective. Excessive calcium also precipitates as a discoloration called scale that can be difficult to remove. For the solution to this problem, Alton asks water to follow him downstairs.
There, Alton shows his new molecular friend a water softener. It works on the same principle as the ion exchange resin but on a larger scale: it exchanges calcium and magnesium for sodium. One fills a reservoir with salt that slowly dissolves and provides the sodium.
Back upstairs, Alton contemplates pot of boiling water. Why is boiling water such a big deal? Because, Alton says, of water’s high specific heat. It can absorb a great deal of energy before it changes temperature. That’s why it takes a long time to boil, and that’s why its temperature is stable (Alton particularly notes this property is useful in making certain custards that require very even heating).
Normally, water makes and breaks a few dozen molecular bonds each second. Adding heat makes this happen faster, but the temperature doesn’t change quickly. At the boiling point, the temperature stops rising because the molecular bonds break faster than they reform, and steam forms. Water has very high boiling point compared to acetone, methanol, ethanol and other compounds, and the energy it carries away is very useful. When steam hits a cooler object it releases a lot of heat – this is why broccoli cooks faster in steam than it does in boiling water. When exposed to dry surroundings, regardless of temperature, steam turns back into liquid, which is why sweating cools us down. And why crocks keep water cool. Alton shows off a pottery crock. Its porous nature means that a small amount of water constantly evaporates and that cools off the rest of the water. In India, people manufacture ice using a similar technique.
And now that he’s on the subject of ice, Alton discusses an interesting property. As water cools, it contracts. The energy drops and the molecules crowd together. But at 4º C, the molecules begin to organize into a crystal that is less dense than the liquid in which it forms. This is why ice floats, and why winter homeowners sometimes face the tragedy of burst water pipes.
Alton’s new molecular friend water is now receiving a massage and a manicure. Alton hopes this show has given viewers a new appreciation for water, and how one may treat it to improve its flavor and performance. Alton shoos the ladies and tells Water his break is over. Water objects until Alton tells him that if he doesn’t get to work on the dishes, the next sound he’ll hear is “flush.”
Alton finishes the show with a statistical note: Americans make up five percent of the world’s population, but consume fifteen percent of the world’s fresh water. The average American uses 105 gallons of water a day. The average African? Just fifteen.
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That’s because water, Alton says, covers 75% of the planet’s surface. Spinning a globe, Alton notes that the oceans contain 321 million cubic miles of water, and each of those cubic miles contains 1,103,984,640,000 gallons of water. And that doesn’t count the 5.7 million cubic miles locked up in glaciers and ice caps. If all of that melted, Alton warns, that Colorado ski resort just might become beachfront property.
Water is the only substance that exists in the nature in solid, liquid, and vapor forms. The previous episode focused on how water gets to the home. This one will look at what cooks should do to get the most out of it in the kitchen. Consider it, Alton concludes, a thirty minute owner’s manual for water, a substance that is nothing if not... Good Eats!
The EPA, Alton says as he fills a pitcher, enforces quality standards. But their responsibility ends when the water leaves the mains. And, clean and safe water may not taste or smell good. Finally, depending on the health of the homeowner, EPA standards may not be good enough. Alton promises to discuss remedies, but before he gets to that, he reviews the properties of water.
What element has an atomic mass of 15.9994 and an atomic number of 8, but is number one in our hearts? Oxygen, that’s what element. Alton welcomes oxygen, a man dressed in a pale blue, vaguely disk like costume. Oxygen replies that it’s good to be there, and Alton gets right into it, noting from its position on the periodic table, that it is a very negative element. Looking down, Oxygen tells Alton he’d be negative, too, if he had a big zero on his chest! Alton laughs, and continues, saying that only fluorine is more negative – so negative, he hasn’t been out if bed since 1987!
Most people don’t flock to Oxygen’s kind of negativity... but certain atoms do. Alton demonstrates by covering Oxygen’s two stubby hands with a pair of red mittens, each bearing the letter “H.” Now, he says, where we used to have a lonely oxygen atom, we have a new molecule called water. But because of the hydrogen’s attachment, that molecule has an unbalanced charge. At the top, where the hydrogen atoms mostly live, the molecule has a positive charge. At the other end, it has a negative charge. All of this, because the hydrogen atoms don’t just “stick out of the sides” of Oxygen, but instead from an angle. It means water is a polar molecule, and that, Alton crows, means it will never be lonely again!
The former Oxygen, and newly christened Water, asks why. Alton replies that as he passes through ground water he will rub up against all kinds of compounds, and many of them are polar. They’ll stick to him. Alton demonstrates by plastering Water with bits and pieces taken from a large plastic bin. Before long he has festooned Water with these trinkets. Its polarity makes water an excellent solvent that can dissolve carbohydrates like sugar, and proteins like collagen, making possible everything from simple syrups to chicken stocks. Noticing a few standoffish bits, Water asks about them. Alton tells him those are hydrocarbons. Because they are not polar, they won’t stick to water. He tells water to forget them and celebrate that he is now Mineral Water. Water wonders if people will pay a lot for him, and Alton tells him they will, if he contains at least 250 parts per million of dissolved solids.
The other side of this is that water can collect too many polar chemicals. Hydrogen sulfide makes it taste and smell like rotten eggs, while iron turns white sinks brown. Lead, a poisonous metal, leeches from pipes. And some soils contain dangerous arsenic, another poisonous metal. And that isn’t even the worst of it!
Worse yet are... critters. The nature of water makes it perfect as a home for critters. A puppet appears on Water’s should and, concerned, he asks Alton. Alton identifies the creature as Escherichia coli, a pathogen. Water now wonders if he is “double dog doomed” and Alton assures him that the water treatment plant can disinfect and remove these troublemakers, and does so in millions of gallons of water daily. Usually, treatment plants use simple chlorine for this. Alton sprays a bit on the E. coli and it cringes and then falls away dead. Water comments that he smells like his cousin who lives in a pool. Alton tells him that smell is just residual chlorine, and it’s kind of like a molecular bodyguard.
Alton segues to the topic of fluoride treatment. According to the CDC, adding fluoride is one of the ten most important health upgrades of the twentieth century. Even as little as four parts per million strengthens growing teeth.
Most water enters the home clean, but the homeowner and cook may still have to contend with impurities. The easiest way to handle them is filtration. Alton shows a simple carafe style pitcher that works because the water passes through a filter cartridge. But how does that cartridge work? To learn, Alton takes one to a bench and saws the top off. Inside are two components: plastic balls impregnated with ion exchange resin, and activated charcoal. Alton talks first about activated charcoal.
On his blackboard, Alton shows how activated charcoal has tremendous surface area – a gram of it can have the surface area of two tennis courts! A wide range of substances will stick to this surface via adsorption (not absorption, Alton quickly points out). Activated charcoal is so effective that it has seen use in masks for use in tainted atmosphere. But it leaves behind a lot of inorganic contaminants.
To get those, the filter uses a second kind of purifier – plastic beads covered with an ion-exchange resin. Alton compares this resin to a briefcase full of ions. When water flows by, the resin exchanges one of its good ions for a bad ion from the water; when the resin fills with bad ions, the filter is full and no longer effective.
Suddenly, Water is worried. He sees a clear ball full of... something... stuck to him, and asks Alton about it. Alton opens the ball and, to Water’s revulsion, eats one of the squirmy things from inside – a gummy worm. Together the ball and contents pose as a bacterial spore. Certain organisms create such spores in adverse conditions; they are small, hard shells that even resist chlorine’s disinfecting power. That means they can even get by most municipal water systems. This is usually not a big deal, because most such organisms must infect in large quantities before they cause serious harm. But very young children, very old adults, and immunocompromised patients are far more vulnerable to this sort of infection. Families with members of this sort, or even (Alton adds) the just plain paranoid, can solve the problem with a spore filtration system. Most filters have a five micron screen, but spores can fit through screens with openings as small as one micron. To be effective, such a system must specify an absolute maximum pore size of one micron, or must comply with NSF standards 53 or 58 for cyst removal.
Under the sink, Alton shows off a filter that mounts directly in the water supply. Such a filter offers greater pressure, but still contains cartridges and the homeowner must periodically replace these. Cartridges left installed for too long become bacterial breeding grounds, defeating the purpose of the filter.
In some parts of the country, ground water passes through limestone, chalk, dolomite, or marble, collecting calcium and magnesium along the way. Water suggests that this might make him healthier, and Alton agrees. It’s healthier for drinking, but far less useful for washing. Calcium and magnesium react with stearate (and other fatty acids) in soaps to form an unpleasant scum that prevents lathering and renders soap less effective. Excessive calcium also precipitates as a discoloration called scale that can be difficult to remove. For the solution to this problem, Alton asks water to follow him downstairs.
There, Alton shows his new molecular friend a water softener. It works on the same principle as the ion exchange resin but on a larger scale: it exchanges calcium and magnesium for sodium. One fills a reservoir with salt that slowly dissolves and provides the sodium.
Back upstairs, Alton contemplates pot of boiling water. Why is boiling water such a big deal? Because, Alton says, of water’s high specific heat. It can absorb a great deal of energy before it changes temperature. That’s why it takes a long time to boil, and that’s why its temperature is stable (Alton particularly notes this property is useful in making certain custards that require very even heating).
Normally, water makes and breaks a few dozen molecular bonds each second. Adding heat makes this happen faster, but the temperature doesn’t change quickly. At the boiling point, the temperature stops rising because the molecular bonds break faster than they reform, and steam forms. Water has very high boiling point compared to acetone, methanol, ethanol and other compounds, and the energy it carries away is very useful. When steam hits a cooler object it releases a lot of heat – this is why broccoli cooks faster in steam than it does in boiling water. When exposed to dry surroundings, regardless of temperature, steam turns back into liquid, which is why sweating cools us down. And why crocks keep water cool. Alton shows off a pottery crock. Its porous nature means that a small amount of water constantly evaporates and that cools off the rest of the water. In India, people manufacture ice using a similar technique.
And now that he’s on the subject of ice, Alton discusses an interesting property. As water cools, it contracts. The energy drops and the molecules crowd together. But at 4º C, the molecules begin to organize into a crystal that is less dense than the liquid in which it forms. This is why ice floats, and why winter homeowners sometimes face the tragedy of burst water pipes.
Alton’s new molecular friend water is now receiving a massage and a manicure. Alton hopes this show has given viewers a new appreciation for water, and how one may treat it to improve its flavor and performance. Alton shoos the ladies and tells Water his break is over. Water objects until Alton tells him that if he doesn’t get to work on the dishes, the next sound he’ll hear is “flush.”
Alton finishes the show with a statistical note: Americans make up five percent of the world’s population, but consume fifteen percent of the world’s fresh water. The average American uses 105 gallons of water a day. The average African? Just fifteen.
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