The manual for my dishwasher says to refill salt just before running a wash cycle, because if any grains of salt spill onto the stainless steel interior it will corrode. If it runs right away, no issue because the salt is quickly dissolved, diluted, and flushed.
So then I realized when I cook pasta I heavily salt the water (following the advice that pasta water should taste as salty as the ocean). But what happens when I leave that highly salty brine in a pot, sometimes for a couple days to reuse it? Does that risk corroding the pots?
You reuse pasta water? That’s kind of gross. Starchy water sitting around is a breading ground for bacteria. Don’t do that.
Also, dishwashers don’t clean with salt water. They use the salt to reset their internal water softener.
Starchy water sitting around is a breading ground for bacteria. Don’t do that.
That water is brine, if you do it right. Salt is a good preservative. I’ve tested it with up to 2 reuses.
Also, dishwashers don’t clean with salt water. They use the salt to reset their internal water softener.
Not sure why you thought I thought dishwashers clean with salt water. The manual’s advice was to mitigate salt grains that did not get into the salt reservoir that would sit on the stainless steel potentially for days.
Brine is the exact condition that life needs/thrives in. “About as salty as the ocean” is really good at supporting microbial growth. Source
i get 403 forbidden w/that link. And archive.org chokes on it too for some reason. Does your source counter this source?
(edit) ah, I see the problem. Salt only works as a preservative by drying out food.
Life started in the ocean, so logically this makes no sense.
Actually that logic is broken IMO. A food preservative need not make life impossible for all organisms. E.g. hops (and consequential acidity) preserves beer to some extent by making life hard for some unwanted organisms. But hops do not kill everything (of course, because you intend to drink the beer). Beer can still spoil despite the hops.
But as I said in my correction, salt works as a preservative through a drying effect, which I did not previously realize (TIL).
So you thought leaving food waste in brine was safe because it would only kill the bad bacteria?
If you read the whole thread, I would not have to spell this out. These are preservatives (source):
- honey
- salt
- garlic
- sugar
- ginger
- sage
- rosemary
- sage
- mustard
- mustard seed
- cumin
- black pepper
- turmeric
- cinnamon
- cardamom
- cloves
- vinegar
- citric acid
- lemon/lime juice
They generally work by killing/repelling/deterring microbes that to a notable extent happen to be of the unwanted variety. Before yesterday, I thought salt worked similarly to the others on that list. Yesterday I learnt that salt is uniquely functions as a preservative due to a different mechanism (a drying effect).
Your logic is nonsense. To claim that because substance X does not kill /everything/, it cannot serve as a preservative – this is broken logic that you brought to the thread. Nothing on that list of food preservatives kills or deters every microbe - not even every harmful microbe. Of course they selectively mitigate /some of/ “the bad bacteria” (but note it’s a bit straw mannish for you to use the article “the” in your phrasing imply /all/ unwanted microbes). Most preservatives mitigate enough unwanted microbes without unacceptable overkill to beneficial microbes to justify use as a preservative. They are selected as preservatives for this reason. Foods that fail to significantly select against unwanted microbes (i.e. most foods) don’t get tagged as a preservative. How are you not grasping this?
You also have noteworthy bad assumption: that evolution does not happen outside of the ocean. The claim that because life started in the ocean, the ocean is therefore suitable for everything – this is bogus. Try putting a freshwater fish in the ocean. If a complex organism can evolve to become intolerant to the environment of its ancestors, why wouldn’t microbes also evolve to develop intolerances?
the main concern from the manufacturer is likely something like salt water sitting on the surface for days at a time over and over while the machine sits unused. any reasonable cook time is unlikely to begin harming the surface of any moderately high grade stainless.
Even stainless steel will corrode, and salt especially will speed up the process. Solid salt is much worse than salt water, because the concentration of solid salt is 100% vs a fraction of a percent for pasta water. Regardless, leaving salt water sitting in your pot for days on end is definitely going to make corrosion occur faster, although by how much I can’t say.
Although, I will say that needing to buy even one additional pot might offset any environmental benefit from reusing your pasta water. Industrial manufacturing uses a ton of water, so if your goal is to preserve it, you’re likely better off just washing & drying your pot out between uses so that it lasts longer.
I could always transfer it to glass or plastic to protect the pot but I guess laziness was the original motivator. Salt is cheap enough that I’ll probably just toss it going forward.
Refill the salt? Like the shakers?
Ah, I wondered if I needed to explain that, since dishwashers in N.America do not take salt. European dishwashers tend to have built-in water softeners (because it’s somewhat uncommon to have whole house water softeners). So we periodically have to fill a salt reservoir in the dishwasher to feed the water softener.
Ah, ok. I was familiar with water softeners needed for homes with well water, but it didn’t occur to me that soft water would be a problem for dishwashers. Thanks!
Well it’s not actually clear to me whether the soft water is to protect the dishwasher, or to make cleaning more effective. Soft water dissolves soap better which makes it more effective in cleaning. It also means I can use powdered detergent (which is cheaper than liquid detergent, but in hard water powder doesn’t perform as well). Soft water has the down side that it’s actually /more prone/ to corrosion than hard water (at least according to youtube plumbers). So I’m tempted to conclude the built-in water softener is just for cleaning effectiveness.
My understanding is that every mole of water hardness (mostly Ca^2+) reacts with two moles of soap to produce soap scum. So using softened water (replacing Ca^2+ with 2Na^+) allows you to use less soap and reduces soap scum buildup.
Salt-resistant stainless-steel is the 316/316L steels & the 317/317L steels.
( the L versions are low-carbon, which means they can be welded & the low-carbon won’t create carbon-rich defects in the welds )
Salt-resistant aluminum is 5052 aluminum ( low-copper. iirc )
normal cheap aluminum kitchenware is Commercially Pure aluminum, not alloy.
I’ve no idea what percentage of aluminum food-contact things are made with alloys, but it wouldn’t be that much, I don’t think?
Nobody bothers using those salt-safe alloys for making kitchen stuff, because there’s no market-pressure to do-so.
( those stainless steels are costly, & 5052’s used mostly for boats/marine/nautical stuff )
Therefore, using salt in the other alloy bowls/pots/pans does release metals ( including nickel or/and chromium ) into one’s diet or/and ecology.
I won’t add salt to normal “stainless” pots or pans because of that: it can get added after, even-though that’s a harsher taste.
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