Monday, May 12, 2014

Water

I have lived in a lot of different places and been exposed to a lot of different kinds of drinking water.  This would include south Florida (yuck!) and Clarendon County, South Carolina where the well water has a very strong taste of sulfur.  Alabama drinking water is at the bottom of the list.

Where we live the water is very hard.  That means a lot of mineral build up in things like the pressure canner and the tea kettle.  Each year I have to follow the directions to boil vinegar in my canner to remove the mineral build-up. 

One day I made the mistake of looking down the spout inside my tea kettle.  Oh my!  It was time to do something!



I thought about it and decided that if a vinegar solution would work on my pressure canner, there was no reason it should not work on my tea kettle


The process is to boil the vinegar mixed with water and pour it out.  Then fill it with plain water and boil that and pour it out and repeat the plain water process at least a total of three times to be sure to remove any vinegar taste. 

I forgot one thing.  My kettle is a Revere ware kettle.  Do you know what that means?  It means the bottom is made of a copper alloy.

Do you know what happens when you mix copper with vinegar (acetic acid) and expose it to heat?

I don't either.  But it sure makes a pretty color!


If you do know, please send me the chemical formula; I would love to see it.  I'm a nerd that way.

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