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Dishwasher guide: salt will harm the stainless steel lining. What about salt water in stainless steel pots? (mander.xyz)

submitted 9 months ago by plantteacher@mander.xyz to c/chemistry@mander.xyz

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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?

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[–] plinky@hexbear.net 4 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Ocean water is self evidently friendly for microorganisms. I was thinking that brine was saltier than ocean tbh (and long term salt was used dry (?) for fish and meat), but this is more my half memories, if stuff doesn't grow for you, then its probably fine

[–] plantteacher@mander.xyz 3 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

Yeah, indeed I just realized from an article I linked that salt only works as a preservative by drying out food. So salt water is indeed useless.

[–] plinky@hexbear.net 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

And i should mention, that food safety issue is more connected to toxins from fungi/bacteria, not the organisms themselves. They'll die at 100 C, but some toxins might remain intact. And after cooking pasta your salty water contains not only salt, but starch (food).

[–] plantteacher@mander.xyz 2 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

Indeed, that’s a good point. I wonder how many people don’t know that. I used to think “nothing will survive 250°F in my pressure cooker” and was tempted to cook some questionable pork. But yeah, would have been dangerous because chemical toxins from bacteria output would “survive” (persist) in 250°F. So after some quick research, I tossed it.

Though I might be surprised if 24hrs is enough time for brine to not only accumulate bacteria in high numbers but also allow enough time for bacteria toxins to be produced. How fast does that happen? I would have thought a day is too short (I don’t think I ever let more than a day pass between boils).

[–] plinky@hexbear.net 3 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

i think e. coli grow in the lab in like 4-8 hours. Thats obviously in specially designed nutrient soup, and they prolly start from more than couple of spores in the air shrug-outta-hecks

Feely wise, in summer if i forget to put soup in fridge it goes bad in like 2 days, so more time than 1 day (and it gets friendly lacto something bacteria, so just gets acidic, not toxic). Fungi starts to grow in like a week.

I think it (whatcha doing) is safe-ish from toxins point (cause 1 day when they grow exponentially in 3-7 days is much less of problem), but still seems sketchy. Toxins are mainly fungi, with bacteria you likely get friendly ones which makes vinegar