20 minutes ago, csingley said:Superheated steam definitely exists; it's how steam locomotives worked. Nasty stuff. You're talking about "saturated steam" - wet steam not dry - both liquid and gas phases in thermodynamic equilibrium. Happily, saturated steam is all we get in the kitchen, but as long as we're defining.
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What I said: under normal pressure (normal kitchen environment).
Steam can be 1,000F or higher under pressure.
From WIKI:
" Superheated steam and liquid water cannot coexist under thermodynamic equilibrium, as any additional heat simply evaporates more water and the steam will become saturated steam. However this restriction may be violated temporarily in dynamic (non-equilibrium) situations. To produce superheated steam in a power plant or for processes (such as drying paper) the saturated steam drawn from a boiler is passed through a separate heating device (a superheater) which transfers additional heat to the steam by contact or by radiation. "
I think we can assume that ambient temp in a steamer is the BP of water, so condensation rather than collision is going to be a major mode of heat transfer to the potatoes, eh.
All thermal dynamic actions are molecular collisions. Not sure what you are trying to say.
dcarch
