Boiling water to make it safe to drink??????

What is the latest on boiling water to make it safe to drink?

I just read an article in a primitive mag that suggests it take boiling water for 15 minutes to make it safe to drink.

ME thinks that would boil most of your water away.

I have read elsewhere that you need to boil water for 3 minutes, 5 minutes Etc and I have run across information that suggests that as soon as the water boils it has killed everything in it and that will make is safe to drink.

I am not talking/asking about adding other chemicals to the water just boiling.:no:

I always practice - bring it to a boil and you're good to go. I've read a few sources that stated 15 minutes to be safe, but once the water is raised up to the boiling point (212F at sea level) anything that might harm you has been killed. At 10,000 feet the reduced atmospheric pressure causes water to boil at about 195F. I think (just an opinion here) that the time requirements listed for boiling water are due to pasteurization. That process requires a set time and temperature. Boiling takes it past that point, but I believe some feel it better to err on the side of caution.

I just bring it to a boil. But, sometimes I boil it a few minutes longer to kill everything even more. :)

You can't boil water more. It's like freezing water more. Once it's boiling it's boiling. Anything that was in the water is dead and boiling longer will only waste your fuel.

What if there is a bug that can last 16 minutes and you only boil for 15? Okay, just joking.

Going past just boiling may have a downside. If there are any toxins in the water; the more water you boil away, the more toxic the water becomes.

Agree with Rick. Once it comes to a boil everything that boiling is gonna kill has already been killed. Boiling it longer ain't gonna kill it any deader.

Zombie Beaver Fever.

Great. Just great. Right when I think I have all contingencies covered you come up with Zombie Beaver Feaver. D@## It! Where's my pack?

I don't think the filter stops "damn".

PG13 allows words like "dick". Saw it on Conan last night.

Well of course it would. You could be talking about Richard or Dick and you wouldn't want to call him ***** would you?

5 Letters, hmmmm.


Clive?

Clive? No.....Asterisks.

In fact, purifying water doesn't have to rely on boiling but it is the surest method and boiling water is easy to see so you know when the boiling point is reached. Pasteurization is just as reliable but being able to tell when the water has reached that critical pasteurization threshold is much more difficult unless you are using other instruments that you probably don't carry with you. So time isn't the critical element. Temperature is. Here is a nice tutorial on pasteurizing water.

http://solarcooking.org/pasteurization/solarwat.htm

About 10 years ago when the devil was making me do things I didn't really want to do :devil2: I called my brother-in-law's office.

He wasn't in, so his secretary wanted to take a message and asked my name. I told her it was Richard Head < I pronounced it HEED, but spelled it Head. for her. She ask for my return telephone number and I politely told her he knows it. Just before she hung up I told her that he always called me "dick" not Richard. She joyfully ended the telephone call.
About an hour later my Brother-in -law called me laughing. Yup! You guessed it, she gave him the written telephone message with the name of the caller listed as D**K Head. She had no clue why he was laughing when he read the message. He hand it back to her, then she reread it and the light came on.:noway:

The next time I was in the office she laughed and told me she would be more careful with me in the future.

I am much more sedate in my senior years :wub: :angel:

In those instants of need, I find that "Richard Cranium" is a good substitute.....Lots of people don't get it.

I went to college with a guy who was blessed by his parents with that real name. A real tough guy, had to be.

Now that we have totally trashed this thread.....I still want to include some info I found intresting,:
Useing the sun and plastic water bottles for a primitive way to process tainetd water.
SODIS
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_water_disinfection