Do not stick your hand directly into water—either in a kitchen or in nature—without first holding your hand above it to gauge the temperature.
Avoid putting your hand into water of an unknown temperature, as you could scald yourself.
Roughly speaking, condensation will form more rapidly when the water is much colder than the air temperature. If you notice that condensation forms on the outside of a glass in 2 or 3 minutes, the water you’re dealing with is very cold.
If you’re looking at a bowl of water in your freezer, for example, you’ll notice small pieces of ice starting to form where the water meets the side of the bowl.
Bubbles at this low temperature are said to look like “shrimp eyes”—about the size of the head of a pin.
Slight wisps of steam will also start to rise from the heating water as it reaches 175 °F (79 °C). Bubbles of this size are known as “crab eyes. ”
The first bubbles that begin to rise to the surface are about the size of “fish eyes. ”
Soon after the “string of pearls” phase, the water will reach 212 °F (100 °C) and come to a rolling boil.
