WARNING: Iced Coffee Sucks Water Out of Thin Air! Causing Corrosion Everywhere!!!
 |
Forget about ethanol "sucking the water right out of thin air," iced coffee is the real menace
By Marc J. Rauch
Exec. Vice President/Co-Publisher
THE AUTO CHANNEL
 Marc Rauch |
You know how you hear and read all those expert engine mechanics and genius economists warning about how ethanol will just suck the water right out of the air and corrode your vehicle and lawn mower engines? Well, I just discover something far more insidious: Iced coffee. That's right, iced coffee.
It's a hot day where I'm working today, so instead of drinking my usual cup of hot coffee, I decided to go for some delicious iced coffee. I let my dark French roast freshly-brewed coffee sit and cool, then poured it into a frosted glass mug (the one I usually reserve for beer), then placed the filled mug of coffee back in the freezer to chill some more.
Needless to say, when I then sat down in front of my computer to begin working on news stories for TheAutoChannel.com, my first draw on that coffee was pure delight. It was so good, I took another sip. But that's when all hell broke lose...
Here's what happened: I put the glass mug of iced coffee down on my wooden desk on top of some papers. I went to work posting some news stories. I'm sure not even two minutes went by when I went to take another drink that I found the paper the mug was sitting on was soaking wet, and additional water drops were dripping on my desk...right before my eyes. OUCH!
I never knew that iced coffee was so dangerously hygroscopic!
Fortunately, the paper was just an old supermarket receipt and my wooden desk is heavily laminated, and I blotted up the water with my shirt sleeve. Consequently I was able to mitigate the terrible damage that might have occurred if the paper was an important document or if I had a metal desk, and allowed the water to sit on the metal desk for a few weeks. Imagine, the iced coffee would continue sucking more and more water right out of the air until the desk was virtually under water. I would come back to find that the entire desk was rusted and had collapsed from the corrosion. I'm sure this would have happened because all those expert engine mechanics and genius economists who warn about how ethanol just sucks water right out of the air.
Then I remembered that what I witnessed was simply condensation. The water had nothing to do with whether the coffee was hygroscopic or not; it had nothing to do with the coffee magically attracting and sucking moisture right out of the air; it was just run-of-the-mill condensation. The same kind of condensation that has always occurred, when the temperature conditions are right, in internal combustion engines and fuel systems ever since the internal combustion engine was first invented.
And what is one of the best ways to get rid of water in your fuel tank? You add ethanol (like a product called DRY GAS) to the existing gasoline in your fuel tank! This is why Mercury Marine, the world's largest manufacturer of marine engines says: "There is no active transfer mechanism for ethanol molecules to reach out and grab water molecules out of the air. Under normal storage conditions, even in a vented fuel tank it just does not happen...The primary cause of water collecting in fuel tanks is condensation from humid air..."
When Tom and Ray Magliozzi (CAR TALK radio's Click and Clack) responded to a question about water forming in the fuel tank and causing problems like frozen fuel line, and why DRY GAS is not usually needed any longer to stop the problem from occurring, they said this: "...We haven't seen a frozen fuel line in our garage in a decade or more. Why? It could be because...All gasolines have alcohol (ethanol) already mixed into them."
THE ICED COFFEE WARNING IS OFFICIALLY RESCINDED. Go back to enjoying hot or cold coffee and cleaner engine burning fuels that contain ethanol.
Thank you for your attention.
