To what extent does blender speed dissolve table salt + cold tap water?
At home daily, I need to mix my table salt + COLD tap water. As "Marine salts dissolve faster and more thoroughly when added to circulating water," I "use a powerhead to speed up mixing time — my Vitamix 7500 blender.
Speed 10, or even 9, feels like overkill for a solid as soluble as table salt! I shall avoid higher blender speeds, because the faster speeds shall strain my blender's motor! To lessen engine strain, I prefer to blend more slowly at a lower setting for a longer time, than blending more fastly at a higher setting for a shorter time.
1. How do I deduce which setting suffices for mixing table salt + COLD tap water?
2. Am I correct that blending at the lower setting (e.g. 1) for longer yields the same result as blending at a higher setting (e.g. 2) for shorter time?
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No, you don't need the highest setting. Just stirring gently is enough, anything more won't help much.
Salt dissolves very well in water. It dissolves so well, that an area of very salty water forms around the salt in seconds. However, it takes a few dozen seconds for that salty water to diffuse away and mix with the unsalty water in the rest of the container. So left alone, it will take a couple of minutes for the salt to dissolve. If you stir, it will be faster. It's enough to stir at 1 revolution per 2-3 seconds.
Use your blender at the slowest speed, even that will be overkill. If you do this often, I'd consider getting a magnetic stirrer. You can find very cheap ones if you don't get one that has a heater. Higher speed won't dissolve slower - it will be about the same, but it will make more noise.
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How do I deduce which setting suffices for mixing table salt + COLD tap water?
Measure it. That really should have been obvious.
My gut feel is that any reasonable agitation will work about equally well. The purpose of agitation is to prevent localized regions of highly saturated solution where new solid won't dissolve, even if overall there is enough solvent for the solute. Any "blender" speed should be fast enough to keep the mixture reasonably homogeneous. I therefore predict that the slowest speed will work as well as high speeds.
However, there is no point guessing since this can be measured experimentally quickly, easily, and with only a stopwatch in addition to the blender. Like I said, measure it.
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