Originally Posted by
Kontact
The wax can't get above its own melting point until it is all melted. If you remove it when melted, it will be no greater than 190 degrees. Whether the water is boiling or not when this happens will depend on the amount of water, not if the wax is 212 or not.
But I'm not a chemist, just someone that has put cold things in boiling water, and someone who knows a substance can't get above its phase change temperature until the phase change is complete.
I am a chemist and while what you say is mostly correct, if you put the bag in water and heat the water to boiling, the wax with its relatively low melt temperature will have melted long before the water reaches its boiling point. The water temperature is what drives the temperature of the system.
If you were to plunge the wax bag into a pot of boiling water, the wax will stay at the temperature of fusion until it is all melted. However, following their instructions will not give that result. If you were to monitor the temperature in a calorimeter (a highly accurate, highly insulated piece of equipment for measuring heat), you would see a slight plateauing of the temperature of the system when wax melts. On you kitchen stove, the plateau would be undetectable.
That said, it won’t matter
at all if the wax is heated to 100°C or not. It’s not harmed by the heat of boiling water or a crock pot. Their temperatures are too low to have any deleterious effect in the wax. Wax isn’t that delicate nor that picky about the temperature of the application.