Is it problematic to pour hot water into a pot in which meaty food is cooking while steam from the food rises up to the kettle, and is it permissible to pour hot water from a kettle into a meaty cholent (stew kept on a hotplate during Shabbat until lunchtime), and then to pour hot water from the kettle for hot drinks that have milk added to them?
The law about whether or not pouring hot liquids connects what is being poured, and the vessel it is being poured from, to what it is being poured into, has many details.
Based on what the Remo explains in Yoreh Deah (Siman 105), the conclusion is that if the steam rising from the food is Yad Soledes Bo (hot enough to cause a young child to withdraw his hand immediately), then that steam will affect the liquid that is being poured into it. If the liquid on the lower end, the receiving end, is cold, for example, cold milk in a cup, then it is considered that the milk cooled off the hot water that was poured into it.
So, if the meaty food was so hot that the steam rising from it was Yad Soledes Bo, then the water in the kettle becomes ‘meaty’ and cannot be used for dairy. If the food was not as hot as that, the water may be used thereafter for dairy.
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