Why does nobody talk about how mortar sets different in July heat

I was laying a porch step in Tulsa last Tuesday and the mud went from workable to brick-hard in about 12 minutes flat, so I started dunking my trowel in a bucket of cold water between every 3 or 4 units, and I want to know if anyone else has a trick for beating the summer clock or if I'm just slowing myself down.

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rivera.jesse23d ago

Are you sure that cold water trick is actually doing anything besides making you feel better? Every time you dunk that trowel you're adding water to the mix, and in July heat that water is gonna flash off faster than it helps. Truth is you might be making it worse by messing with the water ratio, and that 12 minute window is just what hot, dry air does to cement, period. People don't talk about it because there's no trick that beats physics, you just learn to mix smaller batches and move faster. Tulsa in July is brutal, but the guys who do this for a living don't dunk anything, they just pull less mud and set up shade. So yeah, you're probably slowing yourself down and watering down your joints while you're at it.

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