ChefPunks

Ken Brown k.brown at ccs.bbk.ac.uk
Wed Oct 17 06:20:14 PDT 2001


mmotyka at lsil.com wrote:
> 
> ichudov at Algebra.Com (Igor Chudov) wrote :
> >
> >One thing I would like to buy is a pressure cooker.
> >
> I have found them to be of little use. Save some $, try a garage sale.

I used to use them a lot. Great for beans et.c  And not as expensive as
a goode steamer :-)


[...]

> >> > Try your regular stove. Set it to, say, 400 degrees and pray that the papers
> >> > will remain legible. I'd prbobably be more likely to be attacked by meteorites
> >> > or abducted by aliens than be anthraxed via mail, but *if* I had to
> >> > sterilize mail,
> >> > I would use a stove.
> >>
> >> In labs an autoclave is used to sterilize everything.
> >>
> >> Autoclaves are basically pressure cookers, high pressure steam at 121
> >> deg. Celsius and ~2 Bar kill everything.
> >>
> >
> If 121C is adequate why not use the same temperature in your oven? I
> doubt the absolute pressure matters.

Pressure cooker much faster to heat up. Also for large samples the water
adds heat to sample faster - food in an oven at 200 degrees is often not
much more than 100 inside while the outside is already roasting.
Personally I would quite like to keep microbiological samples separate
from my cooking equipment :-)

 
> A nitrogen atmosphere might be a good thing to reduce oxidation of inks
> and paper. I doubt it would help your new Visa card though.

But oxygen is just the thing to be nasty to bacteria.  Hit them with
activated oxygen. Peroxide works wonders - kills all known bacteria
(yes, even spores) and doesn't permanently damage the environment :-)





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