Sterlizing stainless steel

[Monocle]

I just bought an used hip flask from the ussr days. Anyways it old as fuck and smells like satans ball sack so I wanted to make sure I sterilize the hell out of it.

Someone told me bacteria can't live on glass and stainless steel, so a warm soapy water mix will get anything.

But I was just going to submerge it in boiling water. Is there any chance this won't kill whatever is in there?

Yes, I'm being paranoid as well, also the alcohol will probably kill whatever is down there anyways...but just in case...

[Mantikore]

of course boiling water wont kill everything. you need heat and pressure to sterilise things completely that way.

you could use a water soluble chemical. though i heard bleach isnt good for stainless steel, but im not sure if low concentrations will be safe. even very dilute amounts can kill a lot of microbes. you could try alcohol

but i dont think youll really need to sterilise it. alcohol will kill whatevers in it. but if its the smell it could mould. simple soapy water can get that out

[hitnrun]

FIRE, LOTS OF IT!

but seriously i would:

A) Boil it
B) Wash with alcohol
C) Wash with soapy water

Its very hard to completely sterilize something with the adequate equipment. Most you're going to do is disinfect it, or in other terms kill the majority of the organisms.

Or if like me, have access to hospital grade cleaning supplies that will kill just about every organism in roughly 5 minutes.

Also spores are the hardest to kill.

[Bilbo]

Use anti-bacterial soap and if you have a pressure cooker, cook it in the pressure cooker for around 1.5 hr. That will kill virtually everything

[hitnrun]

Use anti-bacterial soap and if you have a pressure cooker, cook it in the pressure cooker for around 1.5 hr. That will kill virtually everything

Nice idea. Pressure cooker should kill anything.

[Irukanji]

Should kill everything, but extremophiles mightn't gotten into your flask :p

Chances are slim, but maybe just pour a highly saline mix(maximum amount of salt in water) into it. Salt should kill most of it. Maybe boil it aswell, or boil it in the salt, but not sure what it would do to the metal. Otherwise just freeze it and then drop it into a bath of rapidly boiling water(dunno, just pulled this one out of my ass)

[Mantikore]

there might be a chance that rapid heating might cause warping or cracking

[Unholy Batman]

sodium hydroxide

[Struwwelpeter]

I know that smell. In eastern Europe they used a lot of god awful preservatives like cosmoline, weird mothball mixtures, etc in storage. A lot of it is probably bad for your health. Anyway I recommend giving it a bath in kerosene, this will clean it of any residual preservatives it may have been treated with. After that just boil it and it will be safe for use.

[Pooka]

Boil that shit then soak it in alcohol for a few days. It should be safe to use. Not sure if the smell will go away though.