Sterilizing Stuff with a BrandName Pot

So we have VeryRapid Pot (obviously it is called something else well known, but in the spirit of avoiding using brand names, I will refer to it now simply as a multicooker).

As it turns out, it's capable of cooking stuff at 15psi in steam … which is the standard setting for an autoclave. Looking online, earlier models even featured a specific “Sterilize” function (according to the manual, this is meant for things like baby bottles, not medical equipment, but this disclaimer is likely there because in otherwise they would have to get it actually licensed as a medical device).

We use ours routinely (chicken tikka masala is particularly good in them), but I started considering using it for sterilizing our medical stuff. I used to have access to an EO sterilizer, which I used for years, but that access is no longer there, and, consequently, we haven't been able to sterilize some of our stuff for some time, which has caused us to stop using them (sounds in particular, ought to be sterile).

So yesterday, I went on c***gslist and found a dude selling a used 6QT one for $30. At that price, I looked at Playtime and we both agreed we had to try it. So today, I bought a multicooker to use strictly for sterilization. I just cooked it for the first time, and have the following observations:

• I need a new sealing ring. These things trap mega oder, and when I fired it up in my clinic, it now smelled of rice. Heavily. I like rice, but it's not a good like … kinky clinic scent. Gotta .. air stuff out for a bit now.
• It seemed to work well. I ordered some autoclave pouches on jungle-website, and these ones have an indicator that will tell me if it actually gets sterile. I'm going to try one on my next cook (after I get my new seals in today so I don't have to smell more rice).
• It is … large, but not cavernous. I'm a little concerned with being able to put the pouches in - I'll need to make sure they cannot touch the side walls, since those get way hotter (for searing/etc). Some items might not need pouches (items where sterilization is good, but which don't have to stay perfectly sterile before use - like specula, which is the first thing I tried cookin), but it might be a bit harder for stuff like sounds, which barely fit anyways (I have a shorter set - the long ones I have definitely do not), and definitely need to stay sterile once cooked. Multicooker company makes an 8qt version and used to make a 10qt version, but both are rather expensive new - the 6qt is by far the most common (as for household meals, it's nearly always enough).

I'm interested in others' experience with these things. They aren't cheap, but they are still considerably less than even small-scale autoclaves. I'm hoping this experiment ends up working….

Update - the sounds don't fit in the pouches 😢. I'm afraid the pouches likely add too much length to the sounds to work…will have to see how they hold up against the sidewalls of the pot…..

I can vaguely recall mom using a pressure cooker to sterilize jars before canning. I think this will work fine but look forward to a further report.

Working around labs, you most likely have an aluminum based vessel, and fuck those with Teflon as it's non stick. These hold in anything friggin thing in the metals. You got rice. Be glad it wasn't to clean dirty socks🤣.

Best advice is to soak / clean / scrub the container ( with a Scotch Brite pad ) with bleach solution. Rinse then boil the container with more bleach to open up the metal pores. Follow up with a boiling rinse, then see. Opening the metal is the key.

High heat vessels ( like auto claves ) dissolve all the minerals in the water, and gets impregnated in the metal. The worse the water quality (city/well supply), the worse things can be including odors and taste.

Distilled water is an option, but more $$$ than tap.

Full aluminum with no coating is the easiest option.

Even lab / hospital grade autoclaves stink like shit.

Multicooker pot is chromium (stainless) steel (most likely 304 - probably of relatively low standard, probably die-pressed to shape). Lid (forming the pressure vessel) is also same steel, with a high-temp silicone gasket, and silicone valve parts. You can get a ceramic-coated aluminium pot (I just bought one for my main one - but it's only for my cooking pot, and only because otherwise I have to spend a fucking hour getting rice to unstick from the steel one) but there'd be no advantage to using that in the sterilizer.

I use distilled water with it because it doesn't take that much and jugs of it here aren't particularly pricey.

I put a new gasket in and cooked it off and had no real smell, so I'm doing well again. According to research, you can clean the gaskets in a dishwashmachine (will try that with old gaskets when I fill it up), and if they persist in smell, they can be cleaned in vinegar, which makes sense - vinegar is often good at odor removal (I think the acidity has a lot to do with that). According to the manufacturer, they aren't supposed to be terribly long-lived, however - brand-who-shall-not-be-named suggests they should last between 6 and 12 months. I take that with some skepticism, especially as brand-who-shall-not-be-named has an obvious interest, as the sole supplier of these things, in suggesting they be underused - kinda like printers classically tell you they are low on ink when they are still ⅔ full.

Still have to figure out a solution to the sounds. There are plenty of pressure cookers, but none of a realistic size. I could (obviously) buy a used dental-office clave, which would work fine, but…that feels kinda like giving up - the whole point of this exercise was to figure out how to sterilize shit in commonly available consumer stuff on the cheap without doing anything really silly - even the used dental units are like $250 - and those are the ones from like 40 years ago that I'm almost afraid to turn on for fear of watching the gasket blow and it launching something other than egotistical billionaires into space.

Tomorrow I'll test the pouch - I've got a small 1ml glass syringe I'm gonna put through it in a pouch, so we will see how well that works. The pouches have an indicator that tells me (supposedly) if it's been cooked enough to really be sterile … so we will see if it works out.

I validate the use of a pressure cooker

You have to let the pressure build up until the valve starts to hiss.

The pressure is then maintained for approximately 1/4 hour.

Now, it is easy to find small devices that allow you to seal bags by creating a vacuum inside, so I use this to wrap the material before sterilization.