Modern appliances have made meal preparation much easier than it was even just a century ago. We’ve gone from cooking using fire or coal to electricity and natural gas, heating elements have gotten much more precise, running water and indoor plumbing make kitchens easier to sanitize and keep clean, and refrigeration keeps food and ingredients from spoiling. Not to mention that kitchen and home appliances such as dishwashers and hand-vacs can save cooks time and energy, allowing them to multi-task better. However, many new gadgets contain a lot of electronics that cannot be subjected to the high temperatures and heavy doses of water and detergent that are part and parcel of the dishwashing experience. Indeed, some of these cannot be submerged in water at all. So, what is a cook to do?
Well, the easiest thing is to read the instructions for cleaning that came with the gadget. However, if you’re anything like me, once you finally wrestled whatever it is out of the packaging (clam-shell packaging is evil), you had either completely mangled the documentation or the documentation is hopelessly lost amid all the other documentation you have shoved off in a drawer somewhere. So, working from that assumption, try the tips below!
1) A Simple Wipe-Down — Get a washcloth or sponge and submerge it in hot, soapy water. Wring it out until it is just damp and then wipe down the device thoroughly. You may have to re-wet and re-wring the cloth/sponge several times and use a few quarts of elbow grease.
2) Sterilizing Needs — After giving it a simple wipe-down, if you need to further sterilize your device, use a rubbing alcohol pad, a baby-wipe, or a paper towel dipped in rubbing alcohol or hydrogen peroxide followed by another wipe-down with just a damp (non-soapy) cloth or sponge to ensure that there are no remnants.
3) Avoid sanitizing wipes for hands — The hand soaps that many of us carry around are great for hands but not so great for kitchen gadgets. Yes, they will probably get rid of most of the germs but the remnants they leave behind are not always safe to eat and, when mixed with food, can make people sick.
4) Hair dryers — If you absolutely must get this thing clean, follow step 1 and then use a blow dryer set to “high” and “heat” to blast it dry. The hot air from the blow dryer should be hot enough to both dry and sanitize the device without raising its temperature so high as to cause electronic issues. However, use this cautiously and sparingly since every device is different and there is no way for us to account for any kind of wear and tear on your particular gadget!
Keeping your kitchen clean and orderly is much easier these days. However, for those with OCD who need to keep things as germ-free as possible, the steps above should help with keeping the cooking and meal prep areas both clean and sterile after use!
Do you have any tips to add? If so, let us know in the comments below!
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