Should you pour boiling water on a knife?

Holy Smokes Guys (gals?) thanks for the many responses! I know that you can use bleach/alcohol/misc other solutions for blade cleaning but in a few weeks I'm leaving for a 100 mile hiking trip and I don't want to be lugging around unnecessary fluids, which is why simple ol' boiling water would have been convenient. Any trail specific methods?
Another +10000 points deposited for the BF community :D
 
If it's your only means of disinfecting while out in the brush I would certainly not recommend sticking your knife in a pot of boiling water over an open flame, heat from the fire could exceed the boiling temp risking handle damage and such.

But if you brought the water to a nice rolling boil and then removed it from the flame and then stuck your knife blade in, the water itself should be sterile should still hold enough heat for long enough period to sufficiently kill most bacteria on the blade, but also without the direct presence of an actual open flame should be sufficiently cool enough (and cooling) to avoid any damage whatsoever to your knife...
 
Heck, Dad used to put his knife tip in a flame for a few seconds to sterilize the tip before "operating" on our hands (as well as other parts of our bodies.) It never seemed to damage his knife.

Captain O
 
It shouldn't, but i don't suggest it to be honest. It's overboard. It may not destroy the blade, but as others have pointed out it is enough to destroy other parts of a knife, such as plastic caged bearings or scale epoxy.
 
On a different note, depending on how expensive the knife was, if you had to put it in the actual fire to cauterize a buddy's wound, I may just tell my buddy to take one for the team (or cough up a credit card). ;)
 
JonathanCharles said:
... in a few weeks I'm leaving for a 100 mile hiking trip and I don't want to be lugging around unnecessary fluids...
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If I were going hiking for 100 miles, I'd consider a bottle of isopropyl alcohol (or high-proof hand sanitizer, or a whole bunch of alcohol prep pads) pretty essential, for my first aid kit and possibly to help start a campfire... cleaning my knife would be secondary to all that :)
 
Suprisingly, cold water treated with diluted bleach is the best. Cold water bonds better with soap or bleach when cold, better than it does at higher temperatures. Most commercial kitchens have a hot one to rinse, and a cold one to sterilize.
 
There's also iodine to consider... another dual-use product. Anyhoo, sterilizing a knife blade isn't super high on my list of priorities when out in the boonies. Basic cleaning goes a long way, unless you plan on doing surgery or something.
 
B34NS said:
Suprisingly, cold water treated with diluted bleach is the best. Cold water bonds better with soap or bleach when cold, better than it does at higher temperatures. Most commercial kitchens have a hot one to rinse, and a cold one to sterilize.
Click to expand...

Commercial kitchens don't bother to sterilize their implements. They just sanitize and disinfect them. Given the way they store them, they'd only be sterile for seconds so it doesn't make sense to take the extra time and effort.
 
It is not as effective as you may think for sterilization: a proper sterilization requires longer sustained heating or/and higher temperatures. On another hand it does no harm to the steel HT, so suit yourself!
 
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