Microwave for sanitation?

I'm getting ready to pre-boil then pre-chill my top-off water tonight for the batch I'll be brewing this weekend. Not sure what made it pop into my head, but it occured to me that throwing the gallon jugs into the microwave for a short while might be a decent way of killing any nasties residing in them.

Is this a method that's been used and/or tested? Or should I just suck it up and keep filling them with near boiling water?

 

I doubt the wavelength of the magnetic radiation provided by a typical microwave has been shown to be an effective sanitizer on its own. You'd need to bring the water to boiling temperature to achieve that goal...

Cheers!

 

Before I started full boils I just topped up wuth tap water right out of the faucet and have never worried about anything in my water. Do you drink your water? if you do then I wouldnt worry about it unless you are boililg to get rid of chemicles.

 

I've topped up with water straight out of the tap as well with no issues. And I still do when I fail to plan far enough ahead to have pre-boiled pre-chilled top up water prepared.

Aside from the sanitation boiling provides, boiling also drives off any chlorine in the water. It's certainly more of a "peace of mind" thing than a necessity, but when I have the time and foresight, I like to go ahead and do it.

 

Use a microwave to get the water over 160F for a few minutes and you are good.

 

Microwave waves are long enough that they are blocked by that mesh screen that lets you still look through to see how your food is doing. So if you nuked your water for just a few seconds to sanitize, you are likely missing tons of pockets that are about the size of the holes in that mesh, or bigger even.

For sanitizing, you'd have to nuke the water until its boiling or whatever temperature is required for sanitizing.

 

Hmm... ok. It was an idea. Apparently a bad one. I've been known to have those from time to time.