It was a shock this morning when I tried to make myself rice this morning to complement my KUNG PAO chicken, that there was already rice in my rice cooker. Sadly, this rice there was not made this morning nor the day before, but probably 3 weeks ago!!
I saw what looked like left over pieces of white rice, covered by this terrible gray and black mold all over the cooker. Shocked by what I saw I immediately closed the lid as I felt it would be unsafe to have the full exposure in my face. I also saw a spoon down there somewhere, probably stuck in a web of mold. It is safe to say that this is incredibly nasty. My plan for cleaning it is the following:
Buy cleaning gloves and if I can find one, a mask to protect myself.
Heat up some water and pour into the rice cooker, then empty out the boiling water with the mold mixture into a bucket.
Keep repeating step number 2 while also using some liquid soap.
Once I have everything stored into the bucket, Take it out and throw it away (obviously)
Wash the rice cooker several more times until I feel comfortable using it again.
Anyhow, seems like an easy plan but still a pain. I will be either more careful in the future or try to cook at home more often to prevent this from happening again. How dangerous is mold exposure like this anyways?
Been there, but with a Crock Pot of chili. How do you forget about a pot full of chili for three weeks? One word: narcotics.
The mold exposure isn’t that big of a deal unless you have allergies or obvious sensitivity to it. Prolonged exposure is not good for your respiratory system but it isn’t going to kill you. Actually, we are exposed to a frightening amount of mold that goes unnoticed in our daily lives. Anyway, you could try and clean that rice cooker but in the long run, you’d be better off health-wise and probably psychologically as well, to just throw the whole thing out and buy a new one. I’m not advocating you leave it on the sidewalk late at night, but someone will find a use for that thing. Regardless, even if you’re a dirt poor student, just bite the bullet – there always seems to be someone on Tealit who’s fleeing the country and selling a rice cooker for next to nothing.
If you’re hell-bent on cleaning it, you gotta use bleach. Simple as that. Nothing else, unless somebody has another miracle cure, is going to kill that mold. Use 1 cup of bleach to 1 gallon of water. Don’t mix ammonia and bleach, ever. You can find the rubber gloves and face masks at Wellcome or any hardware store. Then ask yourself, would you really want to eat rice out of that thing again? If yes, go buy some bleach.
Finally, someone fussier than me -and forgetful, too. This has happened to me more than once, or I find assorted pieces of uneaten doggie food or a sandwich left behind on a counter…
First, OK, if you insist, wear a mask. Easiest way are simple plastic disposable gloves, then scoope the soggy mass -yes, it will be soggy, and if you’re lucky, wormy- into a plastic bag. Close tight, dispose immediately. If very little, you can try flushing down the drain -hopefully, without the plastic bag. Yes to the hot watter, maybe to bleach 1 per 10 parts. A good scrub gets rid of the nasties anyways. I think you can save the rice cooker per se but if you are really fussy, just clean the outer ring with special metal dishwasher or the happy mixture of vinegar and baking soda and buy a new inner pot -especially if it is discolorated or in other ways altered.
[quote=“tommy525”]chuck the rice cooker. When you make fresh rice, the cooker will keep it at the optimum temperature for MOLD GROWTH.
…[/quote]
If true it’s completely wrong, it should be able to hold the rice at over 60C to prevent any growth of harmful bacteria or mold … a rice cooker is not intended as a breeding station.
As for cleaning:
Just toss the rice (take a plastic bag and scoop it out), wash the internal cooking pot. Clean with detergent and hot water, repeat with a bleach solution.
Take your cooker apart, the lid can be taken apart for proper cleaning. Do as above. Take a damp cloth with bleach solution, wipe the internals of the cooker.
Than do a few cooking cycles with a little rice, discard.
Be careful when storing cooked rice, don’t keep it in your cooker too long. Never hold it at room temperature for more than a few hours. After three days in the fridge at 4-6C discard it.
Rice can have a very toxic mold on it after gone bad (yellow, yellow-greenish mold). (aflatoxin) Aflatoxins are not destroyed after freezing or boiling.
mold is good against infections ! your rice should not be dangerous and this stage. sadly there was no water in there, otherwise you could drink some home made alcohol by now… hahaha
no need to be so cautious. unless you think it’s gross. but no hamr from a plate of rice. unless the smell make you pass out…
[quote=“BigNoodle”]mold is good against infections ! your rice should not be dangerous and this stage. sadly there was no water in there, otherwise you could drink some home made alcohol by now… hahaha
no need to be so cautious. unless you think it’s gross. but no hamr from a plate of rice. unless the smell make you pass out…[/quote]
IF my rice cooker was used for a biological lab experiment. I would hardly consider using it again to cook rice that i intend to eat. This is what has , inadvertently happened here.
my ONE cent.
edit: but then i am also the guy that ordered a second glass of mango lassi at lunch today and insisted the waiter use the same glass with the same straw and just pour me a new portion of mango lassi, rather then using a new glass and a new straw. Because this would be unnecessary exposure to new biological entities from the new glass when the old glass would suffice as whatever was in it was already in my tummy.
[quote=“justreal”]that is gross, not the end of the rice cooker. if your going to throw it away, throw it my way.
bachelor? consider hiring a wife?[/quote]
Hire a wife? That sounds interesting. Just what can one do with someone else’s wife? OffTopic I imagine but still a tad more risque then molded rice ?
[quote=“tommy525”][quote=“justreal”]that is gross, not the end of the rice cooker. if your going to throw it away, throw it my way.
bachelor? consider hiring a wife?[/quote]
Hire a wife? That sounds interesting. Just what can one do with someone else’s wife? OffTopic I imagine but still a tad more risque then molded rice ?[/quote]
probably should have worded it differently. maybe along the lines of if you were married, you wouldn’t have to be doing your own laundry and washing the dishes? but then if you were married, you would probably be the one carrying the purse. IDK
Just put a plastic bag over the inner pot. Flip it over. Shake violently a few times. Most of the mold and rice should dump right out. Rinse the inner pot with boiling water. That should kill whatever mold that is still there. Wash the inner pot with detergent. Wipe the cooker thoroughly. Fill the inner pot with water, put the cooker in cooking mode. Let it go through the cycle. Should be good as new after that.
Why 3 days? Is there some formula for this? Or some specific threat after 3 days? I cook up a batch of rice on the weekends and keep it in my fridge for a week because I don’t have time to cook and clean during the week.
Fuck yeah, just chuck the cooker for christ’s sake.
I’ve done it. It was one fo those Tatung thingies, with an inside pot, so it wasn’t the whole machine and was cheap, but I’d probably chuck the whole machine too rather than eat out of something that disgusting again (or put up with the smell and hassle of cleaning it, for that matter).
[quote=“tommy525”]chuck the rice cooker. When you make fresh rice, the cooker will keep it at the optimum temperature for MOLD GROWTH.
[/quote]
It’s been 20 years since my last biology class but I’m pretty sure the optimum temperature for mold growth is around 25-35 degrees. Your rice cooker will go to nearly 100 degrees cooking rice and then temperatures well over 35 degrees keeping it. Give it a good scrubbing then give it a go with some water in it. No need to waste rice. Mold spores might resist temperatures upwards of 100 degrees but if everything is cleaned well there shouldn’t be any(many) left.
I’ve done this before, too. Not for 3 weeks though, but a day or two.
“Resistant” and “optimum growth temperature” are two differents things. From a brief glance of articles about this “rice mold”, it seems to pertain to the crop and not the food. I certainly could be wrong. Regardless, thorough cleaning and not repeating the OPs mistake should lead to very few risks.
blah blah blah, all you biologists can keep using your rice cooker (dont invite me over for a meal) . IM gonna dump the thing in the recycler. IT has after all been in a biological experiment for 3 weeks! Who wants to mess with deadly microtoxins? Not me.
Maybe I am just to cheap to buy a new rice cooker. In fact I have two but I rarely use them. I find them a pain in the ass to clean. I just make my rice in a pot on the stove.
You’ve gone back a few centuries But nothign wrong with that traditional way of cooking. IN fact many taiwanese of the older sort miss the crust on the sides of the pot.
Been there, but with a Crock Pot of chili. How do you forget about a pot full of chili for three weeks? One word: narcotics.
But nothign wrong with that traditional way of cooking. IN fact many taiwanese of the older sort miss the crust on the sides of the pot.