Heat Sterilization
Published Feb 2 2025
Do not apply heat to HRT.
All sterilization should be achieved from a combination of filtration and aseptic processing.
Don’t heat benzyl alcohol
Applying heat to benzyl alcohol, the preservative in your brew, can cause it to oxidize into benzaldehyde. This is toxic to humans and also if it’s present it means there’s a problem with your preservative, which you need to maintain at 2% concentration. Benzyl alcohol can also evaporate (and becomes highly flammable) under even modest heat. It’s flash point is just a mere 100C, which means by the time it gets that hot it’s putting off enough vapors to ignite. That much vapor also would lead to a decrease in concentration if you have an open container, or, if it’s a closed vial, we don’t have adequate data on what happens to that vapor. We don’t know if it reintegrates to the brew, if it interacts with the rubber stopper, or if it starts oxidation. Don’t heat your brew.
Don’t dry heat butyl rubber
Butyl rubber stoppers are not rated to withstand dry heat sterilization. They begin to breakdown and may leech into your brew, we don’t have enough data to know either way.
Don’t heat benzyl benzoate
Pharmaceutical manuals say not to heat this. They don’t elaborate.
Don’t heat your hormones!
We don’t know what happens to your E or T if you heat it, we just don’t have enough data.