How to Clean a Travel Mug or Water Bottle
If your bottle or mug comes with silicone gaskets or seals — like the ones on our favorite travel mug, the Zojirushi Stainless Steel Mug — you may notice that over time they take on the smells of whatever you drink.
To remove the stink from your gaskets, many experts recommend burying them in fresh baking soda for two days. Marguerite Preston, our senior kitchen editor, has a better (and quicker) solution: Bake the silicone pieces in the oven. Here’s her method, adapted from a thread she saw on Reddit:
Preheat your oven to 250 degrees Fahrenheit. Most silicone cookware is oven-safe up to 500 degrees Fahrenheit or more. But because travel-mug gaskets don’t usually come with heat limits, Marguerite said she errs on the side of caution. Make sure that whatever you’re heating is 100% silicone. Do not put plastic or rubber in your oven.
While the oven is heating, carefully wash your silicone gaskets with dish soap and hot water. Then place the gaskets in the oven on a baking sheet. Set a timer for 20 minutes.
Pull the gaskets out of the oven every 10 minutes or so and carefully take a whiff. After about 40 minutes, most of the stink should be gone.
If you do notice a light lingering coffee scent, it might be due to residual coffee oils still clinging to the silicone. Marguerite said she gives the gaskets an extra quick scrub to remove that residue, and the scent disappears almost entirely.
This article was edited by Connor Grossman and Alejandra Matos.
