Peter H.M. Brooks wrote:
> That is exactly what I am going to do. My question isn't a request to

> enable me to change my plans, but to satisfy my curiosity.
>
>

If it is a contained dish, heating it to boiling should sterilize
anything in there, and it will stay sterile as long as the container is
sealed. You may have some bacterial spores left (Bacilli, for example)
but the dish isn't going to cool enough in 20 minutes for any
significant amount of bacterial growth to occur. Most disease-causing
bacteria that can survive high temps via spores do so through the
production of secondary metabolites, which only are produced in the
later stages of culture growth, anyway.

-L.