Removing boot smell

First get rid of the conditions that cause the smell to grow. Wet boots will dry in 2 or 3 days in a well ventilated place Dont heat them. Once dry the greebys stop making smell and the airflow lofts it away. Wear woolen socks Dont leave them in the boots between weekends. Dont ask how I know this. Keep the boots dry as much as practical. Obviously a bit harder in a wet winter but the wetter they are the more they smell and the longer they take to dry. Take care of any tinia or other foot rot. These enhance the smell and make your feet itch. Anti fungal foot powders will reduce smell a little but dont expect overnight results. My routine at the end of a tramp is to take my socks and place in washer leaving the lid up and leave the boots in the porch where they get a maximum of 1 hour sun a day and 85% of the time this is enough. If you close the lid on the washer the wife will not be happy in the morning. (dont ask)

Stinky boots or shoes. Hmm, yes know this well. Hubbie comes home with this problem (traveling in nz) and it's a bacteria (maybe the same as athlete's foot?). After endless trials with powders etc, I ended up soaking his walking shoes in a bucket of water with Dettol in it. Just half a cap-full in a whole bucket. Soaked for about an hour or two. That sorted it nicely. Sure, the shoes smell like a hospital ward but it beats the original pong! Seems the problem will return unless the bacteria is removed from the skin on the foot. That's done with a treatment from the chemist. We have worn wet boots on tramps and there's been no pong during or afterwards.

+1 to greeves - it's getting rid of the wetness as quickly as possible without heat that makes the difference. We use a home made boot drier; basically a wooden box with a computer cooling fan in the side and things to put your boots/shoes (upside down) on the top made from electrical conduit so that when it is switched on in sucks air into the box that goes out through the conduit. No heating! Often the inside of the boot is dry before the outside. We also use a portable one made from a heat gun with the heating element removed when away skiing. There are commercial options out there but anything that can blow unheated air into the footwear until dry will do the job.

In the old days when NZ tramping boot uppers were constructed of a single layer of heavy leather without internal padding ("John Bull" and "Anson") boots rarely if ever developed smells. Sweat did not accumulate inside the boots which were frequently and effectively washed every time a river was crossed. Further, the boots dried relatively quickly. Finally, the natural antibiotic properties of leather prevailed. Modern boots seem ideally designed to support microbial growth. Incorporating anti-microbial chemicals in their structure or as coatings of internal layers does not seem to work for long. If my boots get wet I wash them inside and out using cold water and no detergents. I remove excess water using an old towel - squeezing rather than rubbing and hang them on the clothes line in the shade or put them on top of a dehumidifier to dry. I have even made use of a low speed washing machine spin cycle. I never use the sun or artificial heat of any kind. Even the hot water cupboard can be damagingly hot. Otherwise it is a good incubator. If I am diligent my boots rarely smell although it is a while since I have done a multiday tramp.

Exactly, its the goretex boots that smell the worst. The ones i have (Salomon Quest 4D) have very little lining so they dry quite quick, however from saturated thats still 3 days, and so they are barely dry before i use them again. Ive found that two or 3 lots of newspaper stuffed and removed, gets out 90% of the water. However i havent tried literally hosing them out (i was trying to get them dry, right) before drying them, so that and soap/detol etc sound like my next step. Cheers.

Activated charcoal (garden centre), baking soda, white vinegar. Heaped teaspoon charcoal, same of baking soda, mix in 2 cups of water, add teaspoon white vinegar, tip it in the boot and give it a good slosh around for a minute of two. Then empty boot and let it sit for approx 15 minutes. Give it a good hose out to ensure the mixture is well gone. Poke a stick in the ground and hang the boot upside down to drain and dry. No more smell except perhaps a faint vinegar odour. Alternatively, got a steripen water purifier. Jam it on throw inside boot and let the ultra violet component kill all the microbes that create the smell. Haven't tried the latter, but an acquaintance of my assures me it works.

FrankB, you are a fountain of wisdom, awesome.

@zoneblue It's called old age, been around so long been there done that, almost. It was my grandmother who provided the recipe for that 50 years ago. She didn't like the smell of my boots.

@jetnz athletes foot is a fungus. Same one as tinea, trench foot & that causes those beautiful yellow toenails when you wear wet boots for a living.