yeast lab shopping list

Having started reading the yeast book, im keen to set up my own limited yeast lab and the g/f has offered to foot the bill if i make the shopping list..

so far i have listed
30ml vials with screwcaps for slants (50?)
petri dishes (10)
lock-tite sandwich boxes
agar jelly
wire for loops
isopropanol
meth burner and or cooks flame gun
ptfe/parafilm
flasks 250ml 500ml 1l (got a 2l alreqdy)

AND a big canner/pressure cooker. capable of sustaining 15psi

also space in the fridge,

Have i omitted anything??

Cheers!

Fil said:

big canner/pressure cooker. capable of sustaining 15psi

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Pressure Canner :whistle: :whistle: :whistle:

More Petri Dishes

Syringe for filling the vials

Stir plate?

Cheers for the link and addition. Yes a syringe cheers, now to sus out where to get it all from..


Just to confirm..
RE agar i go for basic food grade stuff and mix with a 1040 wort to create the media rather than buying lab grade stuff with foods added?

Fil said:

30ml vials with screwcaps for slants (50?)

Click to expand...

The correct tool for the job is a piece of lab glassware known as a screw-cap culture tube. A screw-cap culture tube looks like a test tube with a screw-on cap. I only use vials for autoclaving small amounts of wort. I use 16x100mm and 20x125mm screw-cap culture tubes for slanting yeast.

Here's a photo that I shot a few months ago when I prepared slants:



Screw-cap culture tubes appear to be difficult to obtain in the UK. However, here's a U.S. seller on eBay that ships to the UK:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/50-Glass-Cult ... 19cdefc699

If you must use vials, you need to look for vials that have phenolic caps with autoclavable rubber liners. Foam, paper, and foil liners will not cut it for long-term yeast management. I use Wheaton vials that have phenolic caps with rubber lines to autoclave 5mls of wort that I sometimes use to start slants (I usually start absolutely sterile wort from a slant using aseptic technique and a nichrome loop).

One last thing: only purchase borosilicate glassware. A lot of sellers attempt to pawn off soda lime glassware on neophytes. Soda lime glassware is single-use disposable glassware.

"Plastic Universals" is a good term to search under ebay (business office / lab supplies) these polyproylene vials are cheap and ideal (this is what brewlab slant come in)

One needs to ensure that one is purchasing autoclavable universal specimen tubes. Most plastic specimen tubes are gamma ray sterilized at the factory, which means that one has to pour one's media after autoclaving. I am fairly certain that Brewlab uses pre-sterilized tubes. Pouring a plate "hot" is difficult enough to perform in a home setting. Filling a bunch of culture tubes before the media drops below 50C will be difficult without the aid of a laminar flow hood, especially if one wishes to maintain sterile conditions. I always recommend re-usable autoclavable borosilicate glass culture tubes to amateur brewers who are just starting to culture their own yeast because they are foolproof. With glass tubes, one autoclaves the media in the tube with the cap left slightly ajar and tightens the caps after autoclaving. With the average amateur brewer subculturing schedule of at least once a year, fifty re-usable glass tubes will easily support a bank of fifteen to twenty cultures for ten years with the only waste being solidified wort.

With that said, having maintained a yeast bank with more than thirty cultures for ten years, I can honestly say that maintaining a bank that has more than fifteen cultures becomes a pain in the backside, as one spends a lot of time subculturing (i.e., performing slant to slant transfers) cultures that are rarely used. Six to ten cultures that are actually used seems to be the sweet spot, as one can easily rotate through one's bank in six to twelve months. I am attempting to limit my bank to twelve cultures this time around.