athomegrowing
Well-Known Member
Are you filling these in a still air box or something like that?
Finally started agar dishes
- Thread starter mo841
- Start date
mo841
Well-Known Member
Thats my pressure cooker. I don't use a still air box or anything like that. Don't forget to grab the honey while your getting the potatos. The best part about making dishea ia you can seperate the good from the bad usually and grow out a dish thats all good and it dont take a lot of your spore to do it.
athomegrowing
Well-Known Member
Building a stll air box this week, so i'll come back to this
canndo
Well-Known Member
If you are using small jars you need only cook them for 45 minutes at 15 lbs but more wont hurt. I, a little unsure of why you didnt just buy mea. Easier and faster. Pda works fine but most only use it for its specificity or as a way to stave off scencience. Mo841 has it right. Most people obsess far too much on sterility of innoculation.
A study of the actual process of contamination is in order.
Most spores or what? "Propigules"? Are very very light and fall in still air at a rate less than one meter in ten minutes. Many spores, in particular, our all time favorite, that green mold that signals the end of your flushes, are inherently stiicky. This works for the species because the mold is a primary diet of certain mites. The spores stick to the feet of the mites and then the mites transport them to new regions.
I have seen tiny trails of contamination from the edge of a dish in meandering swirls acriss my beautiful agar ending finally at my original innoculation.
So, in short, still air is your friend. Touching any inoculating point with anything is the kiss of death. Invariably something will attach itself to your needle if it makes contact with the side of a dish or jar or your finger or anything else. Should that happen, just take up with your alternative (you do have a spare sterile syringe and needle right?) Your scalpels should be exchanged every operation or two.
Learn and practice efficient, deliberate sterile proceedures. Where will you hold a lid or a needle sheath. How will you maneuver your instruments and the like. What will you do if you make a mistake? How can you move quickly and assuredly but not so that you raise sir movement.
Further, most spores will attach themselves to other bits of matter, a speck of dust, frass, lint amd the like. These things accelerate the fall.
A study of the actual process of contamination is in order.
Most spores or what? "Propigules"? Are very very light and fall in still air at a rate less than one meter in ten minutes. Many spores, in particular, our all time favorite, that green mold that signals the end of your flushes, are inherently stiicky. This works for the species because the mold is a primary diet of certain mites. The spores stick to the feet of the mites and then the mites transport them to new regions.
I have seen tiny trails of contamination from the edge of a dish in meandering swirls acriss my beautiful agar ending finally at my original innoculation.
So, in short, still air is your friend. Touching any inoculating point with anything is the kiss of death. Invariably something will attach itself to your needle if it makes contact with the side of a dish or jar or your finger or anything else. Should that happen, just take up with your alternative (you do have a spare sterile syringe and needle right?) Your scalpels should be exchanged every operation or two.
Learn and practice efficient, deliberate sterile proceedures. Where will you hold a lid or a needle sheath. How will you maneuver your instruments and the like. What will you do if you make a mistake? How can you move quickly and assuredly but not so that you raise sir movement.
Further, most spores will attach themselves to other bits of matter, a speck of dust, frass, lint amd the like. These things accelerate the fall.
canndo
Well-Known Member
Long ago, the conventional method of cleaning a room was to use oil defusers. They would through heat, send tiny droplets of a fine inert oil into the air. The theory was that the oil would pick up dust motes and spores on their way to the floor.
(The area a foot or so above the floor is the most particulate dense region of a room)
Now i find that same idea can be applied using an antiseptic spray like lysol. Read the real factors on these sprays, for mold spores, the liquid mist be in contact with the offending propigules for at least 5 minutes. And it must be wet the entire time. This means that the lysol, when used for our purposes really doesnt do much. But it will bring the particulates toward the floor.
(The area a foot or so above the floor is the most particulate dense region of a room)
Now i find that same idea can be applied using an antiseptic spray like lysol. Read the real factors on these sprays, for mold spores, the liquid mist be in contact with the offending propigules for at least 5 minutes. And it must be wet the entire time. This means that the lysol, when used for our purposes really doesnt do much. But it will bring the particulates toward the floor.
canndo
Well-Known Member
And finally there is personal hygiene. I posted about it tangentially in my sticky but i will be more specific. Each individual has their own personal biome. Learn yours. Just prep some dishes and touch them, place one of your hairs on one, breath on one. Let them grow and see what you are carrying around with you. Do the same with the room you work in btw. You can get a rough count of your environment.
But. I always work with a goal of 25 percent or less loss. I plan on it. Long ago i was getting over thirty percent losses. I finally decided the problem was not teqnique but me. I took to showering, wearing fresh clean cloths and using nitrile gloves.
My loss instantly went down to 10 percent.
Try it.
But. I always work with a goal of 25 percent or less loss. I plan on it. Long ago i was getting over thirty percent losses. I finally decided the problem was not teqnique but me. I took to showering, wearing fresh clean cloths and using nitrile gloves.
My loss instantly went down to 10 percent.
Try it.
canndo
Well-Known Member
Yeah. Your house HEPA systems will work....kinda. They aren't laminar flow so they don't bathe your work process in sterile air. But they will reduce your total airborn particulate count. For maybe three months per filter. Because they are not professional, they do not fill progressivly. The professional ones have deep, close pleats. These preserve flow and have a surface area the home units lack.
Two things. First. Remember they stir up the air and you cannot presume that air is sterile. Try shutting the unit down an hour before for you work.
Second... Fuck those designers. Those companies issue a new design a year just because they can and often they will not accept the carbon prefilter or even the HEPA of the previous model. Take it from your old friend canndo... Buy like 10 cabin filters and five HEPA inserts with the new device. And change the pre filter every three months and the HEPA filters every six. You can actually rinse th pre filter but it tends to strech it. Rinsing it gives you a good idea of what is actually happening in the atmosphere of your home.
Get to the point where you can "see" spores in the air, on surfaces, hovering around people...know, as I said, your biome and that of the house and even your significant other and friends.
You will have mastered this very interesting craft when, rather than using brute force, lab coats, filters, sterilizing needle tips (a silly notion unless you are doing field work or operating on original specimens).
This of course extends to contamination of spawn or substrate or casing.
The POINT is that your particular focus species lives in the wild in competition with everything else. Certainly you need sterility to isolate what you want but thereafter, offering your selection that which is most conducive to it and least to its competitors is not only the surest way to go but also demonstrative of your true self understanding of that species.
Anyone can squirt some spores into a sterile jar of generaly rich food.
Oh, to those who squirt spores into a jar.. I am not trying to insult you. You aren't steping into agar, you want some mushrooms in the simplest way possible.
No problem. I expect you would have ffer me the same sort of opinion were I to say. "What's the big deal? I drop
drop a seed into some dirt, feed it miracle grow once a week and I'm good.
canndo
Well-Known Member
Seems so. Ok, short recap. Turn your HEPA off an hour before you work.
Buy ten prefilter and five HEPA filters now.
Replace the carbon pre filters every three months, the HEPA every six.
Keep at it. You will learn a lot about the unseen. It is special and those who are not involved in harnessing the unseen don't get the same presence as those who do. Wine makers, brewers, cheese makers all have a perspective that changes them.
It's cool.
Buy ten prefilter and five HEPA filters now.
Replace the carbon pre filters every three months, the HEPA every six.
Keep at it. You will learn a lot about the unseen. It is special and those who are not involved in harnessing the unseen don't get the same presence as those who do. Wine makers, brewers, cheese makers all have a perspective that changes them.
It's cool.