Renewing The Yeast Cultures

[Zwickel]

gday mates,

yeah, there are many ways to treat the slants.

My first intension was to show our fellow brewers how easy yeastfarming could be. Just to encourage the brewers, they have no glue about biological stuff, to get into.
My idea was to use only equipment everybody has at home, not to make it too complicated.
Im very glad to see, many of you have taken the bait

After getting the foot into the door, one may elaborate individually theire own methode.

Cheers mates :icon_cheers:

 

[Steve Lacey]

Steve, I think the idea behind this thread is to be able to use the whole vial as a starter

OK, thanks for the clarification Andrew. I could see that's what everybody was talking about. So I guess, just take my post as a reminder of what the conventional method is I can see the slightly easier increased ease of starting the starter this way, but that is going to be offset by the increased number of slants you have to make.

I think this is a worthwhile method if you brew fairly often with only a couple of types of yeast.

Steve

 

[Sprungmonkey]

Steve Lacey - The only reason I make multiple slants is to give to a mate. We alternate buying yeast and I do the slants for him.

 

[kram]

Steve Lacey - The only reason I make multiple slants is to give to a mate. We alternate buying yeast and I do the slants for him.

Don't buy WLP001, 830 or 833. I'll be slanting some up in the coming weeks.

 

[ausdb]

From my lab days, the size of the magnet in the magnetic stirrer, the size of the stir bar, the speed of the stirrer and the viscosity of the solution all affect the stability of the stir bar...if you are not getting the stir bar to centre, try a smaller stir bar and/or start stirring slow and gradually increae the speed...even then, sometimes you can not get up to the maximum speed of the stirrer.

Flat bottom glassware assisted the stability...round bottom flasks needed quite small stir bars to stay stirring centrally.

Hi Leigh sorry I didn't see your reply till now. My stirrer is a home made jobbie out of an old 51/4" floppy disc drive with a belt driven platter, it only turns quite slowly about 360rpm put is not able start up from 0 rpm. I think the stir bar I am using is about 40mm long I will try a smaller one and see if it works any better
Cheers

 

[quadbox]

I'd be quite happy to trade some WLP-023 (burton ale, aka wyeast 1275 thames valley) for good lager strains, or good belgian strains This thread could so degenerate into a swap meet

Steve lacey: Personally, I was only planning on having quite a few slants of burton ale and california ale, just because that's what I use 90% of the time. Will probably have ten each of those, and the remaining 30 vials I have will be used for say three each of more obscure or less used strains (a pilsner strain, a boch strain, a california common strain, a witbier strain, a trappist strain or two, coopers, an irish and a scottish strain ideally eventually Oh my that hungry beast ambition )

 

[Sprungmonkey]

Kram - I have San Fransisco Lager, Mexican Lager in slants , and Edinburgh Ale and Californian Ale still in White lab tubes ready to use.

Am using my first mexican lager slant in a "corona" style beer at the moment. See how it turns out.

 

[mikelinz]

Don't buy WLP001, 830 or 833. I'll be slanting some up in the coming weeks.

I will have wyeast 2206 Barvarian in the fridge waiting for next time I brew, will slant it so will have available for a swap.

 

[mikelinz]

should we perhaps set up a AHB wiki page where people post up their stocks of yeats. then we could just PM trade via mail etc

but yeah, i'm definitly up for it.

Can we just create a thread called "Yeast slant Library" (or something) probably in The Brew Shed > The Common Ground > Important Topics

Not sure how to get it into "important topics" but the yeast farming thread is here.

anyone know how we do it. My idea is we post what we have available and ppl PM to arrange a swap. Not sure how you keep the list up to date add and remove availability etc

 

[~MikE]

Not sure how you keep the list up to date add and remove availability etc

that's why i was thinking a wiki page, it'd basically be AHB members listing their yeast stocks - only possible issue is working out an easy format for what would essentially be a giant list. each person would then be responsible for updating their section themselves.

the other option could be something similar to the recipe database...

 

[newguy]

that's why i was thinking a wiki page, it'd basically be AHB members listing their yeast stocks - only possible issue is working out an easy format for what would essentially be a giant list. each person would then be responsible for updating their section themselves.

the other option could be something similar to the recipe database...

Not sure how hard this would be to create/code, but....

- Each user has their own inventory page, maybe sorted by dry/white labs/wyeast/other. Each known commercial strain has its own tick box. Users just tick what they have.
- Each user should also have a location or brew club tick box. Maybe sort by state so that it's not too "fine" of a location sort?
- The public page is sorted similarly, with dry/white labs/wyeast/other tabs/fields. Clicking on one would bring up an inventory of what is available, perhaps sorted by state/club, if sort by location/club is selected. Clicking on a particular available strain brings up a list of all users who have it in stock.

Sorry for sticking my nose in, but I sort through a lot of data and this breakdown method makes sense to me.

 

[Moray]

I have just made my first slants and am wondering about my technique

I sterilised the tubes and caps in a microwave baby bottle steriliser, and quickly poured the boiling agar solution from my conical flask into the tubes and then capped them.

Is it really necessary to boil the agar solution once it's been added to the tubes, or should my dodgy method be ok?

 

[~MikE]

I have just made my first slants and am wondering about my technique

I sterilised the tubes and caps in a microwave baby bottle steriliser, and quickly poured the boiling agar solution from my conical flask into the tubes and then capped them.

Is it really necessary to boil the agar solution once it's been added to the tubes, or should my dodgy method be ok?

so you microwaved your media (i'm assuming to boil agar and pasteurize) and chemical sterilized the tubes. that should be ok. if stuff grows, you'll need to go to a longer boil for your media - possibly even use a pressure cooker (like many people here do).

 

[Zwickel]

so you microwaved your media (i'm assuming to boil agar and pasteurize) and chemical sterilized the tubes. that should be ok. if stuff grows, you'll need to go to a longer boil for your media - possibly even use a pressure cooker (like many people here do).

yeah, think so too, should be okay, but Id prefer a pressure cooker.

:icon_cheers:

 

[Sprungmonkey]

shouldnt be any problems. Similar to the method I use. I Autoclave about 1L wort (with agar-agar) and then pour into sterile centrifuge tubes then cap. 121C doesn't let bugger all survive.\

Just leave the tubes at room temp for 4-5 days and watch to see if you get any growth. If you do then toss em before streaking your yeast.

 

[edoeven]

hey guys, awesome thread I plan to make a bunch of slants soon (i'll put up some pics) and start building up a yeast library - finally put some of those uni microbiology skills to use.... I wont have anything good to swap, but would anyone in melb have some interesting liquid strains they want to exchange for a few bottles of beer or something like that ?

 

[tynian]

I slanted some 3068 the other day and it looks to have worked a charm.

Thanks so much for all the great info in this thread.

 

[Linz]

Dont know if ive got the jist of this or not.....BUT.......

Can you make up say 30-50 'slants', then store them before innoculating them with yeast ??

Its just that if you're only going to need 4-6 slants of each yeast variety, 1 lt of wort/agar agar mix will fill more than the 4-6 you'll innoculate??

 

[kabooby]

Yes mate you can. Thats what I have done

I have got about 20 blank slants waiting to be inoculated. When I decide to make a starter from some yeast that I currently have in bottles I will use some to inoculate the slants and go from there.

Dont order any vials. If you need some I ordered a 100 and I dont think I will use that many

Kabooby :icon_cheers:

 

[hockadays]

Kabooby,

I picked up some of the same vials that you have and made up 20slants today with 4g of agar to about 300ml of wort. Layed them down and it seems to have set quite well but I've noticed that if I rotate the vial the agar seems to slide around inside. It keeps it's shape and doesn't come loose but there is some movement, is this normal? They have also only been lying down for a few hours so i'll let them sit for 24hrs before I inoculate them.

hockers