Yeast Containers ... Small Ones

[JasonY]

Does anyone have any nifty small containers for storing their liquid yeast containers? I am using stubbies atm. I currently have 2 strains running and am looking to move to three or four. I like to make about 6 starters for storage so this could be 24 stubbies max ...

Now thats a lot of space in the fridge. I would like to drop them down to som ekind of smaller container say 50ml or so. Has anyone seen anything suitable out there?

 

[devilsaltarboy]

Does anyone have any nifty small containers for storing their liquid yeast containers? I am using stubbies atm. I currently have 2 strains running and am looking to move to three or four. I like to make about 6 starters for storage so this could be 24 stubbies max ...

Now thats a lot of space in the fridge. I would like to drop them down to som ekind of smaller container say 50ml or so. Has anyone seen anything suitable out there?

Im looking to get hold of some biological shot bottles as they are termed in either 100mL or 50mL. They can withstand very high pressures and are cheap autoclavable/pressure cookable. Ill post here when I find out source.
Otherwise one of the cheap soft drink companies (generic stuff) has 200 mL bottles PET type which would do the job I guess and are a lot smaller than stubbie

 

[Kai]

How about specimen bottles, like the ones you pee in? Not durable enough?


Unused ones, of course.

 

[Kai]

Sorry for the double reply.. do you mean Schott bottles, altar boy? Because you're right, they would be an excellent idea if you don't mind shelling out a bit more for somethung durable.

The official site is here

[edit: bottles]

 

[sosman]

These guys carry a range of glass bottles (including schott)

Science Supplies Australia

They are in Mitcham and you can just walk in a buy stuff.

 

[JasonY]

hmm nice bottles but ~$6 for the 50ml ones .... fark I could buy a lot of yeast for the price of two dozen.

Kai, not sure about specimen bottles, not sure how well they seal although I guess they must be ok otherwise there would be a lot of piss spilt about

Maybee those blood testubes would be good also ... anyone here a phlebotomist?

 

[jayse]

MAH showed me some 'poo' speciman containers yesterday they look the goods.
just like a small plastic jar they even have a scrapping out part attached under the lid.

Or you can get the ones doctors use with a clear container with a yellow lid.
I know a drug maker (a legal one, not clandestien) i'll see where they get them from.

Jayse

 

[Guest Lurker]

Jason

There is a company called Silverlock in Perth (Catalano Rd from memory) that make plastic bottles, I use them for water sample bottles. They also do fermenter and cc type containers. But I think they have a minimum order, would probably have to buy a few hundred.

I currently have 8 strains in the yeast library, each of which doesnt get used that often. I gave up on the 6 stubbie thing cos a) that leaves no room in the fridge for beer and B) by the time I get to stubbie No 6 it is years old. So I regenerate the yeast every brew. Build a 1.5 l starter, pitch 1 l, split 500 ml into a stubbie (plastic coke bottle). Keep only one yeast bottle in the fridge at any one time for each strain and rebuild it to 1.5 l every time I use it. For me the big advantage is minimising the fridge storage time for any one yeast.

 

[Linz]

GL,
do you think you would have enough yeast if you used a 390ml bottle??

 

[JasonY]

jayse laughing my ass off over the 'poo' containers, I cant see the scraper coming in too handy unless you have a thick slurry .

GL, how big are the bottles (ml?). I keep 6 stubbies from the orginal smack pack to try and keep the strain pure for as long as possible ... my next SFA will confirm if I flogged the last 1272 too much. However I can see that once I get more strains of yeast this may not be possible to do.

 

[RobW]

Kai, not sure about specimen bottles, not sure how well they seal although I guess they must be ok otherwise there would be a lot of piss spilt about

Maybee those blood testubes would be good also ... anyone here a phlebotomist?

I work in a lab so have access to all that stuff. The yellow top 50 ml urine bottles are OK but I prefer to store my yeast in 5 ml tubes under sterile water as described on the Craftbrewer site. You can fit a lot of them into a small space. If you can get blood collection tubes make sure they are plain ones and don't contain anticoagulant. I doubt EDTA & the like would be yeast-friendly. Look out for plain tubes with clot activators too - don't know what they might do to your yeast.

 

[Guest Lurker]

Jason
The smallest I used to buy was 125 ml, but I vaguely recall they did a 50 ml. I can see the point of maintaining the purity of the original yeast, but still worry about extended fridge storage without regenerating.
Linz
For the fridge split? I think 390 ml would work fine, taken from a fully fermenting starter with a good yeast count.

Then again, I have a 1056 starter not starting at the moment, maybe my whole yeast management thing needs revising. And since my system puts all the yeast cells in one basket, I dont have fall-back stubbies, so it will be safale if it doesnt go.

 

[user 384]

I use specimen jars. I've got jars for urine, clear with yellow top, and faecaes, white with a brown top. The faecaes jars are good for scooping yeast out of a fermenter, becuase they have a little scooper on the inside of the lid. Yeasts like 1028 leave a thick cake that is easily scooped up and into the jar (which has been soaked in what ever steriliser you prefer).

The jars have a lot of space in the fridge compared to stubbies. Having a few friends who are doctors and nurses helps "locate" the jars.

I also have a few larger lab grade bottles that are made from pyrex which are great for for putting into the microwave to sterlise starter wort. The bottles can be rapidly chilled ready for pitching the yeast into, so you can build up the cell count. Only problem with bottles like this, is they are around $12 each.

Cheers
Mark

 

[sosman]

There is no guesswork involved in identifying the bottle contents with the colour coding of the lids.

 

[Justin]

I work in a lab and bot presterilised 10 or 15 ml disposable plastic tubes (technically termed "yellow cap tubes" ). These are ideal for me. I also use glass petri dishes and glass test tubes for slants and plating.

Try www.livingstone.com.au for cheap labware, good if your local but for orders involving mail I think you need to spend a few extra dollars to make it worthwhile. Postage is $16.50 to capital cities and $22 to country areas. A pack of 100 tubes like those discribed above is about $16. Why not by an Erlenmyer Flask as well for your culturing and a few other goodies.

Or try dropping into schools or any labs/hospitals/institutes and see if they will give you some. You could try bribing kids with lollies to smuggle them out for you

It's good to know someone.

JD

 

[Gout]

I found?!?! some "test tube"like things at work, they hold about 6ml and i got 3 to test at home,

found that i needed the 3 for just one stubbie slurry (filling each to about 5ml)

so i guess a 15ml would be about perfect!

If anyone knows where to buy these is melbourne i'd love to try them out

(if i wasn't lazy i would have got a photo of the test tubes i used, they really take up no room, there great)

P.S i am lazy

P.P.S what size is white labs yeast tubes? this would give a good indication to the size required

 

[Linz]

White labs tubes are actually PET bottle blanks (ie. before they blow them up to 1.25 litre bottles and such)

 

[Gout]

idea of their volume?

 

[Gulf Brewery]

There are some imported soft drinks around in 200ml glass bottles (Italian I think). I have used these bottles for short term storage. I don't know how strong they are though if you capped a yeast in them that wasn't completely finished

Pedro

 

[peter]

white labs containers arn't very big-i reckon about 80ml.