so I got a microscope

I got a brand new microscope from a friend for free and now I'm just wondering if anyone can help me out with a list of the other equipment I'm going to need.

I was thinking I would start out counting yeast and then eventually move on but I'm just looking for any ideas anyone has on what I should buy (I'm on a tight budget)

Its a really nice scope I will post the model and specs when I get a chance.

I'm curious about the counting yeast thing - for what purpose will you be doing this?

Its always fun to get new toys

lol,
780,123...
780,124...
780,12--"Honey, can you take out the trash"
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Care to share the model#? I really want to get one for the same uses, but I'm waiting a good deal to find me.

You'll need a hemacytometer (I think they run about $50) and you should probably pickup some stains. Methylene blue is usually used to check viability of cells. If you are going to work with bacteria at all you might want to pickup the other stains for the Gram staining process.

Inoculation loops, pipettes, and glass stirring rods would all be good additions to your lab

Not sure if you are saving yeast at all, but if you are going this far you might as well be. So some vials/tubes for slants and some petri dishes would be necessary. An alcohol burner and some agar also

I was reading in some papers about methylene violet being a better determinant of yeast viability than methylene blue.

If it were me, I would just go with a digital microscope, or barring that, mount a CCD camera on a regular microscope and hook it up via USB. Then I would write a program to help count yeast cells instead of doing it manually all the time.

I recently read the Louis Pasteur book on the "Studies on Fermentation" and have thought about getting a microscope just to see what I can see, but haven't done so. This may be the kick I need.

Very interested if you can see other "beasties" in your brew.

Updates would be appreciated.

weirdboy said:

I was reading in some papers about methylene violet being a better determinant of yeast viability than methylene blue.

If it were me, I would just go with a digital microscope, or barring that, mount a CCD camera on a regular microscope and hook it up via USB. Then I would write a program to help count yeast cells instead of doing it manually all the time.

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You know I was just thinking about this yesterday while looking at potential gifts for my nephews/nieces. For $20-$50 you can get a play microscope that you can hook to a tv (or a video input on a pc).

If the magnification was enough it would be relatively simple to write software to process the image to count cells.

or even get some of that sticky plastic stuff that they use for removable stickers for windows and print/draw a grid on it and overlay it on your tv/monitor and count from there.

Start getting lab equipment and your neighbors are REALLY going to think you're running a drug lab.