Microscope Magnification

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jamest22

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I would like to buy an inexpensive microscope to use to look at samples of my beer. I was hoping to be able to observe and identify yeast cells as well as other bacteria present in my homebrew. How powerful (what magnification) of a microscope do I need to accomplish this?

Would this one suffice?:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0030CICSW/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20
 
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I don't have any actual help for you, but here are a few intro pages i found on microscope usage and required magnification - one was even beer related.

good luck and I hope you realize you are pushing the geek boundary on this one.
:mug:

jason


http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~bioslabs/methods/microscopy/microscopy.html

http://forums.morebeer.com/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=34955&start=0&st=0&sk=t&sd=a

http://waynesword.palomar.edu/lmexer1.htm#relative

yeah, this time you might have pushed it a little over the line on the geekery.....:tank:
 
Not very much, 10x-100x appears to be fine.

Check out the PDF here: http://www.whitelabs.com/beer/microscope.html

yeast.jpg

This is apparently 40x and they're pretty big and easy to see.

Edit: Apparently White Labs says you want 400x scope for cell counts: http://www.whitelabs.com/beer/cell_count.html.
 
The lense at the front of the microscope is 40X and the eyepiece gives a 10X extra magnification, for a total of 400X. As a microbiologist, I can tell you that a microscope will be a waste of time and money for you. If you want viable cell counts I would do a dilute to extinction plate technique, this is far more accurate.
 
thanks. 400x, that makes sense. i'm not too interested in performing cell counts. i was only hoping to be able to identify yeast cells as well as bacteria like lactobacillus in infected beers.
 
In general the information you obtain from a microscope is minimal, you can tell a yeast cell from a bacterial cell, but if you want to identify the difference between an acetobacter vs a lacto, or a wild yeast to a brewers yeast the microscope is the wrong tool as they will appear the same.
 
In general microbiology, you would need to do a battery of tests, to see what metabolisms your bug is capable of doing. Off the top of my head though, I would do a lactose test, lactobacillus can metabolize lactose, while yeast and most bacteria cannot.
 
The lense at the front of the microscope is 40X and the eyepiece gives a 10X extra magnification, for a total of 400X. As a microbiologist, I can tell you that a microscope will be a waste of time and money for you. If you want viable cell counts I would do a dilute to extinction plate technique, this is far more accurate.

Could you elaborate on this technique?
 
This will be a quicky, the internet has more involved protocals for this. Essentially you need to dilute your culture so that when you plate 10-100 microliters of media, you will have a countable number of colonies form on a plate, this is ussually less than 300. As an example, a very turbid media will have around 10 to the 9th cells per millilter, I would take 1 microliter from this media and dilute it into 999 microliters of media you now have 10 to the 6th per mil, repeating this dilution will give you 10 to the 3rd per mill. At that point you may try and plate 10 to 100 microliters of each dilution, 100 microliters of 10 to the 3rd you would expect 100 colonies, and only 10 colonies for 10 microliters.

This method is ideal, as you are only counting viable cells, 1 colony came from 1 cell. using a hemacytometer you have no way of knowing if the cells are viable.

Sorry for the quickness of the post, PM me if you would like more information
 
Yes I believe there are many dyes that can determine viablity, my understanding is their cost is prohibitive to a homebrewer. I believe methylene blue works for yeast, google yeast viability should give you a lot of information
 
Just posting, as another microbiological research, to agree with tbeard. Cheap consumer grade microscopes are almost useless to begin with (900X magnification doesn't mean anything if you can't make anything out), and identifying bacteria from a microscope slide alone is a pretty specialized skill. While I hate to be dismissive, I wouldn't even bother trying with that microscope. If you really want to do this, you should look into an old, used scientific grade microscope on ebay. You'll pay ten times what that costs, but it would be sufficient, if you were also surrounded by a stack of reference books and practiced extensively.

That said, that microscope may well be sufficient to do viability determination of yeast. Yeast cells (especially brewer's yeast strains) are pretty beefy.

Yes, methylene blue is a good yeast vital stain. I disagree with tbeard here, acutally -- there's nothing remotely cost prohibitive about methylene blue, it's one of the most common stains and has been around forever. There's also no reason you couldn't use it alone. Dilution plating would be a bit more accurate, but really, you only care about an order of magnitude anyway, so it doesn't matter (and dilution plating would require fairly sterile procedure, which you almost certainly don't have the equipment or training for). There's no reason you couldn't make use methylene blue.
 

You'll probably find that microscope incredibly frustrating. The lenses in cheap scopes aren't very clear and they're small. The WhiteLabs picture is probably from a scope in the greater than $500 range, if it's US, European or Japanese make.

A "Student" microscope in the $100 and up range might be OK, though the brands aren't what I cut my teeth on (Bausch & Lomb).
 
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+1 on getting a decent lab-grade used microscope. You can see yeast pretty easily at 400X and you MIGHT be able to make out tiny bacillus rods, but you really need 1000X/oil immersion/stain for bacteria.
 
I bought a microscope from these folks a couple of years ago.

http://stores.ebay.com/MicroscopeNet/Purchase-Guide.html

Binocular with oil immersion lens - view was decent considering that it cost under $300. Made in China

Over a decade ago I had a similar design Olympus that I bought used for $500 at the time (would be closer to $700 in today's dollars) - the quality was excellent.

Depends if you have a local place that you can buy used.
 
I second the calls for a nicer, possibly even old and beat microscope, as long as the lenses are good. I have an old Olympus KHC microscope I got very cheap. The lenses are good quality and everything is very clear.

It is really fun to be able to see what you are putting into your beer, and it gives you confidence that what you are doing is working, for example when you are trying to start yeast out of a Rogue bottle and you cant tell whether those bastards are going or not...

Both methylene blue and trypan blue are good live/dead stains for yeast. Both are cheap, the former probably more so. You could also pick up a microbiology protocol book (Uni library's a good place) to learn different stains and techniques. For example, if you know you've either got acetobacter or lactobaccilus, you can do a gram stain to tell the difference between these two. Easy and cheap. Microbiology is fun, even if it does push the geek boundary at home. (I do this stuff at work too, so take that for what it's worth...)

Also good investments are a hemocytometer for counting cells (eBay is your best bet: $15-40)--they have special, thick coverslips, so make sure either the hemocytometer comes with some or you get some elsewhere. One more thing, sterile, wrapped, plastic Pasteur pipettes are a FANTASTIC thing to have, when you want to take a sample of your yeast starter and not contaminate it, or when you want to take a sample of your wort without having to sterilize the pipette first, etc etc etc
 
Not very much, 10x-100x appears to be fine.

Check out the PDF here: http://www.whitelabs.com/beer/microscope.html

yeast.jpg

This is apparently 40x and they're pretty big and easy to see.

Edit: Apparently White Labs says you want 400x scope for cell counts: http://www.whitelabs.com/beer/cell_count.html.

This picture is actually 4*129X = 516X as seen on my monitor where the illustrated sub square is 129 x 129 mm. On the slide, the central square is 1 x 1 mm so this sub square is 1/4 X 1/4 mm. When a photomicrograph is taken one has to take into account the objective, the projection "occular" and the size at which the image is displayed.

With a 10X objective and 10X occular i.e. the central square occupies most of the visual field. Thus 100X is plenty for counting on a hemacytometer. For looking at the morphology of cells, 400X (40X objective; 10X occular) would probably be the most popular with 1000X of little use and a PITA because of the need to use immersion oil. Note that vanilla bright field microscopy doesn't reveal much internal structure. To do that phase contrast (or other techniques) are needed. I mention phase contrast because I'd think you could find a pretty decent used scope with a phase kit for a few hundred dollars on e-bay or craig's list.

The quality of the optics is paramount. While a "toy" microscope might be suitable for counting, you certainly wouldn't be able to see much cell morphology with one of those.
 
You'll probably find that microscope incredibly frustrating. The lenses in cheap scopes aren't very clear and they're small. The WhiteLabs picture is probably from a scope in the greater than $500 range, if it's US, European or Japanese make.

A "Student" microscope in the $100 and up range might be OK, though the brands aren't what I cut my teeth on (Bausch & Lomb).

I got that exact one thinking it wouldn't matter. The issue with it is that it's so cheap, it's hard to hold the focus, especially if you are trying to count. Look for a good scope with a mechanical stage to move your hemocytometer around.

This is the one I've been looking at:

http://cgi.ebay.com/BINOCULAR-BIOLO...577?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2eb00a9e89

While it might not be the nicest, It should be able to handle some cell counts once a month or so.
 
A binocular microscope at that price kind of underwhelms me. See if there is someone who sells microscopes in you area and has any used ones at a comparable price.
 
Bigscience, I'd agree with ajdelange; try to find a vendor that has a used one that you can actually look through. A well cared for used one is likely to give you better service than a cheap (not inexpensive) new one.
If you're not to far from Seattle, there's likely a good scope vendor around, as I'd bet a city like Seattle sports a decent sized college or two. Shoot an email to somebody in a microbiology department, that might be a good start.
 
I count 70 alive and 4 dead. Been a while since I got to do a cell count. Never really was any good at it. Always got the dillution wrong.
 
Bigscience, I'd agree with ajdelange; try to find a vendor that has a used one that you can actually look through. A well cared for used one is likely to give you better service than a cheap (not inexpensive) new one.
If you're not to far from Seattle, there's likely a good scope vendor around, as I'd bet a city like Seattle sports a decent sized college or two. Shoot an email to somebody in a microbiology department, that might be a good start.

Trust me, I'm all for overdoing everything and getting the nicest things because I can. I'm just trying to keep things somewhat cheap that may not matter, while still keeping this a hobby. The $9.99 scope I got off ebay works, it's just a pain to use. For the amount I'll be using this (check starters before pitch and cell viability after thaw) I'd bet the $200 range should be ok (I'll report back if I pull the trigger). For bigger projects that will require more scope time (yeast banking/stability studies), I'll just use one at work.

As for used, I'd bet I could score one from one of the Bio-techs around here that keep going tits up. Hell, I've been at 3 of them. With my birthday coming up, I need something to tell my in-laws I need.
 
As for used, I'd bet I could score one from one of the Bio-techs around here that keep going tits up. Hell, I've been at 3 of them. With my birthday coming up, I need something to tell my in-laws I need.
:D

Good luck!
 
This is late coming but I dropped like$ 175 on an amscope brand microscope off of bay and am pleasantly surprised with the quality. It Has all the bells and whistles- binocular oil immersion 1000mag mechanical stage control etc. The thing is pretty stout all metal brand new too. I took a leap of faith because I did not find a lot on them as far as reviews but I am very happy with it and I kind of geek out on tools and things like that so if you are looking at the brand and wondering what is up with them I say go for it. Their more basic scopes monocular and whatnot are really cheap. I do highly recommend a mechanical stage though. Happy yeasting!
 
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