1.5ml tubes alright for storing frozen yeast?

Getting a pack of 500 of these tubes is very inexpensive, plus they're easy to label and store in the freezer. If I wash my yeast cake, will ~1ml of slurry be enough?

I mean... my understanding is that you could make a starter using 1 yeast cell, given enough time, so I know that in theory this would work, but in practice, would I be risking infection since the starting amount is small?

I see no problems with this. We use these tubes in my lab to freeze things all the time. They're water tight, so no problem with that.

People make starters with just a bit of yeast from a slant, so 1.5 mLs of slurry is definitely more than that. I say go for it. The only thing is you might want some boxes to hold the tubes in, because they won't stand up on their own. They sell 25 cell and I think 64 cell boxes for these tubes.

As long as you leave a week or so to build up a good starter, you should be fine. I prefer to keep 10-15mL vials on hand for my yeast bank and they work nicely.

Actually I make slants with glass tubes that aren't much bigger than those. Can I ask where you can buy them?

Microfuge tubes are perfect for storing your glycerol stocks. We use these tubes in the lab setting to store samples in temps as low as -80*C. It helps to have an inoculation loop in order to take from and put into these tubes. It should not require a week to make a starter thought. At most it should take like 2 days on a stir plate. That's a pretty big starter too.

Note it's also nice to have these tubes so you can make multiple yeast samples from your initial cake/culture. You will have fresh yeast to start with each time. Not to mention if you use a high OG brew you can start back from square one rather than taking from a stressed cake. Also if you get off smells and flavors you can always go back to your original culture.

Here's where my lab gets them, unfortunately it's impossible to get the ~$20 price for a bag without knowing a sales rep, but the price is still good at $55. Idk what shipping runs because we get free shipping normally. BTW, may as well get the 2ml size, they're the same price.

http://www.fishersci.com/wps/portal...ntrifuge||5ml||1&highlightProductsItemsFlag=Y

We use them for lots of stuff at work and they're autoclavable, seal perfectly, and are meant to be stored at temps reaching -80*C... they hold up in dry ice just fine as well.

onemanlan thx for confirming that I should be able to make a starter out of something like that fairly quickly, that was really my main concern.

I normally get cardboard storage boxes from here, they're perfect for storing the tubes (2 inch with dividers):
http://www.cbsfreezerracks.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Store_Code=C&Category_Code=BS2



Fisher has them too (5x5x2):

http://www.fishersci.com/wps/portal...|freezers||boxes&highlightProductsItemsFlag=Y

bovineblitz said:

Getting a pack of 500 of these tubes is very inexpensive, plus they're easy to label and store in the freezer. If I wash my yeast cake, will ~1ml of slurry be enough?

Click to expand...

Good idea on the tubes, but I failed to see it mentioned... you ARE combining the slurry with an equal amount of 50% diluted glycerol, right?

$12.75 for a bag of 500. Not sure what shipping will be. All I can find is that they ship UPS.

http://www.usascientific.com/Seal-Rite-1.5-ml-tube.aspx

Randar said:

Good idea on the tubes, but I failed to see it mentioned... you ARE combining the slurry with an equal amount of 50% diluted glycerol, right?

Click to expand...

I was planning on filling the tube up to the .5 mark with glycerol/water, that should easily be 15% glycerol.

bja said:

$12.75 for a bag of 500. Not sure what shipping will be. All I can find is that they ship UPS.

http://www.usascientific.com/Seal-Rite-1.5-ml-tube.aspx

Click to expand...

Nice! Sometimes these places are ridiculous for shipping tho since most of the money used to buy their stuff is either from industry or grant $.

I went through the checkout and it didn't give me a shipping price, might want to call to find out as they'd probably just charge the shipping to your card.