This past month a microbiologist friend and I were working on collecting wild yeast. We pulled samples from juniper berries, plums from my tree, and from the wild.
We set up multiple petrie dishes using plum and juniper yeast samples, along with corn sugar and malt extract as food sources. In mason jars, we set up malt extract and hops. One each of juniper berries, plum, and wild.
With the jars, I decided to transfer some of the liquid after two weeks from the wild and plum jars. I pulled the liquid from close to the bottom, avoiding the top layer of film. When we checked the samples under the microscope for sacc., there was Nada, nothing.
Question 1: Where is the best place to grab a sample of sacc to transfer to another jar of malt extract? What should I be looking for?
With the petrie dishes, we sort of messed up and forgot to put the second strike dishes into the fridge. They were at room temp for about a week. The two samples sans mold were from the juniper berries. One eating corn sugar, the other malt extract. We were able to view good colonies of sacc. under the microscope. We put samples of those into jars of malt extract and hops and let them sit at room temp. It's been 30 hours and I have yet to see any action.
Question 2: Should I be worried about the progress? Is there something I should do to help the yeast eat and grow? Any other thoughts?
Any help or suggestions would be appreciated
We set up multiple petrie dishes using plum and juniper yeast samples, along with corn sugar and malt extract as food sources. In mason jars, we set up malt extract and hops. One each of juniper berries, plum, and wild.
With the jars, I decided to transfer some of the liquid after two weeks from the wild and plum jars. I pulled the liquid from close to the bottom, avoiding the top layer of film. When we checked the samples under the microscope for sacc., there was Nada, nothing.
Question 1: Where is the best place to grab a sample of sacc to transfer to another jar of malt extract? What should I be looking for?
With the petrie dishes, we sort of messed up and forgot to put the second strike dishes into the fridge. They were at room temp for about a week. The two samples sans mold were from the juniper berries. One eating corn sugar, the other malt extract. We were able to view good colonies of sacc. under the microscope. We put samples of those into jars of malt extract and hops and let them sit at room temp. It's been 30 hours and I have yet to see any action.
Question 2: Should I be worried about the progress? Is there something I should do to help the yeast eat and grow? Any other thoughts?
Any help or suggestions would be appreciated