Microscope Image of Harvested Culture

[Easycreeper]

So my $90 microscope arrived today and I couldn't wait to try it out. Pulled a small sample from the harvest I did with a local strawberry. Didn't have any slides, so I improvised with a plastic Petri dish...

Any ideas of what I'm looking at here? I see both round and rod shaped organisms and some clusters of stuff too.

Should have waited to do some streaks on an agar plate, but excitement got the better of me.

Sorry for the scrappy pic quality.

 

[RPh_Guy]

Cool stuff.
Looks like microbes to me!

It'll help focus when you get slides and can put a film down on the culture.
It's been a long time since I've used a microscope so I can't be much help with that.

 

[Easycreeper]

Got some slides in and made an attempt at isolating a culture in some Petri dishes. Here's the result so far:

its really neat to watch the microbes float along the river at the bottom of the image!

 

[Oginme]

I would recommend getting a biological stain, such as Methyl blue, to help make the cells stand out a little better and to identify live cells vs dead cells.

 

[mongoose33]

Here are a couple of slide photos showing yeast; methylene blue stain has been used, and you can see in one slide only one cell appears dead (it's blue), while in the other, microwaved on purpose to show the result, only about 3 are not blue.

Note also that the yeast are oval or round.

Looks to me that your sample has some yeast and some bacteria and other stuff.

 

[Easycreeper]

Here are a couple of slide photos showing yeast; methylene blue stain has been used, and you can see in one slide only one cell appears dead (it's blue), while in the other, microwaved on purpose to show the result, only about 3 are not blue.

Note also that the yeast are oval or round.

Looks to me that your sample has some yeast and some bacteria and other stuff.

View attachment 630410 View attachment 630411

Yeah, I didn't do a very good job with streaking the dishes, so the colonies all grew together. Something about not following directions...

I've since made up new dishes, adhering closer to procedure. Will get some methyl blue this week. Thanks for the suggestion.

I'll continue to update here once I have better isolated some colonies.

 

[mongoose33]

Yeah, I didn't do a very good job with streaking the dishes, so the colonies all grew together. Something about not following directions...

I've since made up new dishes, adhering closer to procedure. Will get some methyl blue this week. Thanks for the suggestion.

I'll continue to update here once I have better isolated some colonies.

What are you hoping to find out? Trying to isolate some wild yeast?

 

[Easycreeper]

What are you hoping to find out? Trying to isolate some wild yeast?

Yeah, trying to isolate one or more cultures and seeing what individual characteristics are.

I'm also planning on building up the whole shebang, pitching it, and letting it ride. Was hoping for a culture that would be suitable for a darker wild ferment, but I'll take what I can get for a first attempt. Got the bug now, so surely something appropriate will pop up...

 

[yourlastchance89]

Here's one of some counts I did a little while back

 

[ESBrewer]

What type of beer is that in the OP exactly? In a beer such as lambic there can be a wide range of both bacterial & yeast species and the composition will change over the course of time. S.cerevisiae is round or elliptical, several micrometers in size and some cells will show buds. Most bacterial cells are smaller (1-2 micrometers etc.) and many species can be rod shaped and may form even larger structures where several cells are attached together in an organized manner (e.g. Lactobacillus). Based on a micrograph it will be difficult/impossible to tell the exact species unless you know what to expect (based on the source). Yeast cells tend to form aggregates, too, when they flocculate.

 

[passedpawn]

Cells budding in this pic on my scope. That's at 400x

Here's some bacteria I grew at home. I made a time lapse video over about 30 minutes. Yeast bud, but bacterial divide in half (binary fission). It's a little hard to see there, but those chains of rod-like lactobacteria are dividing and getting longer.



I was looking at cells myself a while back. You can also see how I attached a webcam to my scope to easily get pics and video. Lots of pictures and info here, if you're interested: Pics of Yeast under my new microscope

 

[Easycreeper]

What type of beer is that in the OP exactly? In a beer such as lambic there can be a wide range of both bacterial & yeast species and the composition will change over the course of time. S.cerevisiae is round or elliptical, several micrometers in size and some cells will show buds. Most bacterial cells are smaller (1-2 micrometers etc.) and many species can be rod shaped and may form even larger structures where several cells are attached together in an organized manner (e.g. Lactobacillus). Based on a micrograph it will be difficult/impossible to tell the exact species unless you know what to expect (based on the source). Yeast cells tend to form aggregates, too, when they flocculate.

Just a wild culture captured from a local strawberry farm in some starter wort. No clue what's in it.

Thanks for the information on cell shapes. I'm just getting into this sort of thing and any knowledge is greatly appreciated.

I may make a beer with the culture as it sits while waiting to see if my streaked dishes will result in some isolated colonies. Just not sure what grain bill to go with.