Hello!
As a former member of the 'you don't need that' crowd, I know all the reasons a homebrewer does not need a microscope. Thank you. Now that we, hopefully, have that out of the way, I actually do want to better understand my yeast as a homebrewer who's LHBS is hours away. I'm especially interested in counting as I have been having excellent luck purposefully under pitching and have also been looking to confirm and better understand what I'm truly getting from my overbuilding and freezing procedures. I do find the readily available calculators to work exceedingly well on fresh pitches. I think if you only pitch fresh lab packed yeast, you are good to go. But calculating built up from frozen introduces a lot of variables, not the least of which is my own jackassery. So, I do want to actually know.
I began my journey by asking pals that are actual scientists. I don't want to spend $12,000 for 'an acceptable refurbished scope.' Funny to think they were just as annoying whilst stealing my beer during freshman year 20 years ago. One actually useful tidbit pretty much all of them mentioned is that the refurbished lab supply shop in Cambridge, MA is legit. I forget the name, but I've heard there are two pretty okay schools near there so that makes sense. One explained to me refurbished isn't wiping the gunk off when it comes to scopes. It's a big deal and only professionals can do it properly. Good to know refurbished has meaning and it's way better then one just marked used.
Now I arrive at the senimole blog post about this very topic from Sui Generis Brewing. If you've made it this far, you've probably read it also. Loads of good info in there even if it's a commercial jet above my head's level. That was plenty to get the search going. I found that on the professionally refurbished market, the mid range they reccommend will run you $500-800.
White Labs actually sells a microscope on their yeastman website that is ostensibally good for the task of counting yeast. If you've already read the Sui Generis article when you arrive at the yeastman product listing, you'll say '********' out loud when you read the marketing copy claiming 'Incredible 2000x Power:' We are learning about eyepiece lies! So really it's 1000x which is still sufficient for counting. On their site it's $576.95. The scope isn't made by White Labs and they are charging a hefty markup. The actual scope is made by a company called Celestron Labs and it's model CB1000CF. B&H Photo (a legit retailer), sells that model for $263.50. Weirdly enough, Google Shopping says Home Depot also sells that exact model for roughly the B&H price! What a time to be alive...
I still haven't found excalibur. I would love to know if people have had good luck with the CB1000CF. Jokes aside, it seems that model is a workhorse for high schools and such and is likely quite durable. Does anyone have a reccomendation for something better suited to the task?
Cheers
As a former member of the 'you don't need that' crowd, I know all the reasons a homebrewer does not need a microscope. Thank you. Now that we, hopefully, have that out of the way, I actually do want to better understand my yeast as a homebrewer who's LHBS is hours away. I'm especially interested in counting as I have been having excellent luck purposefully under pitching and have also been looking to confirm and better understand what I'm truly getting from my overbuilding and freezing procedures. I do find the readily available calculators to work exceedingly well on fresh pitches. I think if you only pitch fresh lab packed yeast, you are good to go. But calculating built up from frozen introduces a lot of variables, not the least of which is my own jackassery. So, I do want to actually know.
I began my journey by asking pals that are actual scientists. I don't want to spend $12,000 for 'an acceptable refurbished scope.' Funny to think they were just as annoying whilst stealing my beer during freshman year 20 years ago. One actually useful tidbit pretty much all of them mentioned is that the refurbished lab supply shop in Cambridge, MA is legit. I forget the name, but I've heard there are two pretty okay schools near there so that makes sense. One explained to me refurbished isn't wiping the gunk off when it comes to scopes. It's a big deal and only professionals can do it properly. Good to know refurbished has meaning and it's way better then one just marked used.
Now I arrive at the senimole blog post about this very topic from Sui Generis Brewing. If you've made it this far, you've probably read it also. Loads of good info in there even if it's a commercial jet above my head's level. That was plenty to get the search going. I found that on the professionally refurbished market, the mid range they reccommend will run you $500-800.
White Labs actually sells a microscope on their yeastman website that is ostensibally good for the task of counting yeast. If you've already read the Sui Generis article when you arrive at the yeastman product listing, you'll say '********' out loud when you read the marketing copy claiming 'Incredible 2000x Power:' We are learning about eyepiece lies! So really it's 1000x which is still sufficient for counting. On their site it's $576.95. The scope isn't made by White Labs and they are charging a hefty markup. The actual scope is made by a company called Celestron Labs and it's model CB1000CF. B&H Photo (a legit retailer), sells that model for $263.50. Weirdly enough, Google Shopping says Home Depot also sells that exact model for roughly the B&H price! What a time to be alive...
I still haven't found excalibur. I would love to know if people have had good luck with the CB1000CF. Jokes aside, it seems that model is a workhorse for high schools and such and is likely quite durable. Does anyone have a reccomendation for something better suited to the task?
Cheers
