Shipping yeast on filter paper

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diS

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Process is simple: pour piece of filter paper in yeast suspension and wrap it in foil, it can be submerged in wort as 1st step or sample to plating/slanting, everything should be sterilized.

I am thinking to take a sample with paper towel or something less impure, leave it few days (shipping) on room temperature and try to activate it in 10 ml of sterilized starer wort. After that inoculate plates and incubate, goal is to isolate few healthy colonies and step it up.
It would be nice to have a microscope and do a cell count, maybe this is an idea for someone else...

More info (Part 4)
http://brewery.org/library/yeast-faq.html

Anyone tried it jet?
 
You think acid is necessarily?
I'll though I could skip that step with plating and isolating pure single colony.
 
That's true. If you plate it then you don't need an acid eash. I was thinking you were going to grow it up like a slant.
 
This is something that is in my mind for a while and I think I will make a simple experiment:
make 10 samples by dropping yeast on paper towel pieces (1 cm square), wrap it in foil and leave them at room temperature (to make it as simple as possible).
Then dissolve and plate 5 samples after 7 days and other 5 after 14 days.

I will observe possible contaminates and how well yeast is growing (if there will be any).

This method sounds like a great and cheap way to ship yeast, at least for those who can make plates or slants.
 
On 3.17.13. I inoculated 10 samples of Wyeast 3787 on 1 square cm of paper towel and wrapped in aluminium foil (both non-sterilized).
Today I opened a sample and strong smell of mold splashed my nose, all 10 samples were infected. I did't want to spend sterile wort and take this experiment step further, so I dumped them.

Seems that poor sanitation process as this is not sufficient to maintain and store our little buddies, paper towel and foil are contaminated enough to infect small colonies in few drops of slurry.

I am sure that higher level of sanitation would produce better results but it also requires additional items like sterilized foil and filter paper (or pressure cooked), but then it is not simple method.

For now, I am sticking with slants for yeast shipping.
 
The problem is that you need to dry the yeast. You could try a food dehydrator if the temp stays below 40 C. But that means an additional piece of equipment is needed. If the receiving end knows how to streak and isolate colonies, you don't have to worry about contamination.

One fellow HBT member once sent me yeast on agar in small 1.5 ml centrifuge tubes. I recently also bought a bag of those and prepared some with agar. They are easier to ship and cheaper than full sized slant tubes.

Kai
 
We do this all the time in the lab, but yes, you need to be able to properly sterilize your filter paper. Basically what we would do would be to put a couple of drops of saturated culture onto the sterile filter paper and then put them in sterile ziplocs all under aseptic conditions (either under a hood or working at least near an open flame). Then they could be mailed- you don't need to dry the yeast, you just need to make sure the filter paper stays wet (hence the sterile ziplocs). I don't know about your paper towels, but the foil should be able to be sterilized under an open flame.

1.5mL tube slants are a good alternative, if you can sterilize them.
 
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