Fermentation Tube

I'm a bit of a sucker when it comes to lab equipment. I love gadgets. This is one of those things I picked up that I figured would just be a novelty, but became a coveted piece of equipment in my lab.

A fermentation tube is essentially a way you can visually be assured the yeast you are cultivating are alive and well. When yeast convert sugar to alcohol a byproduct is CO2 gas. When working with very small scale fermentation you often can't get a real good visual (without a microscope) of how well the yeast are preforming. When I reanimate a strain from storage in a test tube, I don't have any real visual reference to know if the yeast is becoming viable. With a fermentation tube, you can view the amount of gas being created and then verify your yeast is indeed working away and its not just some bacteria (as bacteria will cloud the wort, create sediment, and not produce any gas).

As you see in the photo, it's nothing more than a curved tube with a larger reservoir to collect the wort as the gas gathers at the top of the tube. The actual tube is graduated (10ml in my example) to allow you to note the amount of CO2 being produced.

I generally use this to test my stored samples, or to reanimate a strain for a starter. Works well, and is neat looking to boot!

Giving Credit Where Credit is Due

Part of the reason to start this whole blog thing, other than a convenient log for me, is to try and get some of these concepts out in the public. With most things on the Internet, information is usually sketchy, or scattered all around on subjects like these, and sometimes even non-existent or when it comes to scientific papers, very expensive.

Not to say I'm any type of expert in any means, what you see here is more like "The Yeasty Adventures of a Home Brewer". There are odds, very high ones in fact, that some of what I am going to do here will fail, and you'll see that too in it's comic splendor.

So when I find a gem like the book you see in the picture, I want to make sure it gets noticed. I would definitely say a lot of what I have learned has come from said book.

The Fungus Among Us: Yeast Culturing for HomeBrewers by Yuseff Cherney and Chris White

This is quite simply the most straight forward reference on culturing yeast. The illustrations are simple, easy to understand, and the techniques (a lot of what I do here) are time tested by one of the authorities in yeast harvesting and storage today (Chris White is the CEO of White Labs). Don't let the "Pamphlet size" of the book fool you, the content within is great for starting out.

So I just wanted to give credit where credit is due. Thanks to Yuseff Cherney and Chris White for putting together a terrific, informative, and affordable book on the subject.

Building a Homebrew Gorilla Lab

To get started, I think I'll cover the lab. The basics of what you might need, some tips, and why even bother.

I mean, seriously, your not going to save money doing this. So why do it at all? I guess each person has their own reason. For me its the satisfaction of the knowledge gained. Its something fun to do, and the results are delicious.

Ok so.. Here we go!

Workspace - Clean, low air movement (away from fans a/c ducts, etc), preferably a permanent location that you can set up your experiments and leave the results in the same place (an unused closet works great). A sanatizable flat surface that is somewhat heat resistant and resistant to staining and spills.

I try to separate my work area into 3 segments. A top shelf that I store all the larger glassware and equipment that I use less often. The middle area for active cultures or experiments (as seen by the acrylic shelf in the photo), and my actual work area where I have all the items within close reach when I am working (Yes including a home brew to drink while you work ;).

Equipment - Generally you are going to need various glassware, alcohol burner, inoculating loop, microscope, storage vials, etc. Here's a basic inventory for what I have.

• Erlenmeyer Flasks - 50ml(4), 250ml, 500ml, 1000ml, 2000ml
  
• Glass Petri Dish (at least 2) - 100mm x 10mm
• Test Tubes (6) & Rack - 15ml
• Inoculating Loop
• Wax pencil (marks on glass) - For labeling glass
  
• Alcohol Burner - Preferably a wickless
• Microscope, Slides & Covers - Preferably something capable of 400X magnification
• Scale - Capable of measuring down to a 10th of a gram.
• Test Tube Brush & Test Tube Clamp
• 1 Dram autoclavable vials for storage of yeast samples

Chemicals - These are more like the "Soft goods" that chemicals really. But it's a general small list of things used to cultivate yeast, and build starters for pitching.

• Dried Malt Extract (DME) - Preferably light or pilsen
• Agar - Dried for making wort agar (I'll cover that in another post)
• Yeast Nutrient
• Potasium Metabisulfite - For sanitation
• Gram Staining Kit
• Methylene Blue
  
• Denatured Alcohol

For the most part that is all you need and you'll never have to buy a commercial brewing yeast again, and the best part is that you can steal yeast from just about any unpasteurized beer on the planet. As for sourcing most of this can be found on www.cynmar.com and I've used www.homesciencetools.com as well.

Honestly do you really NEED all of this stuff? No. Not really. I guess you could make due with a few flasks, a couple of vials and a clothes hanger, but it's nice knowing for sure what your working with. Which is where a microscope comes in very handy. Check eBay, you would be amazed at how cheep you can get a "student" microscope (I found mine for $38).

In later post I'll cover the details of what you do with all this crap once you've amassed it!