would anyone be interested in cheap PDA?

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Avery louie

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Mar 17, 2013, 2:46:53 PM3/17/13
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Would anyone be interested in cheap pre-sterilized potato dextrose agar/ liquid broth?

We may be able to produce it in bulk at bosslab, and it saves you the trouble of having to have a large autoclave for massive batches of media.

This is just a feeler.

--A

Avery Ashley

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Mar 17, 2013, 4:05:22 PM3/17/13
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I would. 
Would you be selling by the gallon?

Nathan McCorkle

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Mar 18, 2013, 4:15:12 AM3/18/13
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Shipping water is gonna be more expensive, and you'll need sterile shippable containers too so that will increase cost. 

A pressure cooker or autoclave should be in any good lab, to clean stuff before and after being used (kill those contams/cultures and/or antibiotics)


Seems like even just carrying dried powder for agar and broths for the DIY community would be a step up. I'd feel more confident that things were cheap and sterile that way.


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Avery louie

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Mar 18, 2013, 7:09:24 AM3/18/13
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Shipping water is expensive, but so are good autoclaves.  I can ship a gallon of media for ~15 bucks probably, flat rate priority.  And while everyone should have a sterilizer of some kind, it is a PITA to get one large enough for sterilizing gallons of media, and if you go the cheap way (pressure cooker) it takes a long time to do the sterilizing.  A gallon is 3.7 liters, which is just shy of 200 plates.  Even if it cost $50 (arbitrary number) to get a gallon of media made and shipped, it could be time or cost effective depending on who you are.

As for shippable containers, its probably best to use flexible plastic bottles- that is how I normally see it done.

--A

Koeng

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Mar 18, 2013, 10:54:50 AM3/18/13
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I would be interested... probably buy a few gallons :)

What I would like more though is probably just the agar and glucose... I can sterilize stuff in my microwave

Koeng

Nathan McCorkle

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Mar 18, 2013, 11:53:28 AM3/18/13
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Koeng, where are you located? I'm able to find all PDA ingredients
locally. Remember dextrose==glucose. Check spice stores,
commercial/business food retailers (that's where I found dextrose),
and asian markets for the agar.
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Cathal Garvey

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Mar 18, 2013, 5:25:38 PM3/18/13
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Lol, was wondering why glucose was so hard to find, forgot you guys
call it Dextrose too. It's nigh-exclusively called glucose in UK/IE so
"glucose" is a common sight on shelves. :)
Please note my new email: cathal...@cathalgarvey.me
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Jonathan Cline

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Mar 19, 2013, 12:27:56 AM3/19/13
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On Monday, March 18, 2013 1:15:12 AM UTC-7, Nathan McCorkle wrote:

Shipping water is gonna be more expensive, and you'll need sterile shippable containers too so that will increase cost. 



Just ship the water in dehydrated form.

 
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Koeng

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Mar 19, 2013, 10:03:04 AM3/19/13
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I live in california, so I believe I could find everything. I agree with Jonathan, a good idea is like to sell  10x broth solution, so like ship a gallon of it and the lab that gets it can dilute the media to 10 gallons.


On Sunday, March 17, 2013 11:46:53 AM UTC-7, Avery wrote:

Dakota Hamill

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Mar 19, 2013, 6:05:14 PM3/19/13
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The best part about making PDA at home is getting to eat mashed potatoes each time you do it.

I got a gallon of potato water 2 weeks ago after I made some mashed potatoes and it's still in a container in my basement, I'll check to see if anything is growing in it when I get home.  The liquid you get from draining the potatoes is a cloudy suspension, and after a day a good 2 inches of "potato stuff" settled on the bottom.

The liquid broth seems easy enough to make, but, what part do you dehydrate if you wanted to keep it dry and store it?  The potato filtrate?  The potato precipitate?  Or could you mash up the potatoes and spread them out on a cookie sheet in a warm oven and dry them that way, then coffee grinder them into a fine powder, add the agar and dextrose accordingly, and BAM. POTATO MEDIA HOT OFF THE PRESS.

Or get dehydrated mash potatoes from the grocery store for a dollar, and add agar and dextrose accordingly, and then sell 250g and 500g containers for comparable online prices. 

THE BIRTH OF A POTATO EMPIRE.

How could you sterilize it though?  Pressure sterilizer seems like it would just make it wet again.  Maybe a hot oven for a long period would work.

Nathan McCorkle

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Mar 19, 2013, 6:40:06 PM3/19/13
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On Tue, Mar 19, 2013 at 3:05 PM, Dakota Hamill <dko...@gmail.com> wrote:
> The best part about making PDA at home is getting to eat mashed potatoes
> each time you do it.
>
> I got a gallon of potato water 2 weeks ago after I made some mashed potatoes
> and it's still in a container in my basement, I'll check to see if anything
> is growing in it when I get home. The liquid you get from draining the
> potatoes is a cloudy suspension, and after a day a good 2 inches of "potato
> stuff" settled on the bottom.

I've always used the filtrate directly for broth and agar

>
> The liquid broth seems easy enough to make, but, what part do you dehydrate
> if you wanted to keep it dry and store it? The potato filtrate? The potato
> precipitate?

I imagine everything, but the top layer would probably be fine too.

> Or could you mash up the potatoes and spread them out on a
> cookie sheet in a warm oven and dry them that way, then coffee grinder them
> into a fine powder, add the agar and dextrose accordingly, and BAM. POTATO
> MEDIA HOT OFF THE PRESS.
>
> Or get dehydrated mash potatoes from the grocery store for a dollar, and add
> agar and dextrose accordingly, and then sell 250g and 500g containers for
> comparable online prices.
>
> THE BIRTH OF A POTATO EMPIRE.
>
> How could you sterilize it though? Pressure sterilizer seems like it would
> just make it wet again. Maybe a hot oven for a long period would work.

Why is wetting it a problem? Most/all media has water in it, being the
solvent of life and all.

--
-Nathan

Dakota Hamill

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Mar 19, 2013, 7:57:56 PM3/19/13
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I'm saying to ship or store it you wouldn't want moisture in it, otherwise things could grow in it.  For the dry stuff that is, like the 500g bottle I have,where you put 50g into 1L dH2O and autoclave that to pour plates.   If you're going to ship autoclaved sterile broth then that's a different story.

Avery louie

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Mar 19, 2013, 9:40:01 PM3/19/13
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I was imagining this would be an alternative to sterilizing it yourself, since it can be a PITA to do so.

--A

On Tue, Mar 19, 2013 at 7:57 PM, Dakota Hamill <dko...@gmail.com> wrote:
I'm saying to ship or store it you wouldn't want moisture in it, otherwise things could grow in it.  For the dry stuff that is, like the 500g bottle I have,where you put 50g into 1L dH2O and autoclave that to pour plates.   If you're going to ship autoclaved sterile broth then that's a different story.

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Dakota Hamill

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Mar 19, 2013, 10:10:48 PM3/19/13
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Yeah I was sidetracked trying to figure out how to make the solid dried media you bring up yourself in a liter, thinking it'd be easier to ship as Jon mentioned.  Then I forgot you still have to sterilize it, so the presterilized liquid broth avoids that and makes sense.
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