New Video Series Coming This Summer!
Its hard to believe, but the first video of what would eventually morph into my “Your Home Yeast Lab Made Easy” video series was posted over 8 years ago. I prepared that video for my homebrew club, the London Homebrewers Guild, as I had begun providing yeast from my yeast bank. Few of the club members at that time were doing stirred starters, and needed a simple guide on how to step-up those small cultures to useable amounts of yeast. Here’s this video, presented here in all of its 2013 glory:
The Inspiration for the New Video Series
Soon after this first video I began the “Your Home Yeast Lab Made Easy” series. This series proved to be hugely popular, with many videos reaching over 20,000 views. They remain popular today, and I continue to get a number of questions about these methods in the video comments. I still strive to answer those questions – so ask away!
But a lot has changed since those days. Back then, it was very hard for the average person to get their hands on basic microbiology equipment. And if you could find it, it was expensive. Home sterilization was awkward, requiring stove-top pressure cookers and a lot of attention. Today, between Amazon and Ali Express, decent quality lab-style equipment is available for cheap. Electronic pressure cookers make home sterilization effortless and automated. And 3D printing allows us to make lab equipment for a few tens of dollars that would be hundreds – if not thousands – of dollars to buy.
So over the past few months I’ve been outlining and scripting a new video series, focusing on how these simple and easily accessible tools can be used to improve your home lab. Some of these videos will be “remakes” of the old series, but using better tools. Other videos will demonstrate new methods that are possible thanks to the availability of these tools.
What to Expect
As with the original series, my plan for this new series is for it to be open-ended, adding videos as they are ready. At this time I have 11 video’s planned, but I am happy to add additional videos and topics if anyone has questions or ideas that they would like covered. At this time the planned episodes are:
- Episode 1: What’s New in Home Microbiology in the 2020’s.
- Episode 2: Bunsen Burners and Advanced Aseptic Techniques.
- Episode 3: Using Instapots for Sterilization in Your Lab.
- Episode 4: Improved Homemade Agar Plates.
- Episode 5: Specialized Homemade Media – Selective & Differential Media.
- Episode 6: Specialized Homemade Media – pH Sensitive Media.
- Episode 7: Serial Dilutions & Spread Plates.
- Episode 8: DIY Incubators & Advanced Culture Approaches
- Episode 9: DIY Centrifuges & Large-Scale Yeast Banking.
- Episode 10: Purifying Mixed/Contaminated Cultures.
- Episode 11: Killer Yeast Assay
First episodes should launch this June!
Cant wait for the new series. Any update on how it is coming along? Also glad to hear you can use the same techniques for mycology!
There have been a number of delays. I had filmed the first few episodes, but lost the recordings due to a data loss event. That loss occurred at the end of the summer. Unfortunately, September through early December is the busiest time of year in both my job, and on the farm. I have almost zero free time to work on other projects. I hope to begin (re)filming the second week of december, work allowing.
Hey Bryan, juste wanted to know if the new video series was still in the pipeline. I still am very interested to see it!
Its still in the works. I’ve been hit by a few things that have delayed the series – I lost the video for the first few episodes due to an SD card failure. I’ve also had delays due to the demands of my job. Not sure when it’ll be done, but hopefully episodes will start coming out by the end of this year.
Really looking forward to seeing these videos. I’ve learnt a lot from this website and your videos previously. One thing that I don’t think I’ve seen in home yeast management but is standard practice in home mycology (for mushroom growing) setups is the use of a still air box. Basically, this is just a large plastic storage box with armholes cut in it. The inside is either sprayed down with 70% isopropyl or washed and left damp with a dilute bleach solution. This creates a still air environment for pouring plates/slants and carrying out sterile procedures. It drastically cuts down on contamination from airborne microbes.
I actually grow and culture mushrooms at home, in addition to brewing. I don’t bother with a still-air box or flow hood – the aseptic techniques I show in my videos are sufficient (and superior) so long as you do them correctly. As such, I don’t even have a still air box to demo.
That’s interesting to hear. I am very new to mushroom cultivation and the mushroom community seem dogmatic in their belief in still air boxes, at least in lieu of a proper flow hood. I’ve poured petri dishes and slants without one before and definitely encountered a small number of contaminated plates. Using the still air box, I’ve only had one plate get contaminated so far. I’ll be interested to watch your video on aseptic technique.
I’ve encountered that dogmatism myself. I think part of it is a general lack of familiarity and practice with proper aseptic techniques in the mushroom growing community, meaning that people who try to use these approaches lack access to quality information – and consequentially, are more likely to fail when they try.
I have an old video on aseptic techniques if you are interested, but the newer one will be more comprehensive and use better equipment.