Inoculating Brown Rice Jars
Date: 15 October 2022
Goal
The goal of this experiment is to inoculate the brown rice jars with agar slices in a sterile environment to avoid contamination. This method can also be followed if you are using spore syringes or liquid culture syringes. This method is still apart of the Broke Boi Tek. Have a look at how I prepared the brown rice jars and the agar plates.
Materials Required
- Still Air box
- Paper Towel / Cleaning clothes
- Rubbing alcohol
- Gloves
- Jars filled with brown rice that has been sterilized
- Agar plates with mycelium growing
- Scalpel
Method
Prepping Still Air Box
- Gather equipment
- Wipe down surface
- Soak Paper towels in rubbing alcohol
- Place paper towels on table
- Place still air box over paper towels
- Wipe inside of Sab with alcohol-soaked paper towel
- Put Jars and agar plates in SAB
Sterilizing the Jars and Agar plates
- Coat paper towel in rubbing alcohol
- Spray hands covered with gloves
- Wipe down Jars
- Wipe down petri dishes
- Wipe down scalpel
- Spray paper towel again
- Leave paper towel in SAB
- Spray rubbing alcohol in SAB
- Leave for 10 – 15 minutes
Transferring Agar into Jars
- Remove parafilm from petri dish
- Open jar but keep lid on
- Wipe down scalpel with paper towel
- Cut sections into agar
- Use scalpel to place agar piece into jar
- Once enough agar is transferred, close lid
- Repeat until done
- Remove SAB
- Make sure lids are tight and shake
- Store in a cupboard
Observations and Results
Observations
I think that my sterilize techniques are lacking. I am using cleaning clothes instead of paper towels because I thought I can reuse them but all four jars failed.
The cleaning cloths also lift and I think that is also negatively affecting how sterile the SAB is.
I have a feeling that the agar also wasn’t as clean as I thought so I will be doing an extra agar transfer in the future.
There was no bacterial contaminations although I had a lot of green mold.
Conclusion
Work on sterile techniques
Use paper towels instead of cleaning clothes
Do one more transfer on agar to make sure it is clean
Keep drying out rice before putting it in the jars.
Reference and Supply list
Pictures
Hej Simmi,
Great work – Doing the same hobby in Sweden.
Would love to compare notes if you ever have the time.