Yeast Bank

Hive13 Project
Yeast Bank
Status: Active
Start Date: 8/7/2014

This page will describe the details of a yeast bank being developed for brewing and diybio activities.

Frozen approach(grows slower): Guide to making a frozen yeast bank Agar slants(may need periodic refreshing as the colony grows. not sure how to validate strength of culture from repeated re-inoculation): webpage describing agar slants

In general, what you are doing is preparing maltose agar slants and inoculating them with samples of yeast from different interesting sources. Powdered malt from brewmonkeys and agar agar from a food supply store(has to be food grade) is really all that is necessary in addition to test tubes, of which I can donate a couple dozen. We will likely need to make inoculating loops and alcohol burners to keep things sterile, which means general aseptic techniques--probably can get away with paper clips stuck in dowels here and maybe Golden Book of Chemistry style alcohol lamps.

The other thing would be a fridge(freezer) to keep the yeast preserved(I'll have to look up the ideal temperature to slow down yeast growth without affecting their metabolism in a harmful manner).

Once this is in place we can start considering adding other organisms to the library such as lacto fermenting bacteria, tempeh or miso starters, and kombu scobys. Research organisms(e-coli) should be kept separate for obvious reasons. I'll see if I can get some good pictures and such to add to this description.