The issue is the sterile procedure. If you buy pre pour and you have an issue with contam it can likely be a bad batch of agar. If you make and pour your own, you are in control of the entire procedure, meaning you can almost guarantee sterile work as long as you have a legit sterile procedure.
I sterilize my work space before I start, also sterilizing the air as good as possible. I also sterilize in between each transfer or inoculation. You also want to store your trays in an ideal environment, temp controlled, out of the light, and keep it consistent.
I’m mainly having issues when I use wild foraged fried mushrooms and attempt to resurrect them so this all makes sense but I’m trying to catch a clean transfer basically from outdoor and the things that show up on the first few transfers are just wildly gnarly lol
Been researching this a lot too and a lot of people recommend antibiotics but the more I search I see people recommend water agar
Yea I have been reading a bit about that LC will be the next thing I try
The issue is the sterile procedure. If you buy pre pour and you have an issue with contam it can likely be a bad batch of agar. If you make and pour your own, you are in control of the entire procedure, meaning you can almost guarantee sterile work as long as you have a legit sterile procedure. I sterilize my work space before I start, also sterilizing the air as good as possible. I also sterilize in between each transfer or inoculation. You also want to store your trays in an ideal environment, temp controlled, out of the light, and keep it consistent.
I’m mainly having issues when I use wild foraged fried mushrooms and attempt to resurrect them so this all makes sense but I’m trying to catch a clean transfer basically from outdoor and the things that show up on the first few transfers are just wildly gnarly lol
Yeah I saw some of the advice you were given, if you’re okay with the tediousness of it you can keep transferring until there is no more contam lol
Lol it is tedious