Agar recipes

[Magicdirt]

What sort of agar do people prefer ?

All it needs is a source of carbohydrate and few added nutrients.

Lately I've been using Vegemite agar.

I buy agar agar powder from a health food shop

Recipe

1 teaspoon agar agar

1 teaspoon vegemite

250 ml water

Method

Heat water until boiling

Spinkle the agar powder over the surface of the water (If you dump it in one spot it will coagulate and take a bit more whisking to break up lumps)

Whisk untill dissolved

When the agar is dissolved whisk in the Vegemite

Pour it before it cools as it sets very fast

I've found the Vegemite agar resists contaminants better than PDA and a few others I've tried.

The same recipe can be adapted to use Milo or Activite in place of the Vegemite.

They say it pays to use a different nutrient source from time to time to force the mycellium to adapt to the change and keep the strain vigorous as it will eventually degenerate if continually cultured on the same agar.

[gerbil]

Sometimes vary things, but usually it's a spur of the moment decision so i stick with what i've got handy.

Light Malt Yeast Agar or Rice Syrup Yeast Agar, with h202 before plating.

Malt and Yeast, home brewers / supermarket

Rice syrup, Supermarket

Agar, Grocers, Health shops

Sky's the limit.

[sidewayschef]

cheers, have been looking for a decent agar recipe

[tripsis]

I pretty much always use the same with no problems. That being standard MEA.

20g light malt powder

20g agar powder

1L water

[Glider]

Shameless plug for my own website.

http://www.gliderspen.net/glidershanger/mediagar.html

I put that page up something like 10 or 11 years ago, and I've never needed anything more than the first three recipes.

Other than that, the only thing I've ever done differently from what is written above is that I've actually used agar prepared and packaged for petri dish use. Health food stores around here rarely carry it, and want so much to order it in that price wise it is a wash, and the stuff for petri dishes seems to have more grace in set time and firms up a bit more solid. If I had a ready, inexpensive food grade, I'd use it.

-G-

[worowa]

Glad you like the Vegemite recipe.

What species have you trialled so far?

Edited June 3, 2010 by worowa

[gecko]

Shameless plug for my own website.

http://www.gliderspen.net/glidershanger/mediagar.html

I put that page up something like 10 or 11 years ago, and I've never needed anything more than the first three recipes.

Other than that, the only thing I've ever done differently from what is written above is that I've actually used agar prepared and packaged for petri dish use. Health food stores around here rarely carry it, and want so much to order it in that price wise it is a wash, and the stuff for petri dishes seems to have more grace in set time and firms up a bit more solid. If I had a ready, inexpensive food grade, I'd use it.

-G-

 

I make up recipes occasionally depending what I've got available at the time.

often it's a calculated guess at what the cultures might like, eg the last lot I did was V8juice with a bit of oatmeal thrown in.

I notice, looking through the recipes on the above link, that it's already been done , not surprising though.

It was for P.nebrodensis and P.eryngii so I figured that the carrot extract would have simmilar compounds to their natural hosts.

I've had slow growth with P.nebrodensis on other media before but on the V8/oatmeal medium it was much faster.

Beer based medium

1 part Beer: 3-4 parts water plus agar 15-20g/l works well as an easy one.

I like this one , even made a bit weaker than this, for storing cultures.

making it weaker, they tend to grow a bit slower and have less metabolites and tend to store better.

some cultures I've stored in slants for up to 2yrs (so far) at room temp and have revived without any worries.

For storage, I also use recycled paper pellets wetted with a 'pinch' (barely measurable) of sugar in about 250ml water. This medium is put into 10ml PP centrifuge tubes and sterilized in PC for 10min.

4mm dia discs of colonized agar are punched out from a colonised petri dish with the top of a glass pasteur pipette and transfered with the tip of the pipette to the tube of sterile paper pellet.

I like MYA, it's easy and suits most species.

PDA, ok but I cant be bothered stuffing around with the potatos

Others I've tried are mixes containing any of the following-

wheat flour

rye flour

oatmeal

fennel roots, carrot, parsnip etc.- put through the juicer- use pulp and juice.

soy powder

various sugars- corn syrup, malt syrup, glucose, fructose, sucrose, dextrose, treacle, raw cane juice.

yeast powder

haven't tried Vegemite yet, but I'll give it a go though.

maybe the salt in the Vegemite helps resist bacterial contams a bit

I'like H2O2

8ml/l of 3%H2O2 is good for a bit of protection from contam-

not absolute but enough advantage for mycelium to get going.

[Magicdirt]

Glad you like the Vegemite recipe.

What species have you trialled so far?

 

Your recipe, I found it a while back on another forum, it could have been your post

Thanks !

I've trialled it on Pleurotus ostreatus, Lentinus edodes, Agaricus brunescens and various other exotic species all with excellent results !

I don't know if the high salt content is responsible but it seems to very resistant to contamination.

We're getting some recipes here, it's good to have them all in one thread for reference.

It should help to demystify the whole topic for first time dabblers in agar.

Agar can be as technichal or basic as you like.

Anyone thinking of giving it a should not be intimmidated, some people even use dogfood as an additive for nutrients (so I've heard), but I haven't tried that one myself.

[worowa]

Your recipe, I found it a while back on another forum, it could have been your post

Thanks !

I've trialled it on Pleurotus ostreatus, Lentinus edodes, Agaricus brunescens and various other exotic species all with excellent results !

I don't know if the high salt content is responsible but it seems to very resistant to contamination.

We're getting some recipes here, it's good to have them all in one thread for reference.

It should help to demystify the whole topic for first time dabblers in agar.

Agar can be as technichal or basic as you like.

Anyone thinking of giving it a should not be intimmidated, some people even use dogfood as an additive for nutrients (so I've heard), but I haven't tried that one myself.

 

No worries, my ladies recipe, possibly others. I have a flow hood now, so none of my plates spoil, but the cultures certainly spread across my vegemite plates quicker than my other 4 combos (MYA, Coffee MYA, Milo Agar, Coffee Milo Agar).

I haven't been able to do the dog food agar either-I don't want to breed meat eating mushies!

Gecko summed it up well.

I've had some success with cardboard instead of agar. And you can add a bit of your bulk substrate (even in tea form) to your agar.

[watertrade]

I always use a MYA as a base and add different flours to the mix for diversity. just a pinch. wheat, corn, rice, potato, pea, mung beans , powdered straw, sawdust etc - basically I add anything - having a book like Paul Stamets, GGMM is handy to see what the species you are growing likes.

I like my agar quite soft so use anywhere from 11 - 20gms of agar per liter, & 20 gms dry malt extract per liter

I have had first hand experience with quite a few peoples agar, I can reccomend Gecko's beers medium. But for creativity the prize must go to Worowa. Agar good enough to eat! coffee and milo - yum! it works too!

[tripsis]

So when you are recommending Gecko's beer medium, it that a recommendation based on how it performs? Does beer type/brand make a difference?

[San Rainbow]

is light malt powder the same as light malt extract?

cheers

[devance]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molasses

keep any fugnous alive as all nutrients are present except for agar and water.

[watertrade]

So when you are recommending Gecko's beer medium, it that a recommendation based on how it performs? Does beer type/brand make a difference?

 

It’s only a recommendation that it does work, I can't comment on how it performs compared with another agar. There would be some species specification too. Pretty sure he is a home brewer ;) so any non filtered beer should be ok.

[Bigred]

I just love vegimite agar i use deb potato and so to250ml i ad 1 teaspoon of agar one of vegimite and half a teaspoon of deb

sometimes will trow in the yeast at the bottom of the fermenter after a beer run . Would adding h202 before you pressure cook it break it down?

[ace1928]

Adding H2O2 before you pressure cook it will break it all down.
It decomposes with heat or with enough light. More heat leads to faster decomposition.
I'm not sure if it will break down 100% of it though. I think there are H2O2 test strips you can get too. May be worthwhile to see if there is still some left over.

[Etho]

I like the malt recipe with agar agar powder, if you are struggling with germination you can reduce the agar by 20% to create a softer surface. If your after high rhrizo growth reduce malt by 20% and get the mycelium hunting for nutrients.

Few tips I found off of the shroomery,

[Fugushi]

PDA...Is really nice and easy.

Take the water from boiling potatos, add dextrose, add agar.

Edited March 14, 2016 by Fugushi

[Bigred]

has anyone else used vegimite as i was wondering if so please share. would vegimite be ok just by itself?

[Sallubrious]

Vegemite & agar powder from the health food shop worked well for me Red.

It doesn't produce super fast growth, but I actually preferred it to grow a bit slower so I didn't have re-plate as often.

[Bigred]

I use veggimite but always ad deb potato and a bit of glucose .So by itself its still works ok

[Sallubrious]

Yeah Vegemite is about 19% carbohydrate so it's enough to sustain life when it's diluted in agar. When I wanted faster growth I just did what you do and added some extra sugar/carbohydrate in some form.

[Bigred]

has anyone had any luck with rice malt just picked up a jar today was going to use it for a LC