When you buy a syringe from a vendor, most vendors attempt to keep the needle as sterile as possible when they create the syringe.
When you buy a syringe from a vendor, most vendors attempt to keep the needle as sterile as possible when they create the syringe. And when you create the syringe yourself, you also should try to avoid contamination of the needle (which can occur as easily as handling the needle with unclean hands, etc.) Syringes can and do leak as well during shipment through the mails, leading to spore water dripping on the needle and in the needle sheath. That being said, it is probably a good idea to sterilize your needle before inoculation. This can be done in a number of ways, but the most common are flame sterilizing and application of alcohol. They are often used together as well. Flame sterilizing is just that - applying an open flame to a needle. This method will kill any spores that may be inside the needle (the 1.5" space between syringe and tip of the needle), so take that into account when inoculating your jars. Flame sterilization also may lead to a char build -up on the needle (a blackening of the metal's surface), which is attributable to using a butane lighter (bic lighters, etc.) The char can be avoided by using a "torch" style lighter. Remember, when using flames, use common sense. The needle will be hot after, don't touch it and let it cool before inoculating. Alcohol is also used to sterilize needles. You can either set a glass of alcohol and dip the needle into it (do not suck alcohol into your spore syringe, or the spores will be killed), you could use alcohol wipes (found in most major drugstores in the diabetes home care aisle - used to clean skin before injecting insulin), or in other ways. You can use an alcohol pad (or an alcohol soaked napkin) to wipe off the blackened residue from a flame sterilized needle. This will also help cool the needle more quickly, but be careful that your napkin is adequately thick to protect you from the hot needle underneath. You can choose to sterilize the needle either at the start of inoculating or between each jar. It is a personal -choice call when to re -sterilize the needle through the inoculation process, or if at all. Usually it's enough to sterilize the needle once before inoculating a batch.
