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JessicaRabbit88
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Agar not solidifying - PROBLEM SOLVED! 1
#26971503 - 10/06/20 02:06 AM (3 years, 3 months ago) |
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After 300+ agar plates later (petris, pasty plates, alien holy grail —I use all of them), my agar is not solidifying. I used this exact same recipe a few days ago. Changed nothing:
2% agar 3% nutes (LME)
I was actually using Pasty’s Super EzLC... which I had successfully done a few days ago. But now my agar is not hardening. I even ordered new “telephone” brand agar. No luck.
I’m stumped...
Here are pics of my current agar projects: Pasty EzLC, Pasty Rounds, agar clean up on petris...

============== UPDATE
I had been boiling water in my electric kettle, then whisking in the agar and nutes. This had been working perfectly —until it didn’t.
So I boiled it on the stove instead and BAM... problem solved.
Thanks for everyone’s input.
Edited by JessicaRabbit88 (10/13/20 06:47 PM)
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A.k.a
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Re: WTF?! Agar not solidifying (after 300 plates) [Re: JessicaRabbit88]
#26971523 - 10/06/20 02:47 AM (3 years, 3 months ago) |
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Any chance you accidentally measured out nutrient powder twice instead of agar?
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natedawgnow
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Re: WTF?! Agar not solidifying (after 300 plates) [Re: A.k.a] 1
#26971634 - 10/06/20 06:53 AM (3 years, 3 months ago) |
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I'm confused. The pics of pasty plates obviously have hard agar in them.
The only liquid I see is the presumeable Ezlc which is supposed to be liquid. Ezlc is pouring sterile nute water on top of a culture on agar so the culture grows into the liquid, effectively creating an LC. Ezlc isnt supposed to harden.
The pics of plates with cultures on them look just fine and solid
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dfwerydfhg
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Re: WTF?! Agar not solidifying (after 300 plates) [Re: natedawgnow]
#26971996 - 10/06/20 11:43 AM (3 years, 3 months ago) |
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Yeah, if you're getting 2D growth on a plate like in the pics it's definitely hardening enough?
Have you ever made agar that did harden as you think it should?
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JessicaRabbit88
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Re: WTF?! Agar not solidifying (after 300 plates) [Re: A.k.a]
#26972092 - 10/06/20 12:27 PM (3 years, 3 months ago) |
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I thought I might have made a mistake, so I poured it all back into my media bottle, put it back on the scale and added another 2% of agar... still liquid this morning.
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JessicaRabbit88
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Re: WTF?! Agar not solidifying (after 300 plates) [Re: natedawgnow]
#26972098 - 10/06/20 12:31 PM (3 years, 3 months ago) |
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The pics I included are to show how my agar technique was working perfectly. I even poured 2 sleeves of petris a few days ago.
But last night I tried to make DF, GW and LME agar and none solidified. It’s all still liquid.
I ordered another brand of agar just in case.
I’m prepping grains today and will use fresh GW for a new batch of agar.
Will keep you posted.
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JessicaRabbit88
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Re: WTF?! Agar not solidifying (after 300 plates) [Re: JessicaRabbit88]
#26972147 - 10/06/20 12:51 PM (3 years, 3 months ago) |
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Could the food color be an issue?
Sounds far fetched since I’ve used successfully, but not the orange color... hmmmm... that’s the only difference. I’m using the brand D3monic recommended Wilton Neon Gel
I know I’m grasping at straws...
Edited by JessicaRabbit88 (10/06/20 01:08 PM)
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sporecap
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Re: WTF?! Agar not solidifying (after 300 plates) [Re: JessicaRabbit88]
#26972309 - 10/06/20 02:42 PM (3 years, 3 months ago) |
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I read that agar does not solidify if the pH is below 5. Maybe the food coloring is lowering it? Never used any myself though.
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PBJ710
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Re: WTF?! Agar not solidifying (after 300 plates) [Re: sporecap]
#26973105 - 10/07/20 01:41 AM (3 years, 3 months ago) |
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Just to verify you don't have a typo in your formula somewhere, can you show the recipe in actual quantities that you used? If there's not an error on the formula, then the agar itself is definitely the first thing I would want to verify. Are you saying that you have tried 300 times to get this mix to firm up or that you had 300 successful plates before this started happening? If the latter, how many batches have failed since it started happening?
Maybe make a couple no nute/food coloring dishes to verify that they firm up correctly, then start isolating the other components.
I've used that brand of food coloring for over a year now with no issues from any color...I suppose you could have received a 'bad' one, but I wouldn't expect that to be the norm. You could always verify if the PH is really acidic by putting a drop on some baking soda and see if it reacts like vinegar does. It would have to be crazy acidic for such a tiny amount to effect an entire batch of agar that much.
Good luck. Hope you figure this out quickly.
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Baba Yaga
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Re: WTF?! Agar not solidifying (after 300 plates) [Re: PBJ710]
#26973571 - 10/07/20 10:22 AM (3 years, 3 months ago) |
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Maybe you have accidentally change the units on your scale or the scale it faulty. Can't see any reason why agar should stop doing its thing all of a sudden while all other variables stay unchanged.
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Chapuco
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Re: WTF?! Agar not solidifying (after 300 plates) [Re: Baba Yaga]
#26973598 - 10/07/20 10:42 AM (3 years, 3 months ago) |
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maybe you should try to boil the agar jars, once boiling you can try to shake them and see if when it cool down solidifies. hope that work
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JessicaRabbit88
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Re: WTF?! Agar not solidifying (after 300 plates) [Re: sporecap]
#26976843 - 10/09/20 11:09 AM (3 years, 3 months ago) |
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Interesting.
I ran some experiments with food color, without and using two different agar brands and the first agar I bought in March of this year was not no longer solidifying when I added food color.
It will test this out again and post with pictures.
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bodhisatta 
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Re: WTF?! Agar not solidifying (after 300 plates) [Re: JessicaRabbit88]
#26976859 - 10/09/20 11:16 AM (3 years, 3 months ago) |
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What brand of agar? If you can't find telephone brand ill send you a few packets
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JessicaRabbit88
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Re: WTF?! Agar not solidifying (after 300 plates) [Re: bodhisatta]
#26983892 - 10/13/20 06:55 PM (3 years, 3 months ago) |
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Thanks BOD... that’s actually one of the brands I was using.
I figured out the problem: boil the water and agar on the stove —I was adding agar and nutes to boiling water in my media bottles and not boiling it on the stove first.
Strange that it worked before. But after I boiled it on the stove, it hardened.
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Gnarly Charlie
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Re: WTF?! Agar not solidifying (after 300 plates) [Re: JessicaRabbit88] 1
#28282407 - 04/17/23 04:46 PM (9 months, 7 days ago) |
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Quote:
JessicaRabbit88 said: Could the food color be an issue?
Sounds far fetched since I’ve used successfully, but not the orange color... hmmmm... that’s the only difference. I’m using the brand D3monic recommended Wilton Neon Gel
I know I’m grasping at straws...
I know this is 2 years down the line but It might help somebody.
After pouring probably 120 dishes with different ratios of malt and yeast and never having an issue, I recently tried adding red food colouring.
The first 20 plates I added just a bit of the colouring and it worked but the plates ended up very light red, hardly there.
I poured 20 more but added more colouring and again it worked but the colour was still lighter than I wanted and lighter than before cooking.
I've since wasted 40 plates by adding too much colouring trying to get a deep colour. I think it's the citric acid and pH maybe i read? The plates refused to set. I could tell there was something wrong when I started pouring as the liquid seemed less viscous, just like water but i was confused so carried on 😳
I'll try a different brand (UK) soon after more research. Here's the one I was using: https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/313749125
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Way
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Re: WTF?! Agar not solidifying (after 300 plates) [Re: Gnarly Charlie] 1
#28282418 - 04/17/23 04:51 PM (9 months, 7 days ago) |
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Edit: I can't read.
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That's the way she goes, boys. Sometimes she goes, sometimes she doesn't, cause that's the fuckin way she goes.
Edited by Way (04/17/23 05:43 PM)
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Gnarly Charlie
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Re: WTF?! Agar not solidifying (after 300 plates) [Re: JessicaRabbit88] 1
#28282482 - 04/17/23 05:41 PM (9 months, 7 days ago) |
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Quote:
JessicaRabbit88 said: Thanks BOD... that’s actually one of the brands I was using.
I figured out the problem: boil the water and agar on the stove —I was adding agar and nutes to boiling water in my media bottles and not boiling it on the stove first.
Strange that it worked before. But after I boiled it on the stove, it hardened.

Very strange but I find that a lot with this hobby.
I boil the kettle and add it to a wide mouth jar on a mixing plate, add nutrients and PC. Works good for me if you don't add too much of my colouring 😂
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johnukguy
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Re: WTF?! Agar not solidifying (after 300 plates) [Re: JessicaRabbit88]
#28282503 - 04/17/23 05:52 PM (9 months, 7 days ago) |
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I keep hearing stuff about red food colouring being not a good idea for agar. Interesting. Thank you.
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Gnarly Charlie
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Re: WTF?! Agar not solidifying (after 300 plates) [Re: johnukguy] 1
#28283433 - 04/18/23 09:05 AM (9 months, 6 days ago) |
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All made with 5g agar
Plates with a drop of red food colouring, 250ml water, 4g malt, 0.12 yeast

Plates with a few drops of food colouring, 250ml water, 4g malt, 0.12 yeast

Plates with no colouring, 250ml water, 3.75g malt

Plates with no colouring, 250ml water, 4g malt, 0.20 yeast (transfer taken)


I was having issues with sediment as you can see so i went low nutrition and plates are very clear now. The colouring also seemed to add more sediment.
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