fly food problems

[Jean-Francois Julien]

Bob Argiropoulos (bargirop at julian.uwo.ca) wrote:
: In article <v01540b05ae4b68bdec38@[142.58.213.21]>, jprice at sfu.ca (Jim
: Price) wrote:

: > We have recently been having problems with our fly food drying our too much.
: > 
: > We are using a cornmeal/yeast/agar mixture with sucrose glucose and
: salts added.
: > 
: > We tried reducing the agar from about 8 gms/ltr to 6 gms/ltr.  This does
: > not seem to have helped.  The problem started about the time we got a new
: > batch of cornmeal, and I am wondering if the meal could be causing the
: > problem.  It appears to be the same courseness as the previous batch.
: > 
: > We are now contemplating increasing the water in the recipe by 10%.  If
: > anyone has any idea what may be causing our problem, and/or how to fix it,
: > your advice would be greatly appreciated.
: > 
: > Thank you.
: > 
: > Jim Price
: > 
: > jprice at sfu.ca



: Our current recipe for fly food is as follows:

: 1 litre water
: 10 g/l agar (we have used both powdered and granulated)
: 15 g yeast
: 60 g sugar
: 100 g cornmeal (we have used many different brands of cornmeal)
: 3.7 g nippigan (anti-fungal agent)

: Add agar to boiling water, when melted add yeast, sugar, cornmeal and Nip
: (which has been dissolved in ethanol).  After pouring, the vials are
: covered with paper towels and left to dry overnight.  The vials are capped
: the next morning and put into dark autoclave bags.  


: This recipe has never given us any problems.  I hope I have helped you.

: -- 

: Molecular Genetics Unit
: University of Western Ontario
: London, ON