[Microbiology] extracting compounds from agar plates

[Pep Charusanti]

Hello everybody,

Does anybody have a protocol on how to extract compounds from agar?  I am 
growing bacteria on plates and they are secreting compounds (probably 
metabolites) into the agar that I would like to isolate.  I tried growth 
in liquid culture, but by HPLC analysis of the supernatant I know this 
does not lead to production of the compounds I'm interested in.