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Teaching a microbiology course - brewery lab

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  • Teaching a microbiology course - brewery lab

    I have a cool opportunity to teach microbiology at my local community college (I have degrees in biology) which I think I can leverage into having an off-site lab for my brewery. I'm seeking help for concepts/labs to teach I may be missing.

    My plan is to introduce basic microbiology techniques like aseptic procedures, pouring agar plates, swabs, and growth assays. My students are mostly pursuing careers in the health field, but I want to use the brewery as a real-world example while also teaching them basic techniques.

    For the bacterial study I play to do general lab swabs and assays but also at the brewery to look for contamination. I figure that part will be the first 1/3 of the course.

    Then I plan on making wort/malt agar and doing yeast enumeration techniques and plating to look for contaminants also.

    That could keep them busy for most of the course, but I'm looking for other ideas besides looking around the brewery for contaminants (and examine my CIP protocols) and doing basic yeast counts/props/viability analyses.

    Any ideas would be most helpful. I am already using the brewing science guide (http://brewingscience.com/PDF/BSI_br...b_handbook.pdf) and the yeast book.

    Thanks for any help!

    Chris
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    Chris Burcher, Wolf Hills
    Abingdon, VA
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