Threw away old bread. Started again with blue cheese. This time I drew 2cm square outlines onto the bread, so if the mould grows out of those lines I'll know from sight.
I also know why I couldn't find my photos. The SD card was locked. Oi.
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Reborn
Threw away old bread. Started again with blue cheese. This time I drew 2cm square outlines onto the bread, so if the mould grows out of those lines I'll know from sight.
I also know why I couldn't find my photos. The SD card was locked. Oi.
Saturday, May 22, 2010
Some Things
Who deleted my photos of the first few days of growing?!
Look, here's the deal:
on Monday and Tuesday I observed no visible change in all of the slices.
On Wednesday, the mould on the pantry slices had doubled or tripled. Things were good. Nothing going on with the fridge and freezer slices.
On Thursday, the pantry slices had between 10-16 square centimetres of mould on them. I counted the squares of concentrated, dark blue mould. There were thin, pale 'tails' of mould spreading out from the source, on both sides of the slice. Again, nothing with the colder samples.
On Friday, I came home to see a veritable EMPIRE of mould on the pantry slices. I would have said the mould had now taken over an entire side, but there were some empty bits. Between 90-100 square centimetres, I counted. It's got most of the other side, too. Once again, NO GROWTH on the fridge and freezer mould. But with just these five slices in room temperature, THIS happened:
Now, my hypothesis was that the pantry mould would grow the fastest, the fridge mould a bit slower, and the freezer mould not at all.
But the pantry mould is growing SO FAST, my experiment is over in five days. The fridge mould is growing not at all, when I'd have thought there'd be SOME. A LITTLE. A TEENY bit. I mean, I've found mouldy food in the fridge before. Why can't my bead mould grow there then? Freezer is what I expected though. Nothing.
I'm probably going to do a second trial to compare with this one. Three slices for each or five again? I'll have to use the blue cheese mould, since I HAD to throw away the Evil One.
I'll be forced to make it an equal five day trial, so that leaves me three weekends to finish up my introduction, organise my data (probably be forced to handdraw the graphs and tables TT_TT) and write my report.
When what I really want to do is watch a Disney marathon.
Look, here's the deal:
on Monday and Tuesday I observed no visible change in all of the slices.
On Wednesday, the mould on the pantry slices had doubled or tripled. Things were good. Nothing going on with the fridge and freezer slices.
On Thursday, the pantry slices had between 10-16 square centimetres of mould on them. I counted the squares of concentrated, dark blue mould. There were thin, pale 'tails' of mould spreading out from the source, on both sides of the slice. Again, nothing with the colder samples.
On Friday, I came home to see a veritable EMPIRE of mould on the pantry slices. I would have said the mould had now taken over an entire side, but there were some empty bits. Between 90-100 square centimetres, I counted. It's got most of the other side, too. Once again, NO GROWTH on the fridge and freezer mould. But with just these five slices in room temperature, THIS happened:
Now, my hypothesis was that the pantry mould would grow the fastest, the fridge mould a bit slower, and the freezer mould not at all.
But the pantry mould is growing SO FAST, my experiment is over in five days. The fridge mould is growing not at all, when I'd have thought there'd be SOME. A LITTLE. A TEENY bit. I mean, I've found mouldy food in the fridge before. Why can't my bead mould grow there then? Freezer is what I expected though. Nothing.
I'm probably going to do a second trial to compare with this one. Three slices for each or five again? I'll have to use the blue cheese mould, since I HAD to throw away the Evil One.
I'll be forced to make it an equal five day trial, so that leaves me three weekends to finish up my introduction, organise my data (probably be forced to handdraw the graphs and tables TT_TT) and write my report.
When what I really want to do is watch a Disney marathon.
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Good Omens
It begins.
Armed with only a pair of tweezers, I used up an entire loaf of bread. I took a tweezer pinch or mould and spread it out to cover about 2 square centimetres on the slice. Here's a batch:
I'm fairly confident that the mould was evenly distributed, because each time I took one clump. The mould on my source bread had round clumps of more or less the same size. ALL OVER IT. Want a peek?
It looked and smelled positively evil; in fact I'm sure the foul soul of my grandmother corrupted her bread before she left. Say hello to the Adversary, Destroyer of Kings, Angel of the Bottomless Pit, Great Beast that is called Dragon, Prince of This World, Father of Lies, Spawn of Satan, and Lord of Darkness.
...That was technically copyright of Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman...
Armed with only a pair of tweezers, I used up an entire loaf of bread. I took a tweezer pinch or mould and spread it out to cover about 2 square centimetres on the slice. Here's a batch:
I'm fairly confident that the mould was evenly distributed, because each time I took one clump. The mould on my source bread had round clumps of more or less the same size. ALL OVER IT. Want a peek?
It looked and smelled positively evil; in fact I'm sure the foul soul of my grandmother corrupted her bread before she left. Say hello to the Adversary, Destroyer of Kings, Angel of the Bottomless Pit, Great Beast that is called Dragon, Prince of This World, Father of Lies, Spawn of Satan, and Lord of Darkness.
...That was technically copyright of Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman...
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
A New Hope
At the risk of sounding as if I seriously misjudged the date of Star Wars Day, I have a new hope.
Bugger the tomato and butter mould. The blue cheese mould has...sort of paled? I can't tell if it actually grew or not, maybe by a millimetre.
But THANK YOU gran, for going overseas and leaving your wholemeal bread in teh fridge where no one could see it... There's a mould zoo on that thing.
The mould I was looking for.
Strange fluff between the slices.
My working station. I've adopted the method of blue cheesemakers; I'm taking a pinch of mould and pressing it into a depression/hole on the bread.
Now grow, my precious, GROW!
As soon as I have a nice colony (thus proving that mould can be transplanted) I'll start my Experiment. Also, thank you gran for leaving behind an empty unit complete with fridge and freezer and pantry.
Bugger the tomato and butter mould. The blue cheese mould has...sort of paled? I can't tell if it actually grew or not, maybe by a millimetre.
But THANK YOU gran, for going overseas and leaving your wholemeal bread in teh fridge where no one could see it... There's a mould zoo on that thing.
The mould I was looking for.
Strange fluff between the slices.
My working station. I've adopted the method of blue cheesemakers; I'm taking a pinch of mould and pressing it into a depression/hole on the bread.
Now grow, my precious, GROW!
As soon as I have a nice colony (thus proving that mould can be transplanted) I'll start my Experiment. Also, thank you gran for leaving behind an empty unit complete with fridge and freezer and pantry.
Monday, May 10, 2010
Cheese
I threw out the bakery cheese. The smell got to me.
I've dug a pair of tweezers into Danish blue cheese, and pressed what I removed into a slice of bread. My research just says, "At some point, the mold population on the cheese grows to a point where there is nowhere for new spores to latch on to both food and oxygen; the aging process slows to a stop," so I assume they just package and sell. I'm not sure how reliable a website such as this is, though: http://www.ehow.com/how-does_5270633_cheese-mold-growing-process.html
I've also found some black tomato mould, which Mum says started off as white-green (in her wisdom as a family cook... O_o). It didn't look like normal 'furry' mould, more like a black spot. I scraped it off and put in on some bread. Hope aren't high for this one.
Mum just found some grey mould on the butter, which I've also extracted and put on a slice of bread.
Not only that. I've got a small amount of pho noodles in its own plastic bag, with those three aforementioned bags, on that shelf.
Stupid how I encounter this problem, really. I can't the mould I wanted! In fact, I haven't witnessed the visible expansion of any mould colonies yet. Mould needs food, oxygen, darkness and moisture. I've given all the trials bread, holes in their bags, a high pantry shelf. Maybe I'd better start watering them and sprinkling sugar over them too or something.
NB. Will upload photo as soon as the SD card gets sorted out. Apparently the computer can't read a 32 gig card...or something...
I think I'm beyond caring about this SRP.
...
Yeah. I am.
I've dug a pair of tweezers into Danish blue cheese, and pressed what I removed into a slice of bread. My research just says, "At some point, the mold population on the cheese grows to a point where there is nowhere for new spores to latch on to both food and oxygen; the aging process slows to a stop," so I assume they just package and sell. I'm not sure how reliable a website such as this is, though: http://www.ehow.com/how-does_5270633_cheese-mold-growing-process.html
I've also found some black tomato mould, which Mum says started off as white-green (in her wisdom as a family cook... O_o). It didn't look like normal 'furry' mould, more like a black spot. I scraped it off and put in on some bread. Hope aren't high for this one.
Mum just found some grey mould on the butter, which I've also extracted and put on a slice of bread.
Not only that. I've got a small amount of pho noodles in its own plastic bag, with those three aforementioned bags, on that shelf.
Stupid how I encounter this problem, really. I can't the mould I wanted! In fact, I haven't witnessed the visible expansion of any mould colonies yet. Mould needs food, oxygen, darkness and moisture. I've given all the trials bread, holes in their bags, a high pantry shelf. Maybe I'd better start watering them and sprinkling sugar over them too or something.
NB. Will upload photo as soon as the SD card gets sorted out. Apparently the computer can't read a 32 gig card...or something...
I think I'm beyond caring about this SRP.
...
Yeah. I am.
Monday, May 3, 2010
Climate Graph
...You don't care about my Europe holiday, do you? You don't care that Goofy kissed me in Hong Kong... You don't care that I am way too jetlagged to do this and the fluid still hasn't gone out of my calves. :(
This is what you want, isn't it? This THING!
I might as well explain my method in more detail too. It's easier for me to use plain English to communicate instead of Step 1 and 2 ect. so I'm going to do that now.
It has been stated on Wikipedia that mould will enter a dormant, non-growing state when conditions do not allow growth. One of these conditions is temperature; between 4 to 38 degrees Celsius is the ideal growing rate. From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mold and http://www.realtor.org/realtororg.nsf/pages/moldfaq
My hypothesis is that the lower the temperature is (ie. the colder), the slower mould will grow (perhaps not at all). My aim is to find out whether the above statement, as well as my hypothesis, is true.
Right now I have a small handful of cheese (thanks, my aunt-who-owns-a-bakery-in-Mortdale) inside a plastic bag, sitting on a shelf in my dark pantry. After school I basically come home and handle it. I can't remember if bacteria helped food to mould or not, but I'm trying to help it along; there are little spores floating around everywhere and I must have SOME on my hands. Since mould also needs oxygen, I've cut little hole in the bag. Since it also needs moisture, I cough and breath into it as well. It smells dreadful and feels utterly disgusting. I hope that mould grows soon. If this fails -it is bakery cheese, so it may have more preservatives than supermarket cheese- I shall buy some blue cheese to obtain my penicillium.
(Note: Research if/how cheesemakers stop the mould from spreading on blue cheese once it is ready for sale and consumption. If they don't, we'd be eating more mould than cheese. That would be stupid.)
Just to make sure my mould can reproduce and spread, I'll tweezer a sample onto one slice of bread. If the mould grows, I'll transfer equal amounts onto fifteen slices of bread. Five will remain at room temperature. Five will go into the fridge, at 4 degrees, the edge of survivability. Five will go into the freezer, beyond the point of possible growth. I've mentioned the zip lock bags, haven't I?
Each day I'll check on them, possibly take photos, and measure the area of bread covered by mould. I'll do this with either a transparent square centimetre grid, or if the mould grows concentrically I'll use a pair of compasses and the pi x r squared formula. I know this is rough, but what choice do I have? Tables will be filled in. Quantitaive graphs will be created.
I'm not sure how FAST the mould will grow, so the duration of my experiment is TBA. I'm stuck with this project anyway. But I do believe I have things under control.
You still don't want to hear about the Italian guitarist and the French guy stalker photo and Disneyland? Right.
This is what you want, isn't it? This THING!
I might as well explain my method in more detail too. It's easier for me to use plain English to communicate instead of Step 1 and 2 ect. so I'm going to do that now.
It has been stated on Wikipedia that mould will enter a dormant, non-growing state when conditions do not allow growth. One of these conditions is temperature; between 4 to 38 degrees Celsius is the ideal growing rate. From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mold and http://www.realtor.org/realtororg.nsf/pages/moldfaq
My hypothesis is that the lower the temperature is (ie. the colder), the slower mould will grow (perhaps not at all). My aim is to find out whether the above statement, as well as my hypothesis, is true.
Right now I have a small handful of cheese (thanks, my aunt-who-owns-a-bakery-in-Mortdale) inside a plastic bag, sitting on a shelf in my dark pantry. After school I basically come home and handle it. I can't remember if bacteria helped food to mould or not, but I'm trying to help it along; there are little spores floating around everywhere and I must have SOME on my hands. Since mould also needs oxygen, I've cut little hole in the bag. Since it also needs moisture, I cough and breath into it as well. It smells dreadful and feels utterly disgusting. I hope that mould grows soon. If this fails -it is bakery cheese, so it may have more preservatives than supermarket cheese- I shall buy some blue cheese to obtain my penicillium.
(Note: Research if/how cheesemakers stop the mould from spreading on blue cheese once it is ready for sale and consumption. If they don't, we'd be eating more mould than cheese. That would be stupid.)
Just to make sure my mould can reproduce and spread, I'll tweezer a sample onto one slice of bread. If the mould grows, I'll transfer equal amounts onto fifteen slices of bread. Five will remain at room temperature. Five will go into the fridge, at 4 degrees, the edge of survivability. Five will go into the freezer, beyond the point of possible growth. I've mentioned the zip lock bags, haven't I?
Each day I'll check on them, possibly take photos, and measure the area of bread covered by mould. I'll do this with either a transparent square centimetre grid, or if the mould grows concentrically I'll use a pair of compasses and the pi x r squared formula. I know this is rough, but what choice do I have? Tables will be filled in. Quantitaive graphs will be created.
I'm not sure how FAST the mould will grow, so the duration of my experiment is TBA. I'm stuck with this project anyway. But I do believe I have things under control.
You still don't want to hear about the Italian guitarist and the French guy stalker photo and Disneyland? Right.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
