After pouring plates place it up side down in the incubator, this will reduce condensation.

I used to have moisture problems but with proper usage of a vent hood it's a non-issue. First, I leave the lids half-off until the plates solidify, allowing lots of moisture to escape right away. Then, I stack the solidified plates in the corner of the hood and keep pouring until I'm done. The rapidly moving air helps the stacked plates cool even faster. I give them about 20 minutes to sit there once I'm done and then invert them and put them on my bench until it's the end of the day when I sleeve them and put them in the incubator (inverted) at 37C. This will not only get rid of extra moisture out of the plate but it will tell you if you've got contamination -- IMO, I don't used just-poured plates since there might be something on them that will grow when I plate my experiments, and that's a horrible time to find out that you've got contamination.

If you're doing spread plating it's also helpful to leave the plates in the hood, lid ajar, until they dry of all visible liquid on the agar surface that you introduced during plating.

Doing those things, I have no problems with plates being too wet.

If you're in a huge hurry during the day (ie. - you can't get the extra few minutes in the hood that my suggestion requires) you can put a slit in the sleeve so that during overnight incubation the plates lose more moisture than in a well-sealed sleeve. This is last-ditch, though.

Hi,

How many days one can use the colonies on argr plate? I streaked the plate like 2 months ago. I donno if I can still use the separated colonies on it ?

The agar plate looks little dry but not completely dried.

Thanks

Hi

Stack agar plates upside down in the refrigerator. Do Not Freeze! The purpose of placing the plates upside down is to prevent condensation from dripping down onto the agar surface which could then facilitate movement of organisms between colonies.

Microbexpert

I normally place some thing heavy like a flask of sterile saline etc on the topmost plate, this helps to prevent condensation.