Standard Plate Count Medium (Economy pack) (without Membrane Filter)

Principle And Interpretation

Field of Application: Water, milk, food and other samples, waste water, beverages. DriFilter Membrane Nutrient Pad Medium is ready to use sterile culture media in the form of a 50 mm biological inert absorbent pads impregnated with Plate Count medium, then dried and sterilized in 55 mm petri plate. They eliminate the need of laborious media preparation and autoclaving procedures. The nutrient pads are to be just rewetted with sterile distilled water and are ready to use. Use of nutrient pads allows larger sample volumes to be tested at a time. Interpretation of results is directly by counting the CFUs and also quantifies the microbial load present in the sample. Plate Count medium is formulated as described by Buchbinder et al (1) which is recommended by APHA (2,3,4) and FDA (5). Casein enzymic hydrolysate provides amino acids and other complex nitrogenous substances. Yeast extracts supplies Vitamin B complex. {APHA recommends the use of pour plate technique. The samples are diluted and appropriate dilutions are added in Petri plates. Sterile molten agar is added to these plates and plates are rotated gently to ensure uniform mixing of the sample with agar. The poured plate count method is preferred to the surface inoculation method, since it gives higher results. Plate Count Agar is also suitable for enumerating bacterial count of sterile rooms.}