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Do not autoclave liquids on the dry cycleArticle created: Nov 13, 2007
Article by: Jeremiah Faith
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The dry autoclave cycle on most autoclaves is almost identical to the liquid cycle. The autoclaving sterilization process commonly used for biological work is a pretty steamy. However, it's not ideal to have a bunch of condensation on your tubes when the autoclave process is over, so the dry autoclave process adds an extra step where the autoclave is placed under negative pressure (i.e. a vacuum), which removes most of the condensation from your plastic and glassware.
So what happens when you use the dry cycle on your liquid media? I autoclaved 800 ml of LB on the dry cycle. When the cycle was finished, I had less than 400 ml left - the negative pressure stole all of my liquid.
If you make this mistake, I would suggest making another batch of media. The salts and nutrients in your media are no longer in the correct portion after the amount of water has been greatly reduced (what do you end up with if you boil a giant pot of sea water? a dry pot with sea salt in the bottom).
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