I am on my third round of subsamples that are being freeze-dried. The first round was baked at +99 C. The second round in a different freeze-dryer (concerned that the first freeze dryer was broken) was found at 38 C and taken out before it baked. The third round was put in the first freeze-dryer, because we realized that one of the settings (final hold time) had not been set properly and was at the default of +99 C. All I can say is that I hope this final round works. While I might be able to use the second round of samples, because the antibiotics that I am looking at are thermal stable above 100 C, I can’t say with certainty that degradation didn’t occur. So the third round is actually only half of my samples to confirm that the second round is OK!

And this my friends is what science is really like. You plan to the best of your ability, but always assume that the worst may happen and be able to improvise at the drop of a hat, because hardly anything ever goes as planned!

Last round of soils being prepped to go into the freeze drying!