LimsPulse
Microbiology & sterility

Incubator / BOD incubator

A temperature-controlled chamber that holds culture plates and tubes at a fixed temperature so microorganisms can grow. BOD incubators can heat and cool, so they also hold temperatures below room temperature, such as 20–25 °C for fungi.

  • Pharmaceutical
  • Biotech
  • Food & beverage
  • Water testing
  • Environmental
  • Research laboratories
Photo of a Incubator / BOD incubator
Photo: Sinalkar Kanchan, CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped), via Wikimedia Commons
LEARN & PRACTICE

Test your Incubator knowledge

Multiple-choice questions

Pick an answer to see whether you are right and why.

  1. Q1. What is the typical incubation temperature for TAMC plates on SCDA?

    basic

  2. Q2. Why is a BOD incubator used for 20–25 °C incubation?

    basic

  3. Q3. Why are agar plates usually incubated inverted?

    basic

  4. Q4. What does temperature mapping of an incubator demonstrate?

    intermediate

  5. Q5. Why is an incubator for 30–35 °C commonly set at 32.5 °C?

    intermediate

  6. Q6. Mapping shows one rear corner of the bottom shelf at 35.6 °C while the rest is within 30–35 °C. What is a suitable action?

    intermediate

  7. Q7. SDA plates for TYMC are incubated at:

    advanced

Viva questions

Think of your answer first, then open it to compare.

  1. 1. What records do you keep when incubating plates?

    Incubator ID, set temperature, date and time in and out, and the daily temperature record or monitoring printout. Any excursion during incubation is recorded and assessed for impact on results.

  2. 2. What is the difference between temperature accuracy and temperature uniformity?

    Accuracy is how closely the display agrees with a calibrated reference at the control sensor. Uniformity is how much the temperature varies between different positions in the chamber. An incubator can have an accurate display but poor uniformity, which is why both calibration and mapping are needed.

  3. 3. The incubator alarm shows the temperature reached 37 °C for 3 hours during TYMC incubation. What do you do?

    Record the excursion, move plates to a qualified incubator if needed, and assess the impact with QA. 37 °C is outside 20–25 °C, so recovery of yeasts and moulds may be affected; the test may need to be repeated. Investigate the cause (controller, refrigeration, room temperature) and recalibrate or service before reuse.

In LimsPulse · Calibration Management

Keep every Incubator in control: usage logs, calibration and maintenance schedules, and automatic blocking of overdue instruments.

See how