The monks agreed to divide up the tasks, and each went his separate way to find the equipment and supplies they needed. In less than an hour they reassembled in the converted store room that was acting as their laboratory.
"Will these do?" Klacel asked, tipping a clattering pile of old wine bottles onto the table from a sack.
Brother Joseph examined them closely. "The ones made of clear glass are excellent," he said, "but we won't be able to see through the dark ones."
Mendel was the last to return, and he came bearing armfuls of supplies. "I was able to get almost everything we need to make a rich broth. Did any of you get a large pan?"
Brother Joseph nodded, and pointed to the stove in the corner of the room. "I also started a fire," he said, "Let's begin."
In the one of the large pans Brother Matthew began mixing Mendel's ingredients and stirring them into the fresh spring water. They dissolved readily.
"What are you using?" Brother Joseph asked.
"Some carbonate of chalk, I think," Mendel said, "this will keep the broth from becoming too acid. Then some of the beef extract from Brother Victor's kitchen, that should make it rich enough in nutrients. Then some of the sugar beet extract as specified by Herr Pasteur."
The solution quickly came to a boil, and when Mendel and Brother Joseph thought that it had been held long enough at the high temperature, they carefully decanted some of the resulting juice into the clear bottles that Klacel had been washing. Each bottle was closed temporally with oiled paper and string then placed in the large pan of boiling water for at least an hour.
"This sterilization should kill any life forms that are either left in the broth, or were in the bottle," Brother Joseph told Klacel as they watched the bottles bump and shake in the bubbling water. When they were sufficiently sterilized, each bottle was removed from the pan and put on the table to cool. However, Mendel took the last bottle, capped it with a cork and then sealed it firmly closed with wax.
"That should do," Mendel said at last, stepping back and inspecting their handiwork. "This last bottle will be our control. If it stays clear and free of any kind of growth, then we know that our sterilization was complete."
After the bottles had cooled to room temperature, Mendel took three of them, removed the oiled paper cap and added a small drop of the bacteria laden wine juice to each. He quickly replaced the cap, shook the bottle and the broth then placed them on a warm shelf by the stove.
"If we are right," he said to the other two, "these bottles of broth will become heavily contaminated with those rod-like organisms."
"How long do we wait?" Klacel asked.
"Probably not long," Brother Joseph replied, but long enough for us to go and look for a copy of Herr Pasteur's work, I would like to read it again."
So the three friends left the sour juice and their bacterial experiment, and went in search of the paper published by a French Professor in Lille.