His devoted Prior felt no such doubts. Early in life Vaclav Sembera had developed a fundamental orientation towards God and the love of service to others. He had equally firmly rejected self-love and self-service, a fundamental option that was strongly reflected in the teachings of St. Augustine. During Lent the Abbot allowed him full reign to express that devotion, and so that Sunday saw all the monks settled, with a mixture of resignation and religion, in the refectory. They were to hear the Prior give his interpretation of the Devotion to the Passion of Christ in which Sembera concentrated his attention on the five wounds that Christ suffered while on the cross. It was one of Prior Sembera's favorite devotions and he was making a strong plea for the monastery to hold a Feast of the Five Wounds on the fourth Friday of Lent.
On the following Monday Mendel returned to his duties as teacher at the Realschule while his two non-teaching friends returned to the laboratory to begin experimenting with the Appert Method and the preparation of sterile solid broths. It was not until after the sun had set for the day that Brother Gregory could catch up on all that had been happening.
"First," Brother Joseph Lindenthal told him, "we experimented with ways of making the broth firm, but not so solid that the rods and yeast would not grow upon it. Taking a lesson from the meat jelly, we tried to get some bone marrows from Brother Victor, but this being Lent, he had none."
Brother Matthew took up the story, "That's when I had my good idea," he said, "and visited the apothecary. He suggested a different approach and recommended a herbal treatment he uses to relieve constipation and other blockages of the bowel." He saw the look on Brother Gregory's face, and could not help laughing.
"Yes," he chuckled, "I could not believe it myself at first, but we have tried it and it works." He showed Mendel a series of dishes in which small puddles of broth had been hardened to a variety of degrees.
"This mucilage is boiled from seaweed," he went on, picking up a package of the treatment which was a yellowish white solid and came in masses about three centimeters thick and 36 centimeters long. "It is sometimes called Japanese Isinglass."
"In this form it is quite crude," continued Brother Joseph, "but, after dissolving it in water we were able to precipitate a more refined product using alcohol." He showed Mendel a fine, white, granular material that ran through the fingers. "This turns out to be a powerful gelatinizing agent, and you don't need much of it to firm up a meat broth. If you heat a pure liquid then add the refined seaweed extract, it dissolves quite readily, but, if you get the concentration right, the liquid becomes a semi-solid when it cools"
"We prepared samples of broth with different amounts of this mucilage extract," Brother Matthew went on, "and found a concentration range where the product is a jelly but not completely solid. While the liquid was hot, we poured it into cups, bottles and flat dishes. That part was easy. After the containers cooled we did some more tests. Small amounts of liquid float on the surface, but, if you don't add too much, the extra liquid soaks into the jelly without spoiling its consistency."
Mendel examined, poked and prodded the various samples that Brothers Matthew and Joseph had prepared. "This one looks best," he said at last.
"We agree," Brother Joseph said with delight, "In fact that is the one we used for testing the Appert method. Come and look at this." He took Brother Gregory over to the shelves at the back of the laboratory, where, lying on their side were a row of clear wine bottles. Brother Joseph picked one up and Mendel saw that it had been capped with oiled paper as before, but now the contents were no longer liquid but an amber solid.
"We mixed broth, wine juice and chalk with the mucilage, heated it up, and when the mucilage was fully dissolved we poured it into these clear bottles," said Brother Matthew. "We then capped each bottle and placed them in a large vat of water, so as to sterilize them with the heat."
"Since Appert published his original book in 1811," Brother Joseph went on, "it has recently been found that adding calcium chloride to the water helps in the sterilization by raising the boiling point by 28 degrees Fahrenheit. That is what we did."
"When the bottles and the broths were fully sterilized we took them out of the water and put them on their sides, like this, for the broth to solidify."
"Why?" asked Mendel, puzzled for a moment.
"To give us more surface area on the solid broth," Brother Matthew told him with some satisfaction. It was not often that Klacel could out think Mendel when it came to science. "When we add the contaminated liquid we want to spread it out as much as possible. By laying the bottles on their sides as the broth cooled, we get more usable surface."
Mendel agreed. "Then that is what we should do next," he said, picking up one of the contaminated wine samples that they had collected from Herr Druer's wine cellars. "Let's get started."