Practical pointer for preparing plates: While you’re autoclaving your LB/Agar solutions, set a water bath to heat to 55°C. Then, after autoclaving, transfer your too-hot-to-do-anything-with-yet bottles to the water bath.
Now you can safely forget about them! Well, don’t actually forget about them. But if you put them in the bath you won’t need to worry about monitoring them closely to prevent them from over-cooling and starting to solidify.
At 55°C, the solution will stay liquid, but it won’t be too hot to add antibiotics and pour. And, since it doesn’t start solidifying until ~45°C, you will have enough time to do all that before it gets gelly.
It’s important that you don’t add antibiotics while the solution is really hot because this can “break” (degrade) the antibiotics, negating the point of adding them… And it’s also important not to pour the plates when it’s too hot because you could damage the plates - or your hands! But 55°C is ideal and comfortable enough to pour.
So, go ahead and do some other stuff for a while while the bottle gets to that temperature, and then go ahead and add your antibiotics, stir, pour, and enjoy the aroma!
Another tip: autoclave the bottles with a magnetic stir bar in them (don’t worry, they’ll be okay in the autoclave!). This way, you can stir on a stir plate in order to mix the antibiotics, avoiding the bubbles that come with shaking.
more on LB/agar plates: bit.ly/agarbakery ; KZfaq: • Agar vs agarose - what... & • LB agar plates - theor...
more random practical lab tips and tricks: bit.ly/lab_tricks_page   
           
more about all sorts of things: #365DaysOfScience All (with topics listed) 👉 bit.ly/2OllAB0 or search blog: thebumblingbiochemist.com