Final answer:
The steps of dilution plating involve preparing a series of dilutions, plating samples on a growth medium, incubating the plates, and counting the colonies.
Step-by-step explanation:
The steps of dilution plating are as follows:
- Prepare a series of dilutions by adding a fixed volume of the original culture to a tube containing sterile dilution solution. This is done multiple times to create a range of dilutions.
- Take a small sample from each dilution tube and plate it on a solid growth medium using either the pour plate or spread plate method.
- Incubate the plates until colonies appear.
- Count the number of colonies on each plate and average the counts to estimate the number of cells in the original culture.