What does off set temperature mean in autoclave settings

Hello everyone,

this time I need your help on autoclave settings. we used autoclave to sterilize the media, we set cycle as 121 degrees Celsius for 15 minutes, when our cycle completed we observed that our media was completely burnt (as its color supposed to be light yellow but it was blackish brown), autoclave tape changed its color to slightly darker shade but it was not fully black, the technician says we need to set the off set temperature in autoclave which has some relationship with room temperature or lab temperature, but I could not understand his point. if you guys can help me on this. 

thanks

I am not sure what he means by offset but perhaps he is talking about re-zeroing the unit.  it might have the temps off.  Also, consider the temp of the product being laced in the unit.  Is it frozen, thawed, hot?  This could have an impact.  The lab temp should not make that much of a difference unless you are in a frozen lab.  Has the tech given any other guidance on this other than to offset.  Your safest bet is to reach out to the tech directly and ask for guidance.  than post it here so that we all know what he/she meant.

Cheers!

thanks, I will try to get more clear on this.

You probably want to invest in an autoclave thermometer if you do not have one.  This thermometer will record and hold at the highest temperature point of the autoclave during the process. It will tell you exactly what temperature you reach.