Melange

How did you check the psi of your pressure cooker?

Spore water in a crop-duster, I dare to dream.

Isn't that the plot of Superman III? Pretty funny movie, actually.

Give some metal shavings, a crystal and some resin to MacGyver and then we'll be cooking.

I believe it was agaricus bisporus that grew from a kit I bought at Bunnings, it made only a very faint spore print (though the mushroom itself was huge). Only a few mushrooms grew in that kit, and some green mould popped up, so I wasn't sure what might have grown on the agar. It was to practice working with agar, though I'll see if it can get going in a grain jar. I'll have a look in big W for some of those small containers, I've got the urge to see how many types of mould and bacteria are infesting my place at the moment so I'll need a lot of dishes to work with! Thanks for the help, I'll let you know how the growing goes.

Cool, thanks! I got this growth after I scraped a few spores onto the agar from a field mushroom, though I've read that these don't like malt extract agar so I'm wondering what else this might be. It does grow slowly, though it also has what appears to be little hairs. I thought to put some of the agar into a syringe with PC'd water and malt extract, to see if I could get a culture going, but now I'm wondering whether or not I would just end up with a bunch of mould in there!

Can I post a picture of what might be mycelium or cobweb mould for an ID? I have no idea what I am looking at, it appears white and has grown quite slowly (9 days), but it seems to have a hair-like structure. Would I need to upload the pic somewhere then link to it?

I got some budgie mix, and some pearled barley. I'm going to experiment and see what works best. The reject shop sells different kinds and sizes of laundry baskets with holes through the sides, I was considering trying to use a mixture of straw and manure in one of those baskets for the golden oysters. I have a small pressure cooker, so I will probably try to pasteurise the straw/manure mixture instead. The large takeaway containers I got are very large, and working with them is more of a hassle than petri dishes. I actually got them initially to try to fill with substrate, since three of them fit in my pressure cooker, I'm experimenting with as many different techniques as possible at the moment, playing the numbers game. So far I've only gotten one contamination, a nice green spot. I transferred cuts of what I think is mycelium to other petri dishes, as well as throwing some into a budgie-mix substrate, just to see what comes of it. The initial growth on the agar was quite slow, about a week to spread to half the dish. From what I understand that is too slow for cobweb mould.

Things are progressing, I've been trying to get used to working with the agar so I've been testing out various procedures such as cloning from store-bought mushrooms. That had some misfires, I'm trying to work out the difference between mycelium and cobweb mould, I dropped some spores from a big field mushroom onto agar as well, and while something is definitely growing, I don't know what the hell it is! I'm going to move on to the golden oysters now, I'm convinced I would have destroyed it had I gone straight to that. I got the rectangular containers- http://www.getprice.com.au/images/uploadimg/1680/takeawaysmall2.jpg 500ml I think. Probably too large but cheap enough to learn with. They are PP5, and they lived through the pressure cooker for 75 mins. They were 5 for $2 at the reject shop.

I ended up finding agar powder at an asian supermarket (25g for $1.90), light malt extract from k-mart in the home-brew section, and small take-away containers for petri dishes from the reject store, in case anyone else wants to do some agar work on the cheap.

Yes, as a matter of fact. The Aussie Mushroom Supplies website said they were expecting a baby soon, so I put it down to carelessness. I got reusable innoculation loops and an erlenmeyer flask from Wiltronics, very prompt and cheap. I've got a feeling that I'm going to be doing a lot of experimenting with agar, is there a particular kind to use, or can I get cooking agar and make my own mixture with dried malt extract?

I got some petri dishes that said they had been sterilised, but there was a hole in the plastic bag holding them, I wonder whether that means they need to be sterilised again. I poured some agar plates onto them, to see if I could get some field mushroom spores going, I suppose I will find out if contaminations start to grow under the agar?

I have BD syringes and luer-lok needles, both state they are sterile. I assume this means that they need not be autoclaved before first use?

Great, thanks! I had been watching some of RR's videos, and somehow didn't realise RR was RogerRabbit.

Well I've gotten everything I think I need for a reasonably thorough first attempt: glovebox, petri dishes/agar, pressure cooker, etc. I brew a lot of beer, so I am used to processes of disinfection, though we shall see. There is a gap in my understanding though about moving from an agar culture (hopefully), to innoculating grain. I've read about using a blender to shred the mycelium in water, then injecting that into grain, but wouldn't that introduce contamination from the blender? Is it a matter of cutting the mycellium up into small chunks and just dumping that into the grain mixture? I have a lot of spare blunt sterile syringes from work, so I thought I could fill them with mycelium/water, to store for later use. Would that work?