Two questions yet again

[immanuel]

sorry i got confused and thought u meant to change location while colonising. yeah im doing 4 spots around sides of jar. im up to big w today.

anddd, when colonising, should the jars be kept in dark, indirect sunlight or what?

Edited April 15, 2007 by mardybum

[ENtiTY]

Total darkness is the go.

[Rev]

Well in my case Rev, cubes don't do to well outside where I live. My back yard is completely concrete not one patch o dirt. Plus the temps now are way to low. Got an outside grow for wood lovers on the boil though

maybe a makeshift shadehouse is an idea over summer to increase humidity

dirt isnt really required, have you seen what they do at commercial button farms? they fill large sacks/bags with susbtrate and fruit directly out of those

ive had thoughyts about people in urban areas using worm farm equipment to grow any coprophilic mushroom

say a setup like these in a shadehouse to moderate temps and summer humidity

you use the trays containers to grow teh mushrooms - say bulk neglect or straw cob or straw cob and vermipoo/ other herbivore manure

cased with coir, bufferred peat or coir vermipoo mix

once the crop is done you place back ontop of teh worms who readily eat all the spent substrate and make nice juice for your leafy plants. eventually the susbtrate itself becomes renewed as new vermipoo and can be used to make a new batch

a tight recyling unit with multiple benefits thats going to look neat and inconspicuous

also ANY kind of bulk tek will give you yields 10 or 100 times that of cakes with minimal effort

thus one grow may do you a whole year and when its cold like now you can relax

i agree about temperatures

however the temps can be quite low for fruiting, its just colonisation thats need warmth

[ENtiTY]

Hey Rev

What you suggest is definatley where I would like to move towards. At the moment I'm playing around with different varieties, just having a bit of fun

Thanx for the tips, food for thought hehe

[user1]

I usually make the syringe when I'm ready to knock up the cakes/jars. No chance for the spores to settle this way and you get an even distribution of spores through your cakes/jars.

i thought that the syringes need to be let stand for at least 12 hours once filled with spores in order to rehydrate the spores

[ENtiTY]

Yeah I read that to somewhere. Dosen't seem to make any difference. The cake/grain is fairly moist so where ever the spores deposit after innoculation they appear to hydrate just fine. Works for me any way

[Coschi]

Hey rev, feel like doing a little pictorial on an outside grow?

[Rev]

lol

maybe. it pretty col dn dry here tho atm to do the usual analogue species like king strop or agaricus subrufescens - which seem to com up on their own these days so long as i topdress with w/chips yearly

??

maybe can do an analogue gro using eryngii

ill look into it

[immanuel]

SWIM asks:

garf.

contamination already? or is it the starts of collonisation. they look furry so i think i've already got contams :'(

next cake, ima use finer verm, fatter glasses and really overdo the sterilising process.

Edited May 15, 2007 by mardybum

[user1]

garf.

contamination already? or is it the starts of collonisation. they look furry so i think i've already got contams :'(

next cake, ima use finer verm, fatter glasses and really overdo the sterilising process.

doesn't look like any contams to me. give them some more time, as long as the growth is pretty much pure white you're in business.

[immanuel]

really? awesome. its just i was expecting collonisation to look like white icing on a cake, these things look kind of furry or hairy. I dunno its hard to tell though, but they are pure white. ill just leave it and see what happens. fingers crossed.

edit: looking at some other teks the firsts signs of collonisation look pretty much the same as mine. awesomeness :D

Edited April 21, 2007 by mardybum

[ENtiTY]

No its not contam. Myc grows like that if the medium is a lil bit to wet.

My first cakes were like this, took a couple of months to colonise properly but the myc was thick and they pinned heavy producing the largest fruits I have seen from cakes.

Gluck with them

[immanuel]

ahh ok. for a half pint jar what would you say the best ratio is for verm/brf/water, i did 1/2cupverm, 1/4cupbrf and 1/4cupwater. but then again my verm is not as fine as it should be so it wouldnt hold as much water which may be why there's too much excess.

[ENtiTY]

The ratios sound ok thats what I use as well.

What I do is measure out all the verm then add the water and mix through. Let sit for 5 min to soak up then pour off the excess water. I then add the BRF in 2 lots mixing between additions. If the mix looks a lil dry I then spray the mix with water and mix a few times. I get reproduceble results this way.

[immanuel]

What I do when I make a spore syringe for my edibles is I cut a piece of the foil with some print on it away then quickly drop that in a small zip lock baggie. I then suck up some sterilised water in a syringe, crack the seal on the baggie just enough on one side to get the tip in and squirt in some water. Reseal the baggie and rub the foil through the baggie to disperse the spores into solution. I then crack the seal again on one side and suck out the spore dense water and shake it to mix.

Follow all sterility procedures between steps.

Using this method I have had basically zero contam.

EDIT: Sphinx, I work of course can't you tell

the baggy's come pre sterilized? is there a way to re sterilize an old baggy?

[ENtiTY]

the baggy's come pre sterilized? is there a way to re sterilize an old baggy?

Not sure, seems to work no worries though.

As for cleaning an old baggie I wouldn't waste your time. If you couldn't obtain any fresh ones I guess an alchohol wash would be ok but you would have to make sure its dry before you make the syringe. Personally I would wait till I could get a fresh one.

[Guest Øskorei]

Rev's great suggestion in using a worm farm as an discreet storage chamber has got me thinking - has there been any myco teks using worm poo (the solids, not the liquid) as an addition to substrate recipes? This is a top product that I use on occasion for our plants and it's simply crawling with nutrients.

[immanuel]

this cake has collonised alot in the past few days. one side is almost totally white. seems to be going quite fast (on my 'first-timer' eyes) i was happy until i saw this.

i know i should probably wait till the cake's close to full collonisation before i look for contams (or i think i should) but im not sure what this is, and it looks black heh, after my last thought of contamination i dont wanna jump the gun.

is there any way i could use an oven to sterilize my jars bfore innoculation? because an oven would be able to get to higher temperatures, I dont know if its possible though.

Edited April 23, 2007 by mardybum

[ENtiTY]

Hmmm... That doesn't look good. Let it progress a bit and see how it goes, the myc may out compete it.

As for using an oven, its not needed. Its not only the temperature that kills the nasties but the pressure. Your main worry is that your substrate is to wet. More moisture = more chance of contam.

Hold tight and see what happens.

[immanuel]

"the myc may out compete it." - oh, i hope so!

I just finished making two syringes using the method you told me earlier and really overdid the sterilization process as much as i could. i'm going to make two more cakes when i get the chance and again overdo sterilization on them. hopefully at least one cake will pull through so i can become self sufficient with my prints, but i'll probably save the rest of the prints for when i get around to giving grain a go.

when i steam sterilized this cake, because cooking pot lids are not air tight, steam was still coming out the top through cracks around the lid. i am guessing a PC is best because the air cant escape making the pressure rise. if i put duct tape or something around the side of the lid of my pot to stop or lessen steam/air escaping, would this make the pressure higher? would it be unsafe in that the pressure might rise too high? i could just take the lid off every 10 mins or something to let the steam escape and check the water level? could this work?

[user1]

"the myc may out compete it." - oh, i hope so!

I just finished making two syringes using the method you told me earlier and really overdid the sterilization process as much as i could. i'm going to make two more cakes when i get the chance and again overdo sterilization on them. hopefully at least one cake will pull through so i can become self sufficient with my prints, but i'll probably save the rest of the prints for when i get around to giving grain a go.

when i steam sterilized this cake, because cooking pot lids are not air tight, steam was still coming out the top through cracks around the lid. i am guessing a PC is best because the air cant escape making the pressure rise. if i put duct tape or something around the side of the lid of my pot to stop or lessen steam/air escaping, would this make the pressure higher? would it be unsafe in that the pressure might rise too high? i could just take the lid off every 10 mins or something to let the steam escape and check the water level? could this work?

i wouldn't recommend the duct tape approach, it could be somewhat dangerous and the steam would loosen the tape anyway. seriously, you don't need a pressure cooker with normal verm cakes. steaming for 1.5 hours is fine, works a treat. i'm not sure of your circumstances where you are, but doing 1 or 2 glasses/jars at a time is pretty uneconomical considering that 1 10cc syringe can inoculate up to ten jars. the more vessels you have the more chance of success, as long as you follow the usual sterile procedures and flame the needle between the inoculation of each cake.

i agree with harry about the cake you have going now. sit tight and there's a good chance it'll be fine

[Guest Øskorei]

"the myc may out compete it." - oh, i hope so!

i am guessing a PC is best because the air cant escape making the pressure rise. if i put duct tape or something around the side of the lid of my pot to stop or lessen steam/air escaping, would this make the pressure higher?

Mardy, pressure cookers still allow steam release, either through a valve or a cock/bell. The diffence between a PC and a saucepan is that the PC regulates the pressure.

[ENtiTY]

Users right you don't need a PC for mushies. Their are teks for cakes, grain and even agar that are PC free. That said, if you plan to continue in this hobby I would most deffinatley suggest you fork out the cash for one. If you can be patient you can find one cheap, 2nd hand markets or ebay are good examples. Thats how I got mine and it only cost be 35 bucks all up including a brand new seal. Make sure you check the seal before you buy, I didn't think to and prolly could of got it cheaper if i'd found it wasn't sealing properly. Still 35 bucks for an 11 pint PC isn't to bad at all. The old ones are better anyway as they run at a higher pressure than the new models.

[immanuel]

alright thanks guys. youve all been very helpful so it's much appreciated. ill keep my eye out for a cheap one, atm i don't really want to spend the money on one, but hopefully in the future. im probably going to do another two cakes tonight (sterilize+inooculate). i only started off doing one cake cause i didn't want to do say 5 then find out there was some massive flaw in my method and have just wasted everything like that.

[immanuel]

i just wasted like 4 jars because every single time i steam sterilize my jars get flooded with water. the first time the jars had a bit of a shoulder, and the got completely flooded, so i put it down to that, but i just started the second set of jars which have absolutely no shoulder, perfectly straight shot glasses, and it looks like waters getting inside them too, whats going on? i seal the foil exactly like it says in the tek but it still look like water/steam gets in. do to put my jars ontop of something so they sit above the water or what? its really annoying!

on my second set of 2 jars, i tried to make sure the foil was above the water level. i open the lid of the pot when it started to boil and the foil is all pushed up on the top bit of the jars, like theres pressure from underneath i.e. steam getting into it > grrr. any suggestions. im going to leave them for an hour then when their finished ill take them out and check if there's any water pooled at the bottom, if not then i spose theyre fine.

edit: OK maybe i was wrong, altho the foil is sort of pushing up there's no water pooling in the bottom of the jar, its remaining the same as before i put it in. why does the foil rise a little, does this happen to anyone else? maybe the steam inside the jar? i dunno.

Edited April 25, 2007 by mardybum