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Clarifying Bulk Substrates, Pasteurising and Spawning


Hyphal

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Hey mycophiles! There seems to be a little confusion about bulk substrates, what goes into them, pasteurising and spawning, so I want to take a moment to write a brief description of the terminology and give an example of how to go about this task. I firmly believe if you are capable of culturing a healthy jar of mushroom mycelium - then you have already done the hardest part. Spawning is easy, and bulk susbtrates can quadruple the amount of fruiting mycelium easily, while supplying valuable moisture/nutrients needed for healthy and prolific fruits.

Remember, there are many ways to skin a cat - this isn't by any means gospel, (:crux:) - always experiment and innovate - that's what makes this hobby so much fun!

Ok, firstly, here is an explanation of the various terms -

  • Substrate - Refers to the media used for fruiting. Some example are a Pf style jar, Popcorn, Wild Bird Seed, Rye or a Bulk Substrate (see below).
  • Spawn(ing) - 'Spawn' refers to any colonised media (Pf style jar, Popcorn, Wild Bird Seed, Rye etc.) if it is used for the purpose of colonising a bulk substrate. 'Spawning' is the term used to describe the act of mixing the 'Spawn' with the bulk substrate, in order for it to colonise. Remember, if you are using the media to fruit from, then it is still referred to as the substrate, not spawn!
  • Bulk Substrate - Is a larger volume of media used to spawn to.
  • Pasteurising - This is the process of heating a media to between 71°C and 82°C (160-180°F). Pasteurisation is carried out for a prolonged time (minimum of 1 hour) and is supposed to kill only heat susceptible organisms and their spores, as opposed to sterilisation which works at a temperature of 121°C (250°F) and is supposed to kill all organisms.

The beneficial micro - organisms (mainly bacteria) that are left alive when pasteurising, guard the substrate against other contaminants, for instance different moulds, but don't affect the growth of mushroom mycelium.

Pasteurisation is used for bulk substrates like straw, dung, composts and wood chips - and casing materials.

If you sterilise a bulk substrate you leave it more open to contamination and therefore have to practice sterile techniques when spawning, therefore sterilisation of a bulk substrate isn't recommended!

 

Bulk Substrate Additives

 

 

For those interested in preparing bulk substrate, there are many recipes and additions you can use that add valuable nutrients, bulk (weight) to the substrate or both. A few examples are -

 

Horse Poo

 

 

 

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  • Horse Poo is full of nutrients and beneficial bacteria, holds a lot of moisture and makes an excellent bulk substrate. Horse poo is best if aged and leached of all ammonium (the poo pictured is perfect - basically if it doesn't smell at all it's fine). If you can only obtain fresh horse poo you can leach it yourself by laying it out on a tarp, spraying it down a little with a hose and leaving it in the sun for a week.
    It can however be a little hard to come by (if you live in the middle of the city and have no car for example) and can be a little labour intensive as it needs to be crumbled up until there is no big clumps left in it.
    Other manures are viable (eg. cow, sheep), but they lack the fluffy straw like consistency that makes horse manure so ideal, and shouldn't really be considered.
    Probably the only other manures I would suggest are either Elephant or Kangaroo - if you can get them...

 

Straw

 

 

 

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  • Straw is an excellent addition for adding bulk to the substrate, but lacks the moisture holding capabilities and nutrient value needed for ongoing flushes.

 

 

Coconut Coir

 

 

 

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  • Coco Coir is another excellent substrate that is cheap, easy to find, holds a lot of moisture and has a decent stash of nutrients. It can however contain high amounts of salt (though this is easily washed out and doesn't seem to impact mycelium), and be careful as some companies add slow release fertilisers or anti fungal agents (for use in horticulture and hydroponics).

Other additions to bulk substrates are things like used coffee grinds, seaweed extracts, worm castings, vegetable oil and I've even heard of someone mixing in a tin of crushed tomatoes - this is where experimentation comes in, and anything you think will be a good nutrient addition to your bulk substrate can be used. A good rule of thumb is if it grows mould on it when left out for a week - it would probably be good to throw in.

 

Bulk Substrate Preparation and Pasteurisation

 

 

Ok, so you have your ingredients - what do you do with them? Here is a little guide to get you started...

You will need -

  • Straw
  • Aged Horse Poo
  • Coco Coir
  • Seaweed Extract (optional)
  • Oven Bags LINK
  • A bucket
  • An esky
  • One or Two large kitchen cooking pots
  • A meat thermometer (any kitchen supply store)

In this example, a rough mix of 40/40/20 Straw, Horse Poo and Coir is used, with a splash of Liquid seaweed Extract to prepare a Bulk substrate.

-> Firstly, throw the straw, finely crumbled Horse Poo, Coco Coir and half a cap of seaweed extract into a bucket and cover ingredients with hot water -

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-> Then soak this overnight to soften the straw and allow the straw and coir to soak up some moisture and nutrients from the poo, when done it should look something like this -

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-> The next day, squeeze handfuls of the substrate mix one at a time until only a few drops of water come out and stuff the mix into your oven bags. Squeeze out all the air and tie 'em up.

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-> Fill your Cooking Pots with water and, using the meat thermometer, heat them on the stove to around 180F -

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-> Take your bags of substrate and put them in the esky. Once the water reaches the desired temperature, pour it on top of the bags and put the lid on the esky (the bags will float but this doesnt matter as the esky is insulated and the inside of the esky should heat up to the right temp) -

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-> Leave this to sit for an hour or more, then pour the water from the esky BACK into the pots - and re-heat it to 180F.

Once again, pour this water back on top of the bags and let it sit for at least a further hour.

At this point, they should be pasteurised enough - but I always do this a third time just to make sure, and usually leave it overnight in the esky to cool down.

The next day you will now have Bags of pasteurised bulk substrate ready to spawn to.

 

Spawning

 

 

Now that you have your pasteurised bulk substrate ready, for the next part of the process you will need -

  • Colonised grain or Pf style jars
  • Pasteurised Bulk Substrate
  • A tray or container to spawn to (and eventually fruit from)
  • Foil
  • Glad Wrap
  • Micropore tape LINK (Found in the bandage section at any chemist)
  • Alcohol Spray (such as Glen 20 Surface Spray)
  • Paper towel

-> Firstly, get your colonised jars ('spawn') and Bags of pasteurised bulk substrate ready, and the containers you are going to spawn to. Wash, dry and spray the trays you are going to spawn to with alcohol spray to sanitise them as best as possible and then dry with a paper towel -

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-> With washed and gloved hands, dump your pasteurised bulk substrate into your trays, and carefully crumble and mix your spawn through the mix. If you are using PF style jars, just try to crumble them as small as possible - putting the cake in a plastic zip lock style sandwich bag will make this a lot easier. You can do this at a ratio as low as 10%, but the more you use the quicker it will colonise and the less chance you will have of contamination setting in -

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-> Cover the tray with foil to keep out light. Poke some holes in the foil with a pen and cover these with squares of micropore tape to allow gas exchange but keep out contaminations -

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-> Put this somewhere warm and dark to colonise, and after a few days it should look something like this -

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-> You are now ready to case as normal with whatever you choose (eg. 50/50 verm peat). Once you have cased, cover your trays back up with some Glad Wrap and again poke some holes in the top to allow gas exchange, and put somewhere dark to allow the casing layer to start colonising -

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-> After a few days you should start to see spots of mycelium appearing on the surface of your casing layer, at this point you are ready to take off the glad wrap, give the casing layer a fine misting, put your trays in a fruiting chamber and expose them to fruiting conditions (80-90% humidity, fresh air exchanges and light) -

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If all goes well, you should hopefully get pins within the next week or two and a healthy flush of mushrooms!

*phew*

I hope this clears things up and helps people to move on from fruiting using plain cakes and grains, but most importantly - to help people get the most out of their mycelium... :wink::shroomer:

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Edited by Hyphalknot
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that is some great work, fine innitiative/contribution.

am just starting to look at this and well Fantastic timing i must say.

what are your thoughts on the debat between horse and cow do do? (i have cow but can get horse)

a massive massive thanks.

no doubt the noobies are dancing in the streets.

 

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Very well done Hypha! Well done!

Thats quite a write up and quite a valuable addition to the forum. Many members will find this info invaluable, me included .

Maybe an archive should be setup for teks and such like this. Is there one already??

Thanx again Hypha, your efforts are much appreciated!

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Thanks heaps guys! It took me long enough to write...

that is some great work, fine innitiative/contribution.

am just starting to look at this and well Fantastic timing i must say.

what are your thoughts on the debat between horse and cow do do? (i have cow but can get horse)

a massive massive thanks.

no doubt the noobies are dancing in the streets.

 

Steer clear of cow poo if you can - its much denser and not as mycelium friendly by the time it has passed through 4 stomachs (it becomes quite 'gluggy' and tends to stagnate easily)...

I hear you say "but this is where such species as cubensis grow naturally". This is true, but its rarely you will see a cow pattie completely consumed by mycelium, and it isn't nearly as ideal as horse poo.

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Thanks Green - good luck and post back your results!

holy shit hypha, talk about going above and beyond the call of duty

great info and pics, good karma to you mate

Gotta make the most of these sudden bursts of creativity - they are few and far between... Thanks man, good karma to you too.

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Truly a top notch write up Hypha - Kudos!!

As for why these things arent pinned or saved anywhere convenient - Torst doesnt like having drug cultivation notes made easy to find in colaberation with the SAB store. Fair enough - but it certainly would be convenient. Perhaps such awesome teks could go to Gomaos's site? No doubt they would be more than welcome and it would help attract a few more people to his forums. Just an idea

It is really great to see it all spelt out, pics and all - truly, Kudos!

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Man that's huge, and excellent

I'm at work, did you write that when you're at work?

This is the only pc i have

I'll read that soon... but already i know you did a top job

We need to start archiving posts like this...

Edit: wow, i just read, wow

One question

Once you have cased, cover your trays back up with some Glad Wrap and again poke some holes in the top to allow gas exchange

Once cased, only cover with glad wrap? (no foil?) and do you use micropore tape again?

Also through the whole colonisation steps (basically everything you said except for the fruiting conditions part) this is standard 28 degrees no light conditions right?

WOW!!!

my foaf seriously can't wait to give this method a shot, looks like a nice big tasty mess of goodness that can only lead to more goodness.. FANTASTIC WORK HYPHA !!!

Crap.. one more question,

What do you prefer to spawn from ? or is this really much of a muchness?

foaf has had success with brf/verm, if it aint' broken don't fix it?

Edited by Sphinx
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Truly a top notch write up Hypha - Kudos!!

Perhaps such awesome teks could go to Gomaos's site? No doubt they would be more than welcome and it would help attract a few more people to his forums. Just an idea

Thanks Ace - what is Gomao's site? I truly am a noob around here....

Man that's huge, and excellent

I'm at work, did you write that when you're at work?

This is the only pc i have

I'll read that soon... but already i know you did a top job

We need to start archiving posts like this...

I did it at home sphinx - I wouldn't ever use a work computer for such things.

I hope it helps, thats the main reason anyway - it feels really good to know if I help out just a couple of people, then its more than worth it.

Good luck!

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AWESOME work!!!!! thanks for sharing it ;) greatly apreciated.

well worth putting into a pdf!

Edited by Amulte
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A PDF would be a great idea - I think that would be ok to have around here - a pinned thread full of teks in PDF form?

I'll have a look for a link to Goms forum, just a tick

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As for why these things arent pinned or saved anywhere convenient - Torst doesnt like having drug cultivation notes made easy to find in colaberation with the SAB store.

One more thing on that note - I deliberately made NO drug references within this post - this is purely a guide to growing any dung loving mushroom you can think of - its up to the individual what they do with such information.

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AWESOME work!!!!! thats for sharing it ;) greatly apreciated.

well worth putting into a pdf!

Thanks Amulte - if someone is going to go to the trouble of putting such a thing into PDF format, I wouldnt mind going through and cleaning it up a little first.

Sounds like a good idea though.

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I believe it is Ethnobotany Australia.

Sorry to say that Hyphal, I wasnt directing it at you, more in general. But this sort of thing should be fine, as does any other tek that can be used legally - and they SHOULD be pinned somewhere or archived for future reference...

BTW, it was good to see that the 'D' word wasnt mentioned throughout your text, or anything relating to the 'd' word

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Hmmm... The PDF is a good idea. Still need somwhere to host the file though. Hypha has made no reference to illicit culltivation in the tek so maybe somewhere on the Corroboree server? That would be up to Tortsen though i guess.

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I believe it is Ethnobotany Australia.

Sorry to say that Hyphal, I wasnt directing it at you, more in general. But this sort of thing should be fine, as does any other tek that can be used legally - and they SHOULD be pinned somewhere or archived for future reference...

Thanks for the link man - and no need to apologise, I know that statement wasnt directed at me in any way. Its just the nature of the beast....

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One question

Once you have cased, cover your trays back up with some Glad Wrap and again poke some holes in the top to allow gas exchange

Once cased, only cover with glad wrap? (no foil?) and do you use micropore tape again?

Also through the whole colonisation steps (basically everything you said except for the fruiting conditions part) this is standard 28 degrees no light conditions right?

-> You can cover with glad wrap OR foil, it doesn't matter. And you don't need micropore tape this time as the mycelium will be healthy and able to fight off any contaminations.

In fact, you can use either glad wrap OR foil at either stage - and there is no need for the micropore tape at all if you dont want to, but its an extra step in the way of caution - I have seen many trays of poo colonise successfully when only covered with glad wrap with a few holes poked in it, and no micropore.

-> Standard 28C to colonise can be a bit warm because the casing will create a fair bit of heat when it colonises - room temp works fine for this - just throw them on the shelf in your cupboard.

Crap.. one more question,

What do you prefer to spawn from ? or is this really much of a muchness?

foaf has had success with brf/verm, if it aint' broken don't fix it?

Well if you have a pressure cooker and want to move onto grains, Wild Bird Seed is cheap and easy to get from any supermarket. You can easily have a full jar of grain colonised in 10 days if you inoculate with Liquid Culture, whereas Pf Jars take a fair bit longer - its up to you what method you use to get a fully colonised jar of mycelium...

Grains also break up really well back to individual grains, so when you spawn with these it mixes much more thoroughly and therefore giving more 'contact' points for the mycelium, and overall quicker colonisation time.

Edited by Hyphalknot
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Ps: i'm sure i speak for everyone when i say i'd love to see some pics of fruits from this method if you have any!

Sure thing -

Agaricus bisporus - "Portabello"

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:innocent_n:

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Edited by Hyphalknot
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anyone with more effort than me can make the pdf. one reason i love it so much is its a mushrooms tek, nothing illegal about growing legal edible mushrooms. as for hosting id suggest rapidshare.

As for why these things arent pinned or saved anywhere convenient - Torst doesnt like having drug cultivation notes made easy to find in colaberation with the SAB store.

honestly its not up to T but the mod of the forum, ofcourse if T has a problem with it then yes it would be his descision. but there is nothing illegal about this thread and the has always been the main concern. awesome thread thisone tho! sure maybe people could use it for illegal mushrooms, but thats their own descretion. think maybe it should be pinned (but im no mycologist).

in legal forum reguards theres nothing wrong with this post. as i said, people might use it for illegal mushrooms, but thats not what this thread is about ;) so its up to the idividual as to how the info here is used.

Edited by Amulte
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A question about the pasturisation steps.

Is there any reason you can't use an oven on its lowest setting to do the same thing? Would be a bit simpler.

I was thinking in the oven at 90C for 3 hours then turn off oven and let cool. Wouldn't this do the same job?

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