Lo fi straw tek for begginers

[Chiral]

This is a very basic TEK for all those of you that keep asking how do I start off growing my own edible mushrooms.

Firstly a list of what you will need.

*1 or 2 or 3 spore prints of your favourite edible mushroom you wish to grow...the reason I say more than one because you can throw in more spores for faster and better chances of colonisation.

*Plastic syringes...20ml ones with 18 or 21 gauge needles and caps, available from most chemists for relatively cheap cost.

*6 or more 300ml straight sided glass jars..dependent on how much spawn you wish to make. Straight sided are necessary as it helps get the spawn out when the jar is fully colonised. look in your local supermarket for some cheap sauce like tomato paste etc and find the cheapest ones..use the food for what ever and clean out the jars with soap and water.

*A pressure cooker...the larger the better...means you can sterilise more jars at once...pressure cooker is a must as boiling does not mean sterilising...look on e-bay for them.

*A drill and a 5ml drill bit.

*Silicon sealant.

*A roll of inch wide micro pore tape from chemist.

*A bag of Wild bird seed from any supermarket...WBS for short.

*1 large cooking pot..the largest you have is needed.

*1 normal to small cooking pot with matching lid.

*1 box of latex gloves from chemist.

*1 bottle of bleach and some anti bacterial wipes or alcohol wipes hospital grade from chemist.

*1 flat blade knife and table spoon.

*1 small tea cup sized sieve.

*1 roll of aluminum foil and some rubber bands.

*1 colander for straining and rinsing WBS.

*1 or 2 depending on amount you are growing, plastic tubs with lids...preferably 6 inch deep tubs with snap on lids..available from most 2 dollar shops.

*1 large 95 litre or 70 litre plastic storage tub with snap on or clip on lid to made into a fruiting chamber.

*1 bag of straw or sugar cane straw mulch.

*1 small bag of lime..OPTIONAL

*1 bag of killarney peat moss..OPTIONAL

*1 bag of Vermiculite small size grade..OPTIONAL...these 3 items are used to case the substrate and are pasturised.

*Instructions for making spore solution syringes

Firstly if you have purchased your syringes from a pharmacy they are completely sterile, now measure how much water it takes to fill how ever many syringes of spore solution you are going to make. Put this water in the small pot and set it to come to the boil on the stove with the lid on...use distilled water from store bought bottles. Once water has come to a boil turn off stove and leave water to cool to room temperature. Boil some more water on another ring with the flat blade knife in it and let it cool with the lid on too.

Once water has cooled to room temperature it is time to make your spore solution. Glove your hands with gloves you purchased from pharmacy and wipe them thoroughly with anti bacterial wipes. take your spore print and working very quickly get the sterilised knife out of other pot and scrape all the spores from the print or prints into the spore water...stir them around in the water nice and quickly and get them all wet and mixed into the water evenly. Place lid back on pot. Now open only the plastic syringe packet...do not connect the needle or open it with its cap...just open the syringe is all....now gently tilt the pot of spore water so all the spore filled water gathers into one corner..place something under the handle to free up your hands if need be. Quickly wipe your gloved hands again with antibacterial wipes. take lid off spore water pot and the quickly suck up enough of the spore water to fill the syringe say 80% full....do not fill it to the max...you need room to shake the solution at a later date. Once you have sucked up the spore solution place pot lid back on and then quickly clip on the needle with its cap onto the syringe tip. Do this again till all your syringes are used up and your spore water is gone...if there is some left ...don't worry just leave it for now. Place your spore solution filled syringes in large zip lock bags and lock them up and place into the fridge for re hydration....approx 24 hrs minimum before use but can be left for a couple of months or more sometimes.

You now have sterile spore syringes ready to inoculate your grain with...

* Preparing WBS grain and sterilising jars ready for inoculation.

take your bag of wild bird seed and throw it all into your large pot and fill with enough water to cover the seed by about 4inches approx. seed needs to re hydrate ...so what we do now is stir the seed when its in the water and get all the floaters and crappy shells and bits of crap out of the seed mix. Use your small tea cup sized sieve to collect every single floating seed and toss them out...in the garden or in the bin or compost heaps what ever. Go back and stir occasionally to find more floaters and dispose of them all again till there are absolutely no floaters or bits left. Place lid on WBS in pot and leave for 24 hours. Whilst this is happening we will sterilise our glass jars and get them sparkling clean ready for the grain the next day....so place as many jars half filled with water into the pressure cooker and place enough water in the cooker to run for 1 hour. Set oven timer so you don't forget. Turn off pressure cooker and remove jars when cool and place upside down on some paper towels somewhere clean. Do this till all your jars are cleaned and pressure cooked. now we are going to take all the lids and drill 2 holes in the lids of every jar. Drill one hole in the direct centre and one to one side in between the middle hole and the edge of the lid...clean up drilling of holes with cutters and make holes nice and clean with no dags or bits of metal hanging off anywhere. the middle hole is used for squirting our spore solution into so we are going to squeeze some silicon sealant on this hole and gently cut a piece of micro pore tape and stick it over the silicon so its flat...some silicon will get pushed inside the lid...scrape off with a knife and remove and make neat. The second hole simply cover with an inch by inch piece of micro pore tape...this is our air exchange hole...you can actually drill another hole and have 3 holes but it's personal preference and 1 seems to work well enough. Now your jars are ready to be filled with WBS.

after 24 hrs of soaking has taken place we need to rinse the seed through a colander so place your colander into the sink and pour your WBS and water from the pot into your large colander...make sure the holes are not to large so as to let the seed through... ...now run cold water over the seed in the colander and swish and clean it really really really really good until the water coming through the colander from the seed is totally clear and no more starchy coloured water is coming out....use a wooden spoon if you need to swish it around the seed to get it all clean....this part is very important as it can be where we get dirty shitty seed into the jars and can lead to our friends the contaminates.

Now let the seed sit over the sink and let all the water drain out completely....raise the colander up and down to force out any extra water ...leave for five minutes over the sink to make sure all excess water is released. Now it's time to fill our clean jars with our WBS. Glove your hands and use a sterilised spoon that you boiled and let cool and start spooning into each jar roughly enough seed to fill each jar 3/4 full...do not fill them all the way. Fill them all 3/4 until all jars have WBS in them. get your aluminum foil and cut a piece for each jar the size of the opening ...so a size like 100ml by 100ml square is good...now poke a small hole through the foil so the air exchange hole can breath and place that over the opening of the lid and then screw on the lid of the jar over the foil and the foil will twist on and act as a secondary protective layer between the seed and the lid. Do this with all jars. Now get another 100ml wide by 100ml wide peice of foil and place it over the lid of the jar and put a rubber band around it to hold it tightly in place around and over the lid...make it neat and tight. Do this with all your jars. Now your jars are ready for pressure cooking...so place as many as you can into the cooker and fill cooker with enough water to last an hour and a half...don't put so much water the jars float around and bang into each other ...they will crack and brake if you do that...they need to stand up inside the cooker and not move around too much. Turn stove on high and wait till your cooker starts hissing and then set timer for 90 mins or if you like 1 hr at least or 2 is more than enough. Once cooker has finished and time is up take cooker off stove and leave to cool for a few hours or at least till you can release the pressure and remove the lid without burning yourself. take out jars and set aside to cool to completly room temperature...remove the top foil layer after cooling so your air exchange hole can breath and then continue with more jars till all your jars of WBS are sterilised.

*inoculating jars with spore solution.

Once all your jars are cooled its now time to inoculate them with spore solution from your syringes. take your syringes out of the fridge and let them come down to room temperature...now we want to shake the syringes and get the spores all flying around in side the syringe...this is why we don't fill them all the way to the top. now take the syringe and remove the cap covering the needle with gloved and wiped downed with antibacterial wipes...take a jar and insert the needle into the central hole where the silicon is ...insert the needle and tilt jar gently and aim the needle so it will squirt solution around the edges of the inside of the jar right at the top of where the WBS is...squirt enough to go all the way around the inside of the jar so you can see it dribble down the sides of the seed inside the jar...one syringe full should do about 4 jars...when you remove the needle and go to do the next jar wipe it clean with a paper towel that is soaked in bleach..have this ready and handy and do it for each jar so you don't cross contaminate a jar....the silicon will seal up the small pin prick you have made where you inoculated the jar. Do this for every jar till they are all done...do not put to much solution in so as to make it too wet inside the jar or it will simply collect at the bottom and cause rot to the seed. Once all the jars are done give them all a real good shake and bang them down on a folded tea towel so all the seed re settles and none is hanging around on the edges up high....we want all the seed to stay together and neatly. You have now inoculated WBS jars and can now store them somewhere dark and warm to colonise. it's preferable to place them all in a plastic tub and then wrap a small childrens woolen blanket around the tub and then inside a nice warm cupboard...if you have a heat pad place the tub on the heat pad on low so as to keep things nice and warm. Check on the jars after about 3-5 days and look for any signs of mycelium growth....at this point if you see a little in each jar give them all a good shake and bang them down again on a towel for the seed to settle...it's not necessary but can help speed up things. After about 10-15 days your jars should be fully colonised and should look a wonderful white and every seed is covered with mycelium....if so you have successfully created mushroom spawn ready to mix into your substrate.

* Creating and preparing straw substrate and layering spawn.

this TEK calls for a substrate of straw only and is very easy and reduces the risk of contamination's very good. Grab handfulls of straw and fill up your pressure cooker with as much as you can stuff into it and fill cooker with water and place lid on pressure cooker and sterilise for 1 hour and let cool to room temperature. Your substrate tub is the 6 inch deep tub with lid....prepare this tub by drilling 4 holes around the sides of the tub and covering with micro pore tape..use a bigger drill bit and make 2 holes either side of the tub about half way up...roughly about where the straw and spawn will fill up to. Clean out tub with full strength bleach and a paper towel thoroughly including the lid...also make a hole in the lid and cover it with micro pore tape. Now place this tub next to the pressure cooker and have your spawn jars lids cracked open slightly ready for scooping out with a sterilised spoon. Now glove your hands and wipe them down as usual...open the pressure cooker lid and grab a handful of the wet straw and squeeze most of the water out of it...pack it into the tub and pack it down flat and hard...now grab the sterilised spoon and spoon out a full jar of spawn and layer it across the straw in the tub...do this again till you have layers of straw, spawn, straw, spawn, staw and finally spawn again....now pack this shit down hard...you can use a clean CD and flatten it down hard and compress it good...once you have done this place lid on tub....continue onto other tubs if you have more straw and spawn...usually 3 jars of spawn and a full pressure cooker of straw will do one plastic tray...so if you have intentions to do more you will need to arrange more straw and more tubs to accommodate the other jars of spawn. Now that you have a tub of spawned substrate you need to place this tub somewhere dark and warm and again wrap it in a blanket....check it daily and after about 2 days you could take the lid off and waft some fresh air into the tub...use a plastic ice cream container lid as a fan to waft the air in and out. Within about a week all the straw should be totally colonised and completely white...if so it is now time to case with pasturised peat and vermiculite about 1 inch thick or simply place your tray into your big 95 litre fruiter tub. The fruiter should have 3 holes around the sides with micropore tape and the lid needs a 100ml by 100ml square hole cut out and covered with micro pore tape as well...clean the entire inside of fruiter with bleach thoroughly well including the inside of the lid. Place you tray of colonised substrate inside the fruiter with out its lid and then put the fruiting chamber lid on and expose the chamber to light...just room light is enough...nothing fancy is required light wise at all...although if the light is directional your fruits will grow towards it meaning they will tilt. Now every day at least 3 times a day waft some fresh air into the fruiter and quickly replace the lid....to fruit temps need to be in the mid twenties so if you have a very cold room put a heater on in the room during the day and turn it off at night when the lights go out to create a pseudo day night atmosphere. If all things are good and there are no contaminations you will want to start seeing pins...the first forming tops of the mushroom...be patient they can take up to 2 weeks sometimes but also can be seen in less a than a week. occasionally give a very very light misting from a spray bottle with water but not to much...once the pins come the fruits grow very quickly and you should be able to harvest them about 5 days after. Doing tubs like this means that you will get several flushes and larger yields...the substrate will eventually start to dry up and pull away from the sides...you can if you are careful pour some water around the edges where it has pulled away to re hydrate the substrate...I have seen this work spectacularly and produce 3 more massive flushes.

whew...I hope this all helps and answers all those questions people want to know about cultivating edible mushrooms and beating contaminations.

I will come back and add photo's of equipment at some point and answer any questions obviously....

this TEK is proven and is easy and its an amazing yielder...the casing layer is optional and IMO can introduce contaminations at surface level....therefore this TEK does not require a casing but you can if you want.

thanks for reading and happy growing...

H.

Edited May 28, 2009 by Hunab Ku

[mac]

Thanks very much M8 i had alot of fun as a kid with the store bought mushroom kits my nan kept in the back shed so i may have to give this a go

Any opinions & or explanations if there would be any advantage of using a weak seaweed fert or any other additives in the soaking of WBS or Straw, i did happen to read a tek about lime & or gypsum being added to WBS in one thread on another forum, but that was more about speeding up the soaking process i think ? dose it also add some nutrient content ?

Edited May 27, 2009 by mac

[Chiral]

Thanks very much M8 i had alot of fun as a kid with the store bought mushroom kits my nan kept in the back shed so i may have to give this a go

Any opinions if there would be any advantage of using a weak seaweed fert or any other additives in the soaking of WBS or Straw, i did happen to read a tek about lime & or gypsum being added to WBS in one thread on another forum, but that was more about speeding up the soaking process i think ?

No fertilisers needed and the lime is just a buffer for the casing to adjust the ph but it's all a bit MEH in my opinion...like I say don't take short cuts or don't experiment with the TEK as it works and that's the whole point....once you have successfully grown your edibles then... if there are somethings you think may improve the yield or size etc then go for it but if you stick to this TEK word for word and don't deviate then you will succeed.

H.

[mac]

Cheers good advice why try to fix whats not broken

Great info that even i can understand & follow :

Edited May 28, 2009 by mac

[santiago]

well done, great thread/post.....this should keep noobs busy at bunnings and terry white for the next few weeks, top stuff : )

[PD.]

pasteurising straw rather than sterilising it will greatly reduce the chance of contams. Also, no need to double sterilise your jars to begin with or spoon or wear gloves for that matter when doing the first steps, ie, filling the jars with seed, the sterilisation of the jars with seed in them is all it takes. You can be fairly sloppy till ya get to that stage!

A dish cloth on the inside bottom of the PC is a good idea too, the seed can cook/scorch sometimes due to the bottom heat.

What is the point of AE holes if you have two layers of aluminium foil?

where do you inoculate. IE, what part of the house or room will be the best to avoid air currents filled with contams that will cause problems?

How often do you mist the fruiting chamber and is this done before, during or after fruiting?

How do you know if RH is too much or too little when fruiting occurs?

In your experience does casing improve or degrade yield and why in your opinion does a casing increase risk of contams?

[Alchemica]

Thanks for writing all that up Hunab. Just what I was looking for!

Cheers.

[Chiral]

pasteurising straw rather than sterilising it will greatly reduce the chance of contams.

yeah a lot of people say this but have found sterilising the straw has not shown any signs of contams since being done and when pasturising have found contams to be an issue...possibly not pasturising properly...which lets face it is a little hit and miss and tricky when you have to have the temps bang on for a certain period to pasturise and the attempts in the past have failed...since sterilising began 0=contams...it comes down to a preferance at the end of day.

Also, no need to double sterilise your jars to begin with or spoon or wear gloves for that matter when doing the first steps, ie, filling the jars with seed, the sterilisation of the jars with seed in them is all it takes. You can be fairly sloppy till ya get to that stage!

I can agree somewhat but it really does help to overly clean than to give contams anychance...there could be and amounts of old bits of rust or food etc..trapped around the rim of jar and lid etc...but your right you don't have to but have found that it's an extra step that has worked and the old saying if it works then stick with it.

A dish cloth on the inside bottom of the PC is a good idea too, the seed can cook/scorch sometimes due to the bottom heat.

Yes definately a good idea..some cookers have a raised tray which helps too.

What is the point of AE holes if you have two layers of aluminium foil?

The inside layer is purely a second line of defence inside is all....may seem over the top but like I say it doesn't hurt to be extra clean and have fencelines for protection....I also forgot to add in the TEK that the inside layer of foil needs a hole poked in it so the air exchange hole works... ..silly me forgot to mention..I'll re enter that in the TEK...also the layer of foil over the top of the lid is removed after sterilisation too so air flow can get through our AE hole...my bad I forgot to mention that as well.

where do you inoculate. IE, what part of the house or room will be the best to avoid air currents filled with contams that will cause problems?

Good question...a lot of this work can be done in the kitchen and wipe down everything with bleach or methylated spirits or acetone or cleaning vinegar etc...the bathroom is also a great place as it's usually all tiles which prevents dust coming up from carpet etc...close all doors and windows and the thing is you do have to think about airflow constantly. Working over the stove with an oven ring turned on low and a cookie cooling tray placed over the ring and use that as a working bench if you like as the heat from the ring has all the hot air rising so it helps prevent dust and particles floating and dropping into your jars and tubs etc.

How often do you mist the fruiting chamber and is this done before, during or after fruiting?

This one is tricky..have had success with no misting at all...if the substarte is the right moisture and you have just enough air flow through the fruiter and substrate tub misting is not always necessarry...it's not a good idea at all to spray and mist mycelium once it has colonised the surface of the straw...this CAN lead to contams....have misted very very lightly on the odd accaision but not mist the myc more like a fine mist into the air in the chamber maybe 1 or 2 mists with the spray bottle set on maximum mist not letting it squirt water all over the substrate like a hose.

How do you know if RH is too much or too little when fruiting occurs?

The thing about this tek is it calls for no perlite on the bottom and no fancy filters or misting machines or even RH meters...pretty much everytime the tub is placed into the fruiter there is only ever a really really fine layer of moisture on the sides of the fruiting chamber....don't forget there are 6 x1 inch holes all around the sides of the fruiter 3 on each side at substrate level and another big hole in the lid all covered with micro pore tape...it seems to keep the RH at about 80-90% which is fine...plus 3 or 4 fresh air exchanges a day to release the CO2 out off the substrate surface. Ambient room temp is corrected with an oil heater or air conditioning if you have it..central heating etc...

In your experience does casing improve or degrade yield and why in your opinion does a casing increase risk of contams?

tricky one cause there have been tubs done with no case and there was no contams and there was tubs cased and half of them contaminated right on the surface ( trich, cobweb and orange mould) and casing was simply pasturised peat and verm...as you can tell beating contams and getting fruits is what the grower is after and have not had a great deal of success with pasturisation and casing in the past ...have experimented with a slow cooker lately to pasturise some peat moss and that actually worked as a casing layer....some say the pin set is more even when cased but at this stage I can't comment...when working with spores pinsets will allways we all over the place...if you working with clones, pinsets should be even particularly with this TEK as it's all simply straw. I might add that the straw is in very small pieces in this tek...I mean the longest pieces are about 2inches long maximum.

There are many teks around and have tried all the fancy ones and finally came to this one as it continually gave product and when you find something that works I like to stick to it.... a big tip when doing this stuff...keep all your tubs, jars everything out of carpeted rooms and rooms with lots of airflow and windows..these conditions WILL help contamination's occur.

H.

Edited May 27, 2009 by Hunab Ku

[holymountain]

hey dude thanks for taking the time to type up the tek. very helpful and a great contribution to these forums.

currently i have a few tubs of straw that are being very aggresivley collonised but i've also noticed some very thin white hair like stuff appearing on top of the straw. it doesn't seem to be cobweb as cobweb is more fuzzy in my experience. this stuff is like lots of single strands of hair. i'm wondering if this is a contam or maybe it's just thin parts of straw? either way there is nothing green popping up yet and that's got to be a good thing..

peace.

[Chiral]

mmmm white hair like stuff....dunno unless I see it what that could be....any pics...just make sure its all packed down really hard and evenly...the flatter and more and harder the straw is packed down the better...straw will colonise aggressively on it's own thats for sure thats what is so good about it...most edibles simply go mad over it...the best part about that is that it beats contams so quick that they don't get a chance...once the whole top layer is colonised stick in the fruiter or case thinly with peat and some lime either is okay but IMO a casing can introduce a contam so it's up to you...glad to hear it's going so well...fingers crossed now huh.

H.

[rogdog]

regarding the inoculating phase, roughly how many mls does a person inject per 300ml jar?

[edit] ok, just re-read, 20 mls over 4 jars

[edit] I think this tek should be stickyed, but I will keep bumping it as necessary

Edited June 19, 2009 by rogdog

[Chiral]

1 X 20ml syringe should cover 4 jars...insert syringe in central hole with silicon in and aim towards the very edge of the jars right where the WBS starts and gently squeeze rotating the jar till spore solution has completed 1 full circle of the jar and you can see it dripping and running down the sides of the jar amongst the WBS.

Don't forget that at this time of year, unless you can heat the ambient temperature constantly at around 27 degrees it will be most difficult to complete grow.

H.

[Chiral]

Someone asked me recently about how to get spores off a print and how to innoculate jars so I told em I'd write it here for them.

When first starting it is a little difficult to know how to get the spores off the print..

-The best way I've found is to boil some water in a saucepan with the lid on...turn it off and let cool to room temp and leave the lid on.

-Take the print and open it a little and place it inside a plastic zip lock bag.

-Take your sterile syringe and suck up some of the water from the pot into it.

-Squirt the water into the baggie whilst having it just barely open.

-Now close the zip part and squish the water around inside the bag and rub the spores off the print into the water.

-Once all the spores have been removed off the foil etc and are in the water it should look purple.

-Now suck up the spores through the bag into the syringe, make sure to not overfill the syringe cause you want to be able to shake the fliud and spores around inside the syringe.

-Once your syringe is full, you can do another or simply place the cap on the neeedle, place syringe in a plastic or brown paper bag and then into the fridge or a dark cupboard.

-Allow 48 hrs before using spores as they need to hydrate again.

Happy innoculating.

[ThunderIdeal]

awesome tip

[tripsis]

Just scraping a small section off with a scalpel blade or inoculation loop works well and leaves the rest of the print intact for later use.

[ThunderIdeal]

i'm guessing the advantage here is the print doesn't get much chance to be contaminated from the air.

[tripsis]

A still air box takes care of that, as does a laminar flow hood (if you're lucky enough to have one).

A problem with the method that Chiral describes it that unless the outside of the print (or rather whatever the print is inside) is completely sterile, you'll be mixing in contaminants with the spore solution. Considering that you need to handle the print to make it, open it, etc, it is unlikely to be sterile.

Edited February 2, 2010 by tripsis

[ThunderIdeal]

oh yeah.

*back to not posting in these sort of threads*

[Listo]

A still air box takes care of that, as does a laminar flow hood (if you're lucky enough to have one).

A problem with the method that Chiral describes it that unless the outside of the print (or rather whatever the print is inside) is completely sterile, you'll be mixing in contaminants with the spore solution. Considering that you need to handle the print to make it, open it, etc, it is unlikely to be sterile.

 

So, a safer option would be to divide a print between different agar dishes and see which dishes get contaminated and which are clean?

[tripsis]

You simply don't need to use the whole print. There are millions of spores in a print, far more than you would need to start a grow. So scraping off a small section and using those spores makes more sense.

Starting on agar is always a good idea, as it allows you to both ascertain whether the cultures are contaminant free, as well as allowing for basic strain selection to be carried out, if so desired. There is no need to divide the whole print amongst several plates though, just scrape an inoculating loop over the print, then wipe it over the agar in a "z" shape. You don't even need to see the spores for there to be plenty present.

[Chiral]

A still air box takes care of that, as does a laminar flow hood (if you're lucky enough to have one).

A problem with the method that Chiral describes it that unless the outside of the print (or rather whatever the print is inside) is completely sterile, you'll be mixing in contaminants with the spore solution. Considering that you need to handle the print to make it, open it, etc, it is unlikely to be sterile.

 

tripsis I didn't ask you to post and ridicule the methods...if you have a way you do things then fine this is just a way for beginners to learn and I'd prefer if you didnt clog it up with intermeadiate or professional print skills...your just confusing things now...it's a thread for beginners..why are you being a man and takling about agar and plates etc...

[tripsis]

Firstly, I'm not ridiculing your method Chiral, get off the defensive. I'm simply put my opinion out there. This is what are discussions are about, no? I don't see how scraping a section off a print and using that is any more complicated for a beginner than what you described.

Secondly, I didn't bring up agar, Listo did, I'm just answering his question.

[Chiral]

sorry wrong side of the bed today for me...damn lazy ass people around me.

[Distracted]

Hey I just want to clarify a few things in your tek that I don't think are quite accurate.

Now look, if someone followed your tek to a T they'd get results. I can easily see your tek would work!

It just could work a bit better using a little bit less effort is all

First off as someone else pointed out, double sterilizing your jars is a waste of time, everything dies in the second sterilization anyway so no point in trying to kill it before that point as well.

Second, The alfoil over the jars when they're put into the Pressure Cooker is to prevent water dripping onto the top of the lids and possibly contaminating the micropore tape (although i use polyfil ) as when it's wet it's a viable medium for the spread of contamination. Once you've pressure cooked the jars you can then remove the alfoil in order to achieve optimum gas exchange during colonization. Putting a hole in the alfoil and leaving it on confuses me.

Third, the more spores injected into a jar the more they have to compete against each other for nutrients once they've germinated. Less can actually be better in this case. The tiniest black dot of clumped spores contains way more spores than you'll ever need, and you spread the mycelium out when you shake after colonization anyway... which is my next point.

Fourth, You should shake once it's 25-30% colonized in order to reduce colonization time not as soon as you see white, it just spreads the mycelium that much further.

Although i've never actually shaken my jars straight away... have you tried both ways?

As I said before, they're not huge problems, just little things I picked up in a whooole lot of writing.

BTW adding gypsum to WBS during the soak can help to prevent clumping during the shake and also speeds up colonization.

Good thread.

Edited February 2, 2010 by Distracted

[tripsis]

Third, the more spores injected into a jar the more they have to compete against each other for nutrients once they've germinated for formed viable mycelium.

Can you provide evidence to support that statement? It is common to find more than one substrain in a single fruitbody, evidence that mycelia with different genotypes do not compete against one another, but can in fact work together and act like a single organism. It's true that more spores are not necessarily better, but I don't think that your reasoning is correct. Rather, the more genetic variability you have in a grow, the less reliable the results will be.

Edit: Chiral, no probs. The more discussion there is, the more we all learn.

Edited February 2, 2010 by tripsis