So to make a story short I burned the shit out of the substrate in the bottom of all five of my jars. Will the mycelium still grow on it or do I have to throw all these jars out and wait another 2 days to inoculate?
Inoculate what you have sterile now. You don't want sterilized substrate sitting around. You're gonna have to toss the burned ones, though.
Then you're going to have to start over. I've done this myself. The trick is to monitor your water levels if you're using a pot (I'm assuming you are, PCs lose very little water.
Yeah the pot needs to be re watered like every 20 minutes. Well that sucks but the jars were only 9 bucks for 12, and I still have 7 more. I'm a little worried about the fineness of the vermiculite though. It's finer then the vermiculite I've seen in any teks.
Fine verm works just fine. Just use a little less water because it's got more surface area. You can also buy your own vermiculite and BRF since you already have jars. It's extremely easy to make a suitable substrate.
I bought everything separately. It was easy, it's just I have to dodge my mom, so I can't do everything in a day then inoculate the next day.
what if the substrate is a tad bit darker than if it were boiled? will it still colonize if it is slightly browned and not burnt?
I agree with starting over. it is pointless to invest more time into something that has a high chance of failure, since burning your substrate fucks up the nutrient content.
Mycelium is unlikely to colonize the burned substrate. This means you are likely to get a contamination when it's spawning or fruiting time.
