Mushroom Stealth Grow

You haven't a clue what you are talking about or the first thing about mushroom cultivation

Basidiomycetes (mushroom producing fungi) have evolved to produce billions of spores at a time...... why do you think that is? Because the odds of any of those spores ever landing in a nurturing environment, germinating and successfully beating out other molds and bacteria to colonize a nutrient substrate and produce mushrooms of it's own are probably 100 million to 1.

We sterilize the substrate and use sterile techniques in order to shift the odds from a astronomical 100 million to 1 to much much better odds.

All youll ever grow with your method is mold and wetspot bacteria

 

I've only done PF cakes so far, and I use a one hour steam bath since my PC is too small to hold enough jars. I'll be buying a larger PC and moving on to trying bulk grain and other more advanced techniques soon.

Have you ever used barley as a substrate ? I have lots of it since I brew my own beer.

 

This should help explain it.

 

A grain bag has a lot more grain in it then a quart jar does so it takes longer to colonize and may begin to dry out before the bag has fully colonized but you can speed the process along by breaking up the clumps of mycellium every few days as they form to redistribute the colonized kernels throughout the bag to move things along.

Once you have a colonize grain jar or grain bag you will want to make a bulk substrate. Start by mixing EWC and coconut coir (or vermiculite) at a ratio of 50:50 in a large bowl. Add water to this until the mixture is at field capacity. You can determine this by squeezing a handful of the substrate. If a drop or two falls out of the clump when you squeeze it them it is at the proper moisture content.

Now load this mix into some disposable foil baking pans (the ones with the lid that back be pinched down so it is tight)

Tighten the lid as tight as you can and place this into a preheated oven and bake for 4 hours at 180F. This will pasturize the substrate. After 4 hours turn off the oven and let the pans cool down naturally over night.


The next day take a fresh foil baking pan (try to find a deep one about 2-4 inches deep) and while wearing latex gloves pour in some of your pasturized substrate and some of your colonize grain spawn. You want to mix them by hand at a ratio of about one cup of grain spawn to 4-6 cups of pasturized substrate. Mix them together completely and fill the tray to about 3/4 of an inch from the top and pinch the lid on tight and let sit for 5 days and then check on it. It should be 90%-100% colonized.

Then make up some more coconut coir and saturate to field capacity like you did the bulk substrate. Load this into a foil pan and bake at 180F for 4 hours.

Let it cool down and then lay a 1/2" layer of this (again while wearing gloves) on top of your colonized substrate as evenly as you can. There should be a small gap between the top of the casing and the top of the pan as you do not want the lid pressing against the casing layer (it can compress it and lead to overlay).

Now put the lid back on tight and let it incubate again for 5 days. Now your casing layer should be 50+% colonized (it is important to birth the casing when the casing layer is only 50% colonized because it will continue to colonize up until the casing starts to bear fruit. Usually there is a timeframe of 5-7 days between when you start the fruiting process and when you first get pins so for 5-7 days the casing will continue to colonize and should be at 100% by fruiting time)

Birth the casing into a tupperware container and mist the walls until saturated. You are looking to keep the humidity around 90%-95% to slow evaporation off the casing layer in order to hold in moisture.

Three times a day take the lid off the tupperware container and use it to fan the inside of the container for 10 seconds or so. Fungi use oxygen and excrete CO2 just like you and I do and we are trying to keep the air fresh inside the tupperware container to 1) Trigger the fungi to go from vegetative growth to reproductive growth by lowering the CO2 levels and 2) To discourage bacteria that thrive in stagnant anaerobic conditions.

After you have fanned the tupperware container use a spray bottle mister to remist the walls of the container and shoot a few squirts into the air over the casing so that the moisture falls gentle onto the casing like dew (do not spray the mist directly at the casing layer as you can over saturate it and seal up the pores in it...... which can lead to overlay).

Continue this fanning misting cycle until you get mature fruits. ( usually a week or two)

After you have plucked your mature fruits start to heavily mist your casing to rehydrate it and start the fanning and misting cycle again to get your next flush (mushrooms are 90% water so all those mushrooms you just picked are like little sponges that sucked water out of your substrate.

Usually you can squeeze at least 3-6 flushes out of a casing if you properly hydrate it between flushes.


I hope this helps you.

 

As long as it is whole barely kernels it should work fine. I usually make up a mix of different types of grains for my grain jars and barely is one of the components I use.

Generally I mix millet, red milo, small sunflower seeds, cracked corn, wheat and barley together in roughly equal ratios.

I like to use a mix because I find it easier to get the moisture content right but you can certainly use just one type of grain and have good results.

How do you plan on hydrating your barley?

 

That isn't an option for me. I said I am using pre sterilized materials.
Questions I Still have.

If I get a grow bag will breaking it up after 50% colonization speed up the process? If not I'm fine with getting a jar.

Can I put my colonized substrate in a small tub and case it with that 50/50 mix, and I will be set?

 

Perhaps you're not familiar with quite how fucking toxic isopropanol is.

Small amounts can kill you. Soaking down flour with it would be the spore's or bacteria's equivalent to you swimming in the pacific ocean, if it was made out of iso.

The great thing about iso is it's very toxic, and evaporates very quickly, leaving no toxic residue.

But no, carry on, keep spraying lysol (which is very toxic, and doesn't break down or evaporate) around the mushrooms you're going to eat, and pretend that the air's not still full of crap anyway.

 

Can we not use my thread to argue with each other.

In addition to those unanswered questions, what would be the substrate to casing material ratio?

 

Actually I know exactly how toxic both substances are:

Here are the MSDSs for both

Lysol http://www.hescoinc.com/msds/ly75301.pdf

Iso Alc http://www.jtbaker.com/msds/englishhtml/i8840.htm


Lysol is so benign that it doesn't even list any toxological information because the stuff is about as toxic as milk.

And iso alcohol is stated to require 8 ounces of 90%-100% concentration to equal a lethal dose and exposing yourself to large quantities of vapor for extended periods of time is very unhealthy without a organic vapor respirator.... but I am sure you already knew that being such a smart guy.


And I don't use lysol...... I use 10% bleach solution when sterilizing surfaces.

 

Come on its getting annoying.

 

I'm not seeing that msds compare lysol to milk, I don't wash my hands or wear goggles while or after handling milk.

And yes, I already explained that iso was pretty toxic, which is a GOOD thing in you want to KILL things. And I already said that one should wear a resp, I think you might have even quoted that post, and replied with some baseless nonesense about how it wouldn't work and all I'd grow is mold.

First you say I can't sterilize things, and then you agree with me, that my sterilization agent is VERY toxic, and act like it's some sort of point against me. Try harder?

The whole point of iso is it kills EVERYTHING, and then it totally evaporates, which means if you have a relatively clean room that exhausts seperately from the rest of your house, you can sterilize everything with no heat at all.

By comparison, lysol, bleach, etc, stay in and on everything they touch. Again, iso evaporates very quickly.

 

RooRShack you are much more intelligent than this troll, don't feed him.

I want to make an order today so final advice please.

I want to get the 1lb bag of rye. if I break it up after 50% colonization will it speed up the process?

Second I want to get 3 Quarts of 50/50+ Peat/Verm Casing Mix, will that be enough to case the 1 lb bag?

How many inches should the casing layer be?

 

Yes iso alcohol is very toxic.... and kills ALMOST everything.

So you soak your flour in iso alcohol and then let it evaporate.... I get the theory and can understand how you think this will work.

But how are you going to keep fresh mold spores and bacteria from settling on your rice after the alcohol has evaporated to a concentration that it is no longer effective. No matter now clean you make a room... even if you wash ever surface with disinfectant and run a hepa filter you will not be able to get all airborne microbes.

Then once your flour is "sterilized" what are you going to use to rehydrate the flour and vermiculite? Boiled water?

Won't work because of the most common contamination. Bacillus spp. bacteria produces endospores which is the reason they are the bane of the mycologist existence. (ie. Wetspot contamination)

"Endospores are resistant to most agents that would normally kill the vegetative cells they formed from. Household cleaning products generally have no effect, nor do most alcohols, quaternary ammonium compounds or detergents. Alkylating agents however, such as ethylene oxide, are effective against endospores."

Here is a explanation of why you need a pressure cooker:

While resistant to extreme heat and radiation, endospores can be destroyed by burning or by autoclaving. Endospores are able to survive boiling at 100°C for hours, although the longer the number of hours the fewer that will survive.

But don't take my word for it...

http://www.shroomery.org/5276/What-are-common-contaminants-of-the-mushroom-culture

http://www.shroomery.org/8431/A-Complete-Guide-to-Cleaning-and-Sanitation#alcoh

 

Ok Toker...... you listen to Roo..... someone that has never grown mushrooms and is relying completely on a untested and misguided theory.

I am washing my hands of you..... best of luck.

 

Dude just buy a grain bag and knock it up.. Learn some Liquid Culture teks. Shit is so fly you will never buy another spore sample / unless you want to change species up..

I only use Iso on inoculation ports., because everything else has been taken care of by reputable vendors.. all that pressure cooker stuff is for someone with patience. Not me..

 

RooRshack doesn't know anything about growing shrooms, he admitted he's never grown any in this thread.

I've done 5 succesful grows and only lost 1 out of 50 jars, and grainpsilo has far more experience than I have, but we're the trolls ?

Good luck with RooRshack giving you cultivation advice.

 

even having some patience.. ive aborted many jars, its just not working out. When you lose 50dollars in spores its time to have someone else help you., or just keep tossing money away til you get it right..

 

Orison i like the way you think. I dont mean you grainspillo is a troll as in he doesn't know about growing he just continues to argue his point across when i say i am not making my own substrate.

Oh i already ordered a 1lb rye bag and bought 1 syringe got one free:afro:. Any method i can do instead of growing it straight out of the bag?

 

once its fully colonized you can build your bulk substrate. Other than that. Its best to leave them fruit in the bag.. Break it up a few time when first colonizing begins. says 20% break it up good/ DO NOT OPEN BAG/ break it up again when its 50% and the last.. this should allow the moisture content in the bag to even out. It should be warm and beads of water should build up in the bag. Flick them back down with snapping your finger on the bag.
Bags are the easiest grow method I think there is. Other than walking in fields and finding them.
When they being to fruit and look stalling, cut open bag so you can close it back up/ Do not block air port, or leave it where it will get no fresh air. Add a cup of water from the tap to the bag. It will then fruit like crazy, stick it in the light but not burning sun.

dont open it til it fruits. bags will fruit 2 or more times.. you will have more mushrooms than youll know what to do with..

The bags are not animal proof, you cant lay it in the woods, cause a smart critter will get into it. Skunk, coons.. ect.. trust me on that one...