I have a minor dilemma. I have 25 jars incubating right now, and the cakes are not totally colonized, but it looks like there is some overlay going on. What should I do about this? I am going to case the cakes with 50/50, which makes me think the overlay won't be as much of a problem, because I intend on breaking them up. The plan so far is to cold shock them overnight, then do the casings tomorrow. Any help would be appreciated.
First, don't cold shock. P. cubensis is not a species that benefits from cold shocking. Dunk them overnight underwater in the refrigerator (which is not the same thing as cold shocking, if that is what you were intending to do). Putting them in the refrigerator isn't even important, but the lower temperatures stave off bacteria, as is the case with the refrigerated food you eat. Second, you have overlay confused with something else. Overlay is when a casing layer is colonized too much and the dead mycellium hinders fruiting. Do you mean that the mycellium has colonized some of the vermiculite at the top of your jars? If that is the case, just brush off whatever falls off easily. If you are going to case them, then you should probably crumble them anyway, so this doesn't matter very much. It doesn't matter in other contexts either, so don't worry if this is the situation.
