First Mushroom Grow!

MJG420

MJG420

Well-Known Member
I have been playing with the idea of growing my own mushrooms for awhile now and finally decided what the hell!!! I ordered my spores today from micro-supply.com. I got B+ (as i have herd they are good to start with) and the PES Hawaiian, supposed to get a third for free but have no idea what they will be. Going to spend the next week getting the rest of my supplies together while I wait for the spores to be delivered. So far my game play is to use 1/2 pint jars to incubate/colonize my spores and vermiculite and brown rice flower as a substrate. I plan to make a "clean box" out a rubbermaid tub to prevent contamination when inoculating my jars, and a 2nd to birth/fruit my cakes in once colonized. Any advice/suggestions or alternate methods I should try would be greatly appreciated.
 
Peezo lo gro

Peezo lo gro

New Member
Man I never thought of this but to have you own homemade shroom tea would be the ultimate! I guess manure needs to be in the equation somewhere.
 
Mookjong

Mookjong

Well-Known Member
Do you have a pressure cooker? If not, get one.

What tek are you gonna follow? Sounds like a PF style tek.

I'm a fan of whole rye grain (whole kernel popcorn seems to be a good substitute) in 1qt jars for spawn.

cased in 50/50 verm/coir. fruited in a large tub with perlite in the bottom.
 
Xrangex

Xrangex

Well-Known Member
MJG420 said:
I have been playing with the idea of growing my own mushrooms for awhile now and finally decided what the hell!!! I ordered my spores today from micro-supply.com. I got B+ (as i have herd they are good to start with) and the PES Hawaiian, supposed to get a third for free but have no idea what they will be. Going to spend the next week getting the rest of my supplies together while I wait for the spores to be delivered. So far my game play is to use 1/2 pint jars to incubate/colonize my spores and vermiculite and brown rice flower as a substrate. I plan to make a "clean box" out a rubbermaid tub to prevent contamination when inoculating my jars, and a 2nd to birth/fruit my cakes in once colonized. Any advice/suggestions or alternate methods I should try would be greatly appreciated.
Click to expand...
Grats on the spores coming man, should be fun as hell. 1 suggestion: Get some perlite, get enough to cover the bottom layer of the tub and put it in a strainer, then put it under the sink and saturate it, put it in the tub you'll be fruiting in, then cover the wet perlite with about 1/2 inch of dry perlite. The wet perlite will help keep the humidity up in your fruiting chamber. make sure to put the cakes on a square sheet of foil, and not on the perlite, unless you want shrooms coming out of the bottom.

Also, near the bottom of the fruiting contanier cut out some small holes on each side for carbon dioxide.

Keep it clean! good luck

Peezo lo gro said:
Man I never thought of this but to have you own homemade shroom tea would be the ultimate! I guess manure needs to be in the equation somewhere.
Click to expand...
Nope, no animal shit needed at all
 
MJG420

MJG420

Well-Known Member
Mookjong said:
Do you have a pressure cooker? If not, get one.

What tek are you gonna follow? Sounds like a PF style tek.

I'm a fan of whole rye grain (whole kernel popcorn seems to be a good substitute) in 1qt jars for spawn.

cased in 50/50 verm/coir. fruited in a large tub with perlite in the bottom.
Click to expand...
I thought about maybe using coir as well, maybe do half and half just to see which produces better/quicker. Yes I have a pressure cooker I am going to borrow from a friend when the time comes for it. Are 1qt jars better to use for casing? I was under the impression that 1/2 pint jar would be ideal as you get a smaller more concentrated cake. Then again using a quart size jar filled halfway could also be just as good as the spores would have more oxygen to feed off? So many variables to test and see which works best, this could turn out to be more interesting that I initially thought.




Xrangex said:
Grats on the spores coming man, should be fun as hell. 1 suggestion: Get some perlite, get enough to cover the bottom layer of the tub and put it in a strainer, then put it under the sink and saturate it, put it in the tub you'll be fruiting in, then cover the wet perlite with about 1/2 inch of dry perlite. The wet perlite will help keep the humidity up in your fruiting chamber. make sure to put the cakes on a square sheet of foil, and not on the perlite, unless you want shrooms coming out of the bottom.

Also, near the bottom of the fruiting contanier cut out some small holes on each side for carbon dioxide.

Keep it clean! good luck


Nope, no animal shit needed at all
Click to expand...
I intended to do this in my fruiting chamber, guess I left this part out with my initial overview....That's what happens when you medicate and try to type at the same time:eyesmoke: As far as cutting holes in the side how big do they need to be? From what I have read and seen in videos most use a small drill bit to make a handful of holes around the entire bottom edge just above the perlite.



canndo said:
See the thread on PF tek.
Click to expand...

Thanks I have done so and this is where I have gotten a large majority of my information from :)
 
MJG420

MJG420

Well-Known Member
My spores finally arrived and I am in the process of sterilizing my jars with my substrate. After a little more research I changed things up and decided to use white kernel popcorn to colonize my spores on rather than the verm/brown rice mixture. I will left my jars sit overnight to cool and will be constructing my "glove box" tomorrow to incubate my jars. I ended up with one syringe of B+ and two syringes of PES, figure with the 24 jars of substrate I will have sterilized it will only take one of them for this round going on a .5cc/jar basis. Hopefully all will go well inoculating my jars tomorrow, I plan to spray the HELL out of everything including the glove box with 99% alcohol prior to inoculating my jars. Wish me luck! :-)
 
Mookjong

Mookjong

Well-Known Member
MJG420 said:
My spores finally arrived and I am in the process of sterilizing my jars with my substrate. After a little more research I changed things up and decided to use white kernel popcorn to colonize my spores on rather than the verm/brown rice mixture. I will left my jars sit overnight to cool and will be constructing my "glove box" tomorrow to incubate my jars. I ended up with one syringe of B+ and two syringes of PES, figure with the 24 jars of substrate I will have sterilized it will only take one of them for this round going on a .5cc/jar basis. Hopefully all will go well inoculating my jars tomorrow, I plan to spray the HELL out of everything including the glove box with 99% alcohol prior to inoculating my jars. Wish me luck! :-)
Click to expand...
Tell us where your coming from as far as research. It'll help us help you. If you haven't read the thread "My first class with the golden teacher" you should read it all and watch the video. There is a ton great information there. You'll be able to just follow along as the grower isn't too far ahead of you. He's getting a lot of help from experienced guys and it would save a lot of repeated questions. Read the sticky also canndo keeps putting up great info. I'll be to help as much as I can. e/ apparently you did, I missed that post. Sry:roll:

99% alcohol? No use bleach!! Alcohol will evaporate much faster and will greatly reduce the contact time to living bacteria or organisms. Bleach will adhere and destroy in a sense. If I recall 1 part bleach 10 parts water.
 
Miniie

Miniie

Member
Use a pinch of Gypsum. In my experience, it really helps with the fruit bodies. I don't think you need a glove box, really... I've inoculated tons of jar in my kitchen with no glove box.. Just spray lysol in the air to kill any airborne contams, and i wipe down the area with lysol or alcohol. I wear a pair of gloves and i rub alcohol on my gloved hands.. I wipe the needle down with alcohol and i sterilize it with a flame. I re-sterilize it with a flame after every jar i inoculate. I havent had any contam problems, but you'd probably feel alot safer having it. :) Also, after i innoculate.. i leave the top foil lid off so it only has the foil with the holes through where i innoculated them through so they can get some FAE and that makes em colonize faster.. I dont worry too much because the vermiculite layer on top helps keep contams out. My 2 cents.

Good luck! It's soo much fun and super rewarding <3
 
MJG420

MJG420

Well-Known Member
Mookjong said:
Tell us where your coming from as far as research. It'll help us help you. If you haven't read the thread "My first class with the golden teacher" you should read it all and watch the video. There is a ton great information there. You'll be able to just follow along as the grower isn't too far ahead of you. He's getting a lot of help from experienced guys and it would save a lot of repeated questions. Read the sticky also canndo keeps putting up great info. I'll be to help as much as I can. e/ apparently you did, I missed that post. Sry:roll:

99% alcohol? No use bleach!! Alcohol will evaporate much faster and will greatly reduce the contact time to living bacteria or organisms. Bleach will adhere and destroy in a sense. If I recall 1 part bleach 10 parts water.
Click to expand...

I have read various different threads on the PF Tek and in the past few days I have read more and more about using whole grains, and I have read canndo's thread on the subject as well. Using bleach is a great idea don't know why I didn't think about that before hand, was trying to think of something to use that wouldn't ignite from the flame of a candle(to sterilize my needle). I believe I have also popped into the thread you are talking about and plan to keep up and see what else I can learn.



Miniie said:
Use a pinch of Gypsum. In my experience, it really helps with the fruit bodies. I don't think you need a glove box, really... I've inoculated tons of jar in my kitchen with no glove box.. Just spray lysol in the air to kill any airborne contams, and i wipe down the area with lysol or alcohol. I wear a pair of gloves and i rub alcohol on my gloved hands.. I wipe the needle down with alcohol and i sterilize it with a flame. I re-sterilize it with a flame after every jar i inoculate. I havent had any contam problems, but you'd probably feel alot safer having it. :) Also, after i innoculate.. i leave the top foil lid off so it only has the foil with the holes through where i innoculated them through so they can get some FAE and that makes em colonize faster.. I dont worry too much because the vermiculite layer on top helps keep contams out. My 2 cents.

Good luck! It's soo much fun and super rewarding <3
Click to expand...
The big reason I am using a glove box is because I am doing this at my 67 year old grand mothers house and she has lived here FOREVER no to mention half my cousins and aunt/uncle live here as well and lets just say that after 50+ years in this house it is far from clean. So to prevent ANY potential contams I want to use a glove box so I hopefully have a 90% success rate if not better. Another thing is I did NOT put a hole in the lid of my jar as I intend to crack the lid slightly to inoculate it, should I leave the lid off once I inoculate and cover with say a baggie or just close it back up and open it every so often to allow air exchange? Another BIG question I have is last night I simmered my corn and put it in the PC to sterilize but it appears that there is FAR too much water in the jars now as I did not add any verm to the corn prior to sterilizing. My question is can I open back up my jars and top the off with verm and sterilize them again or should I start over with fresh corn?
 
canndo

canndo

Well-Known Member
MJG420 said:
I have read various different threads on the PF Tek and in the past few days I have read more and more about using whole grains, and I have read canndo's thread on the subject as well. Using bleach is a great idea don't know why I didn't think about that before hand, was trying to think of something to use that wouldn't ignite from the flame of a candle(to sterilize my needle). I believe I have also popped into the thread you are talking about and plan to keep up and see what else I can learn.





The big reason I am using a glove box is because I am doing this at my 67 year old grand mothers house and she has lived here FOREVER no to mention half my cousins and aunt/uncle live here as well and lets just say that after 50+ years in this house it is far from clean. So to prevent ANY potential contams I want to use a glove box so I hopefully have a 90% success rate if not better. Another thing is I did NOT put a hole in the lid of my jar as I intend to crack the lid slightly to inoculate it, should I leave the lid off once I inoculate and cover with say a baggie or just close it back up and open it every so often to allow air exchange? Another BIG question I have is last night I simmered my corn and put it in the PC to sterilize but it appears that there is FAR too much water in the jars now as I did not add any verm to the corn prior to sterilizing. My question is can I open back up my jars and top the off with verm and sterilize them again or should I start over with fresh corn?
Click to expand...

No, don't use the baggie until your substrate is fully colonized, don't let air in until the grain is fully colonized - don't worry about your air exchange. You didn't follow the directions - you must throughly dry the kernels before you cook them - there should be no, absolutely no free water in your jars and you cannot simply pour the water out. Do the process right.
 
Mookjong

Mookjong

Well-Known Member
I use Tyvek postal envelops for a lid instead of the jar's lid. That way it will be easy to puncture. I hand tighten my screw ring then loosen just beyond snug, prior to pressure cooking.

Postal envelops are free!! Get the bigger ones that look as if they are made of a thin mesh instead of paper. Easy to spot once your there.


Build your glove box, it's really undebatable. It's $15 worth of insurance and peace of mind. Honestly it's fun too, I wanna

/e LOL, the reason you didn't think of bleach is because you didn't watch that video...
 
MJG420

MJG420

Well-Known Member
canndo said:
No, don't use the baggie until your substrate is fully colonized, don't let air in until the grain is fully colonized - don't worry about your air exchange. You didn't follow the directions - you must throughly dry the kernels before you cook them - there should be no, absolutely no free water in your jars and you cannot simply pour the water out. Do the process right.
Click to expand...
I did follow directions and dried my corn thoroughly with a clean towel, I just didn't plan on so much condensation from PC my jars. The only thing I could have and will do differently in the future is to dry my corn with a towel and then let it sit out overnight to dry. I have now added approx a 1/2c of vermiculite to each jar and sterilized them once again and they turned out MUCH better this time, and from another thread I was reading over on micotopia last night the verm is a welcomed addition to the corn as it will add surface area allowing the my jars to colonize faster. Getting ready to construct my glove box now and will inoculate my jars later on this evening. :-) Thanks for all the insight guys hope you stick around to see how this turns out!
 
MJG420

MJG420

Well-Known Member
Haha no prob man kinda funny because my name is Matt as well :) Any input is appreciated either negative of positive, and not to mention any advice from others success/failures will help to point me in the right direction. :-)

Thus far I now have 24 pint size jars filled 2/3 of the way with white popcorn and about 1/2 a cup of vermiculite to absorb excess moisture. I inoculated 12 with the B+ spores and 12 with PES spores, and ended up using right about 10 cc from each syringe leaving me with 2cc of B+ spores and 14cc of the PES if this run fails. Jars are now sitting back in their respective flats they come in and on the mantle in the living room covered with a hoodie, hopefully in a week or so I have healthy white mycelium.
 
RetiredMatthebrute

RetiredMatthebrute

Well-Known Member
give my thread a read, theres a vid on first page and alot of discussion. link is in signature. theres also a plethora of sites out there if you just google "growing mushrooms"
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top