Ok. I've broken out the steps I think I need. Please review and correct.
#1: Take a chunks of straw and cut to 1" pieces. Or smaller. Chop that shit up. Do I leave the seed portions, or remove them? Do I leave the small dusty bits in or wash them out? I do NOT know what type of straw this is.
#2: Put in mesh laundry bag and place in pot of hot (NOT boiling) water.
#3: Maintain the temperature of the water at 170F (+-5) for 2 hours
#4: Remove, place on clean grate over sink in bathroom, let it drain and cool for (how long?) until temp hits 90s.
#5: Clean bin, tape holes to block air, clean hands, shower, long gloves, face mask.
#6: Place 1 inch of straw in bottom of bin.
#7: Shake out 5 qt jars of spawn. Toss in remaining straw up to 4" of height (or more? Or Less?)
#8: Mix that shit up.
#9: Compress not? Most straw tecs tell me I need to compress everything down at this point. I do NOT like the thought of pushing down hard and causing the spawn pieces to burst open.
#10: Cover with a layer of spawn or straw on the top, or just leave the mixture exposed?
#11: Do I need to press a holy piece of thick plastic to the top of the substrate, or can I just use the top lid of the bin to keep the moisture in?
#12: Put lid on, tape enough to keep it from accidently coming off, but leave enough side/top edge untaped to allow for a bit of GE.
#13: Wait. Bins are translucent, and I allow light. Put lights on 12/12 timer. Watch.
#14: 10-20 days bins are fully colonized.
#15: Do I wait for pins to show up or do I continue on full colonization?
#16: Prep casing material. Pasteurized. Do I use 50/50+ or something else?
#17: Layout 1/2-1 inch of casing.
#18: Replace tape with polyfill. Will I need to fan/spray or is this self-contained? If I need to fan/spray, do I wait to open up and introduce fanning and spraying or start immediately?
#19: Do I patch casing to force even final breakthrough? Or leave it alone?
#20: 2nd flush prep? Soak? Run in tub? Just hide for a couple of weeks?
As the poster above states - you don't want hay, you want straw, the fewer seeds the better because the seeds will be a contamination point.
You don't have to "wash" anything" (BTW, the pics I posted of my shaggys were grown in pure straw with a peat and lime caseing).
The point of compressing is that straw, for all of it's wonderful qualities does not offer much nutrient value, so the more dense the straw the more dense the nutrition as well, The reason you shred the straw is twofold, the first is that straw has a waxy covering that keeps it from absorbing water, the shredding allows the inside of the straw to become soaked. But the second reason for highly shredded substrate is so that you don't have to compress it, it is naturaly dense as it is. This precludes the necessity of mannualy compressing like the "straw log" teks and all of the rest of the nonesense they do.
I like to press down using a matching bin filled with books - the main reason I do this is to allow the best contact possible between the spawn and the straw - and also - if you are looking for perfection and I know you are (any yield is great but you are going for the gold, you are looking for HUGE yields and in order to have an even flush you want the surface of your substrate to be flat as a table top. Doing this enables you to case very evenly - and that even case means that the mycelium will all reach to just below the surface at the same time. If you examine the pics I posted you will see a void at the lower left side, this void is caused by the casing being deeper at that spot.
Sure, put some spawn on top, but you don't need to have it cover completely, figure a point of innoculation about an inch and a half from any other point in three dimensions, You would do well to put more spawn on the very bottom, before you put any straw down, your contamination is most likely to happen at the bottom and if any occurs you will be hard pressed to be able to cut it out.
NO light - not at the top and not through the bin - the light will ruin what you are trying to do and you will have lost control of your pin initiation, you are likely to get knoting before your casing is run through and then you will start getting fruit at the bottom - harder to pick there, and you compromise your orchestration.
As I said, I just put the entire thing in a black bag with a few holes and I fold the top in such a way as to keep the light from entering the holes.
A week, 10 days, or maybe a little more - in a darkened room, open the thing up and marvel at how healthy the growth is - if it is fully run through you are ready to case, if it has a few dry spots, cut them out and case anyway. If you see mold, bag it up and take it out of your room.
If it isn't fully covered and looks healthy close it down and wait a few more days.
NOW you case, I'd go at least 3/4 inch depending on how deep your substrate - the deeper the substrate the deeper you want to case. My shaggies are 11 inches deep - about the extent you ever want to go as heat bildup from the metabolic rate of the mycelium will begin to inhibit growth or even damage it. 6 inches is pretty good..
So you case, and then you close it all back up for another week or more. You are allowed to look, you are looking for just the smallest amount of growth through to the top of the casing. That growth will coast for a few days after you initiate your pinning cycle. I usually want about 20 percent. What you don't ever want to happen is for the mycelium to change growing directions. It starts out growing upward, vertical wise. When it reaches the top it will begin to grow out horizontaly - that is called overlay and it spells the end of that region for pinning so the less of that the more your entire surface will pin.
I see you are mistaken on one of the basics - you don't want anything even close to a pin until your casing is colonized. You case long before you want pins. you do not want to initiate pinning until every other condition is met - namely the mycelium has grown to within a fraction of an inch of the top of your casing.
NOW, you start your fresh air cycle - 1 to 3 fresh air changes an hour - keep to about 90 to 95 percent humidity. Now and only now do you expose the top of your casing to light - and if you want to do it right you drop your temperature. If you have screwed up and have more than about 20 percent coverage on top, you can slow the coast down by a temperature drop.
You can patch loosely if you want, sprinkling some casing on the overgrown parts but it doesn't work very well and don't ever do it twice, better to control it with temperatures.
If you have done everything right, your second flush will begin 3 to 5 days from your first pick.
Your third flush will take over a week after your second, and so on - but if you have done things correctly it won't make much sense to continue after flush 3 as you will get minimal additional yield - they will, however, tend to be large to gigantic fruit.
