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Last minute mushroom growing advice/tips needed please.

Some questions if anyone is willing to answer them, I ran into a little bit of a snag...

Well after purchasing a PC & reading some reviews on it I read that it does not do canning. It is only for cooking. *face palm* So it looks like I am going to have to go with the 'steam sterilization' method for the PF tek substrate jars which I really, really hope works just as well as a PC.


After steam sterilizing for 90 minutes can I take the jars out of the pot and remove the tin foil right away (I'll have one layer of micropore tape covering the holes underneath the tin foil by the way) & then place them in a fully cleansed tupper ware container with the lid on to cool down OR should I leave the tin foil on right up until it is fully cooled down & ready for innoculation? (I will still have to place them in a container either way but when should I remove the tin foil?) I have to remove them from the pot before they have fully cooled down & place them in this container (they won't be extremely hot though because I'll be touching them of course.) because not all the jars will fit in the pot at once... So I will have to do one set first, then the other half of remaining jars after.

Also a question that doesn't have anything to do with the steam sterilization method-Will a 10cc spore syringe be good for 12 1/2 pint jars? I've read many things where people say yes but if you do the math it is 1/4 cc per innoculation hole (4 holes per jar.) so 1cc per 1 jar. This only comes out to 10 1/2 pint jars.

Anyone that can help-thank you so much!
 
Bigfeely123 said:
Some questions if anyone is willing to answer them, I ran into a little bit of a snag...

Well after purchasing a PC & reading some reviews on it I read that it does not do canning. It is only for cooking. *face palm* So it looks like I am going to have to go with the 'steam sterilization' method for the PF tek substrate jars which I really, really hope works just as well as a PC.


After steam sterilizing for 90 minutes can I take the jars out of the pot and remove the tin foil right away (I'll have one layer of micropore tape covering the holes underneath the tin foil by the way) & then place them in a fully cleansed tupper ware container with the lid on to cool down OR should I leave the tin foil on right up until it is fully cooled down & ready for innoculation? (I will still have to place them in a container either way but when should I remove the tin foil?) I have to remove them from the pot before they have fully cooled down & place them in this container (they won't be extremely hot though because I'll be touching them of course.) because not all the jars will fit in the pot at once... So I will have to do one set first, then the other half of remaining jars after.

Also a question that doesn't have anything to do with the steam sterilization method-Will a 10cc spore syringe be good for 12 1/2 pint jars? I've read many things where people say yes but if you do the math it is 1/4 cc per innoculation hole (4 holes per jar.) so 1cc per 1 jar. This only comes out to 10 1/2 pint jars.

Anyone that can help-thank you so much!
Click to expand...

First off, sorry for not quoting more effectively :)

1) After steam sterilizing, leave the foil on until just before you're going to shoot them up with spores. It will keep it as clean as possible for as long as possible.

2) Use gloves and feel free to spray your gloves with alcohol before touching anything. Mostly it helps. There shouldn't be any problems for having to sterilize your jars in batches

3) One 10cc spore syringe for 12 jars? Hah I say to you. I was using gloves that were too thick and I've got arthritis....I can manage maybe 1/3-1/2 cc per injection, Since I always wanted 4 injection points per jar, and I had poor control over injection, I would say I used one syringe per 5 jars,Your mileage may vary, but assume you can do 0.25ml injections, so that's 40 injections to divide up among your jars. If you want to do 12 jars, and if you're confident with your injections (I'm not, I use electronic pipettes) go for it.

A couple other things I can think of -

-when injecting into your jars, hold them at an angle and let your needle tip touch the side of the angled jar, and let the injection dribble down the side. That will maximize the number of colonization points (so the needle tip has to go through the vermiculite layer).

-When I dunked my cakes, I put them all inside a freezer ziplock bag, filled it up with water, squeezing out as much air as possible and into the fridge overnight. Removing the water is just cutting a small hole in the bag and draining.

Tom
 
If you're in a very cold country Thom how do you get the air in the fruiting chamber to stay at a constant 22 degrees? I've got the setup with the two plastic boxes inside each other and water/aquarium heater in the bottom. That keeps the bottom of plastic box warm but the air in the box itself isn't that hot - goes down to about 20c, but with a blanket over the box at night they go up to about 25. Are the mushrooms tough enough to fruit still?
 
Ismene said:
If you're in a very cold country Thom how do you get the air in the fruiting chamber to stay at a constant 22 degrees? I've got the setup with the two plastic boxes inside each other and water/aquarium heater in the bottom. That keeps the bottom of plastic box warm but the air in the box itself isn't that hot - goes down to about 20c, but with a blanket over the box at night they go up to about 25. Are the mushrooms tough enough to fruit still?
Click to expand...

Hi there.

I live in Canada, and at the moment it's about 32F/1C outside. Have the thermostat set to 17C. That's comfortable because with 3 dogs and 2 cats there's lots of heat thrown off. All doors in the house closed and esp. the grow room

Ok, the grow room is a basement bedroom. The air temp is probably 15C (and it stays that way because I've got the vents closed.

When fruiting I like 65F as a low temperature and 78ish as a high temp for fruiting. Mostly the temperatures inside the fruiting chamber stay in that range (and like you I use blankets over the FC's some nights). The mushrooms really are as hardy as that. I've fruited as low as 60F with Cubensis, but that was a screw up on my part. I'm experimenting with running a filtered air line from a incubation chamber to the fruiting chamber for about 10 minutes every hour to see what that does to the temperature (if anything).

If you still have trouble maintaining a constant temperature you can use an oscillating heater in a closet (fc inside the closet). The temperatures climb pretty quickly (cleanliness may or may not be an issue).

Tom
 
Thank you Tom. I appreciate it so much, you've been such a great help to me.

I just got done steam sterilization at 90 minutes. A couple times I had to remove the pot lid & take a couple jars out of the water to add more water so it would not boil dry. (my hands were not dirty but not in gloves when touching the tin foiled top of jars-the lid area.) I really hope that wasn't a stupid mistake. (Touching the tin foil on jars without gloves and/or removing pot lid while sterilizing.)

I then put all the jars in a plastic container with the lid on to cool down before innoculation. I see some condensation on the walls of the container but I don't want to remove the lid because I am afraid contaminates will get in. I would assume it'd be the same thing as leaving them to cool in a PC with the lid on so I hope it is not too big of a deal.

One thing I am a little concerned about though. I think there may be some slight condensation inside the jars from steam sterilizing them. It may just be the wetness from the wet verm. It isn't enough for it to collect & puddle at the bottom but it looks sort of moist inside. I am not 100% sure.

Tomorrow is going to be innoculation. Rock 'n Roll guys. Happy Holidays.

--------------------

Greetings Earthlings, just innoculated jars some time ago. I removed everything that was not held down in the bathroom, then gave a very good spray to the walls, floor, toilet, sink with bleach/water solution. Left & closed door and let it sit for 10 minutes. I then came back in with a wet towel and wiped everything down. I then sprayed some more bleach & water into the air. After that I brought all my supplies for innoculation.

Panic set in at this point, I guess maybe just because I didn't want to mess up so bad that I started to get nervous. I began to sweat a lottt when innoculating the jars... Like down my face. A few drops of sweat landed on the sink. (Showered this morning though.) I flamed the needle between every 3 jars but it sometimes turned an ugly blackish sort of color from flaming. (used alcohol lamp.) I wiped off the needle between every jar but only had a couple 70% alcohol wipes on hand with me so sometimes the needle got wiped with the same alcohol swab that was used to wipe it at a different point. (I wiped the needle with alcohol wipe right after flame sterilization which I later read from RR that is not a good thing to do.) I found it was pretty hard to super evenly distribute 1/4cc into each hole so some holes may have gotten a little bit more or a little bit less. I then transported the jars to the grow room in a sealed container but they were exposed to open, unfiltered air a few different times for atleast a minute total.

I'll keep yalls posted if any of you care to see how the grow is going. I'm excited! but worried at the same time. I guess we'll see what happens. WOOT WOOT. Wish me luck!
 
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UPDATE:

Day 6 after innoculation.

Checked jars today & there looks to be very first signs of mycelium growth. It appears to be a fairly small, fuzzy looking, vague white spot on the side of the jar. Not all of them have this, appoximately half of them do though. I am really sure it is white in color & NOT green but it is not as vibrant or pure white as the other pictures I have seen. Could this be because it is only just beginning its growth? It is a pretty vague white & is fuzzy looking. It is also fairly small in size & not in a circular formation. Will i see more of a vibrant or pure white color as the growth continues?
 
Been a couple of weeks since I birthed the cakes, dunk and rolled and stuck em in the fruiting chamber. No mushies on the ones I dunk and rolled but I am getting mushies on the ones I just dunked and didn't roll. Is it worth re-dunking and not bothering with the "roll"?
 
I have a terrible feeling 16 of these fucking cakes arn't going to fruit. 6 weeks coming to full colonisation then 2 weeks waiting - resulting in absolutely fuck-all. Tis the way of the mushroom grower...

Got another 15 cakes that seem to be fruiting anyway. Fingers crossed.
 
Very disappointing fruit. I think I birthed the cakes too early, going to wait till there's lots of pins in each cake before birthing next time - no matter if it takes 10 weeks.
 
Hello Ismene whats up man? i am jealous of you, you got some fruits atleast. :( As of today it is two weeks in since inoculation day & only 20-40% colonized! I took them out of an enclosed glass cabinet that they sat in about two days ago and set them up on something that is 1 1/2 feet above the ground leaving them exposed to the open air. (When they were in the glass cabinet I was still airing it out once per day.) Maybe they are going slow because they were inside of something the first 12 days? i have them out now because I am hoping they will now get more air and gas exchange-is that correct? Also i still have the punctured micro pore tape on all the jars, should I just take it off completely? thanks have a good day everyone!
 
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I feel your pain :) Yeah take the tape off the holes, I've heard a few people say getting air into them is a lot more important than the risk of infection. Apparantly the vermiculute layer on top of the substrate is enough to prevent any infection anyway.

I must've had a failure colonisation rate of 50-60% too. My heart grew heavy picking stalled jars out of the colonisation box. I think I have hit on a few tips tho - increase the flour content slightly cos I noticed the cakes were often stalling in areas that looked mostly vermiculite. Also make sure the substrate is forked into the jar equally - no gaps in the substrate as they fail there too.

The fruiting has been very disappointing. I had about 30 cakes all fully colonised. Maybe got 3 or 4 of those to fruit. How sickening is that? Back to the drawing board, knocking up another load of jars and starting again. The only place success comes before work is in the dictionary! ;)
 
Alright I'll take the tape off. Do you think, from the sound of my post, that all of my jars are done for? (The mycelium growing is sort of vague and fuzzy, it is definitely white & not gray but it isn't a nice bright white that I have seen in other pics.) Or is the fresh air going to kick start my jars. Like I said before, for the first 12 days they were inside of something but
now they're out in the open. How long did your first PF jars take to colonize fully?


Also, this isn't really important just curiosity. If you don't want to answer this you don't have to but how many grams dried did you get off those 3/4 cakes?
 
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Anyones guess really but air can have a big effect on em and 12 days is pretty early - I've known it take 6-7 weeks to fully colonise so you could be in luck.

I didn't weigh em but at a guess 20-30 dried grams, maybe a little more - 40 dried grams in total from all 4 cakes. That's from a starting point of about 60 cakes - 4 of them got all the way to fruiting. But they didn't fruit that much to be honest - I've had cakes in the past that were throwing off 3 or 4 times as many mushrooms as these cakes. I think I birthed too early.
 
I see, damn... I've read about 2-3 weeks is the average colonization time. Guess I just need to hold my horses.

Maybe I'll start another batch of 10, while continuing this batch as well of course but instead of putting these ones in anything to begin with I'll just let them sit out on a clean surface that is atleast a foot or two above ground level right after inoculating them.

& approx 20-40 grams dried from 4 cakes sounds pretty righteous! I've read that 3.5-7.0 is the average yield per PF cake. I'll be happier than a pig in mud if I get that from even all 10 of my cakes. The other 55 or so though that is a shame... what do you do with the stalled/uncolonized cakes-birth them not fully colonized or toss em?
 
I normally just toss em - no point birthing em they'll just sit there and go mouldy. May as well start with another 10 in case your current batch have stalled.

I live in hope that I'll hit the motherlode one day and 100 cakes will fruit out of 100 :)
 
I see man. & yeah I think I'll do that just incase these are shot.

What way do you incubate-on a clean shelf in open air? I've read just quite recently that TiT's & other incubators are actually more likely to welcome contaminates. & also that normal room temperate is just fine for both colonization & fruiting stages. This is what RR (I think RR stands for Roger Rabbit.) said on a different forum website.

& I hope so too. That'd be a lot of beautiful fruits indeed. I think someone would be happy. :)
 
Not sure if you'd need to go totally open air - keeping them in a box and just taking the tape off the holes will help things. I usually keep them in a "plastic box within a plastic box" set up, with water and an aquarium heater in the bottom box. What kind of room-temp are you talking? In the UK at the moment it's freezing! I think somewhere around 70-75F is suggested as best for colonising. But yeah - I've heard people say 21 centigrade would be fine, but my house tends to a be lot colder than that!

I wouldn't worry too much about contams tho - out of maybe 150-200 cakes in the last year perhaps 2 or 3 have gone green. The rest just stalled. And that's with not even taking any precautions with contam prevention. I just inject 10 jars at a time in a standard room. No messing around with glove box's or disinfecting the entire area. I think that vermiculite layer on top of the substrate is pretty awesome at keeping contams out.

You ever looked into bulk growing? Been reading around - if you get your own "autoclave bag sealer" for around £30, then buy your own "autoclave bags with self-healing injection port" and sacks of rye grain (which are both pretty cheap) you can get into growing bulk amounts which I'm thinking could be worth trying if these pf-tek cakes keep stalling at the rate they are doing..
 
Crap, I've had them exposed to total open air for the past 2 1/2 days now hoping the air would speed things up a little bit. :/

The area is 68-low 70's temp. And I haven't yet looked into that I was hoping to be successful with the PF TEK/BRF jars, this is the first grow ever. Zero experience. So far I have no idea if im doing good or bad lol. I guess I'll have to wait a little while and see.

Cheers!
 
I wouldn't worry about it - that vermiculute layer is a motherhumper at keeping contams out.

If only we could get high on stalled cakes - what a time we'd have :)
 
Oh good :) I check them like once a day but I don't shake them. They're approx. 30-60 or 70% done. I can't tell if its just on the outside of the jar or in the middle as well.

I assume another week & a half to two weeks and they'll be done. That'll be a total of 3 1/2 to 4 weeks, if I am right on my assumption, for 100% colonization. After that how long should the fruiting process take-another 2 weeks or so?

I'll be so happy if these actually fruit! :) Have a great day.
 
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