Growing magic mushrooms

[Psychedstoner]

I'm about to attempt to grow my own shrooms. I bought a spore syringe and 6 pre-sterilized jars online. I've done lots of research but I'm getting mixed answers and want to do this right, so I have a few questions I hope you all could shine some light on. Before I inject the jars do I need to heat the needle up first? Do the jars need to be air tight or will they have holes in the top or should I put holes? And do I need to water the jars at any point? I'd really just like some info or tips from someone with experience growing shrooms

 

[Solipsis]

The jars should have something like a self-healing lid / injection port or something like that, filter discs are also possible - if made from a material that does not self-heal like some rubbery materials can, you might have to put tape over the injection holes. This injectable lid might be underneath the hard protective lid you are looking at, that might be why you are not seeing it. It would be ridiculous if you couldn't inoculate without opening up the jar, thereby more or less defeating the purpose of the pre-sterilization. Your vendor doesn't have info on the jars? I'd check that info to have a good idea of what you'll find if you open that lid, but again: it would be ridiculous if you get pre sterilized substrate jars that do not allow access to the substrate easily and sterilely.

Heating the needle up before injecting.. hmm depends on where that needle has been and whether it was sterilized but you should probably make sure by sterilizing it, yes. If you were to sanitize the outside / upside of the injection ports before inoculating, then you shouldn't be dragging any contaminants along on your needle, so you possibly don't have to sterilize in between EVERY injection - doing so costs you spores because you squirt a little (extra) spore suspension after heating, to cool down the needle a bit (spores don't like passing through a hot needle). But you should definitely sterilize between every jar just to avoid from cross-contaminating on principle.
To sanitize I just use wipes with alcohol - actually I think I might have also used those on needles on occasion but that might be a faux pas.

Heat with a blue flame, a yellow one will soot the fuck out of your needle.

You can probably assume the jars are properly made and are field capacity meaning the right amount of water. They should keep like that for the duration of the colonization. After that, and leaving a little extra time for consolidation, you birth (open) the jars. If they are cakes then you can rehydrate by dunking (/dunk & rolling). I guess you don't have vermiculite so no rolling for you.

If you got something non-cake like seeds or grains then if you spawn to bulk, you can have new water in the bulk substrate (but I assume you are not doing this because you just have the 6 jars it sounds like). Depending on how you're going to fruit the substrate then, I guess there are ways to rehydrate, like just by the misting and condensing in the fruiting chamber... but avoid any amount of water that isn't quickly absorbed by the mycelium as it will possibly be a breeding ground for e.g. bacteria.

What's your fruiting chamber? Filter bags for cakes?

 

[Psychedstoner]

Thank you so much this is all very helpful. Im still in the process of making a fruiting chamber. I plan on making two different ones actually and see which one works better. I plan on making one out of a Tupperware box with wire mesh, drip shield, etc. your basic terrarium setup. And then I'm going to sterilize my own jars and get brown rice and vermiculite and make "the poor mans terrarium". Aka each cake in a soda jug.

 

[Solipsis]

Alright well awesome that you're planning on developing your techniques a bit, and all the best with that...

Do you just plan on making one poor mans terrarium out of curiosity? Seems that if you spend the effort on a not too cramped plastic box a la terrarium or shotgun chamber (I always used the latter), a poor mans terrarium will likely be a step down. A gimmicky one probably yes, but if you want to investigate the best way to do it, I'd choose out of options that you can already expect to be reasonable to regulate.

Just like an aquarium, a small one will always be harder to regulate because you can afford less fluctuations in conditions relatively speaking, small is unstable. I'll try to hold off on passing judgment on what would be an ideal fruiting chamber out of all the mainstream possibilities, but my advice is to not consider small ones serious contenders unless you have other motivations like really only needing very few shrooms from a batch, the gimmick factor, etc.
Not to mention the less practical access, the typically inferior ways gases or condensation etc are regulated in a jug. If you do something to regulate those, you might as well spend that effort on a big chamber that can facilitate more fungus.
One advantage I can think off for a jug is that you might get less contamination / exposure, but hey that's cause of the access issues, also a healthy fungus can take on an intruder here or there for a while - more important might be that you keep the general area where you grow very well cleaned preferably with no carpeting etc, so that there's not too many spores in the air like there would be if you allow colonies in your house.

Starting off with pre-sterilized jars makes a lot of sense - you can check out a big part of the growing but without having to do the labor and investment in pressure cooker etc right away. But once you get a feel for it, probably best to invest in those materials for years to come because kits and pre-sterilized jars can be a waste of money even if they work. So good plan.

I don't think you put cakes on vermiculite in a poor mans terrarium in case you thought that, you can roll the cakes in it and then it acts as a protective layer that still gets a bit overgrown. They are porous and the mycelium can cover it / pass through it etc.
You use perlite for filling up the bottom of fruiting chamber (some use hydroponics pearls it seems? should work i guess), it is not the same as vermiculite - it does have a huge surface area holding water because it's also *sort* of porous and popcorn like, but I don't think the mycelium can actually penetrate it. The fungus shouldn't grow in it IMO, and neither should something else..

Actually I'll pick up mushroom growing again in not too long I hope (i have a sweet martha), after other big projects are progressed... but no psychoactives anymore, I'll go for Lion's Mane or King Oyster if I can't do Lion's Mane for some reason.

(P.S. also build a glovebox once you have use for it! cf. the 2nd picture here: http://www.zwonko.com/lab/myco-lab)