TV Guide to Colonizing a Quart Jar in Three Days

[TVCasualty]

This is a cheap and relatively easy way I've come up with to use BRF half-pints to inoculate grain by turning the colonized BRF into a liquid slurry that is then poured into quart jars of whole grain. I had seen the blade assemblies of some brands of household blenders used in this context before with colonized petri dishes, and I tried it as an alternative to the very expensive autoclavable blenders sold for this purpose. I didn't expect the incredible results I got from using a BRF jar instead of a petri dish as the source of mycelium, and after some refinements to the initial design I've come up with one that provides consistent results, is extremely durable, simple to make, and cheap.

Although the procedures themselves are fairly simple, this probably qualifies as an intermediate or advanced tek. It's not a good choice for a first grow and I've made some assumptions in these instructions, namely that the reader has grown mushrooms before and is familiar and experienced with the PF Tek, growing on whole grain, and creating proper fruiting conditions, none of which are covered here.

Here's a summary of how it works:

1. Choose a good looking half-pint BRF jar colonized with the species/strain of your choice. I recommend a lighter, bare-bones BRF recipe that allows for the quickest colonization times (I use about 1/4 cup of rice flour and a pinch of corn meal per half pint). I usually only fill the jars slightly over halfway with substrate so the dry vermiculite contaminant barrier is very thick. Think of it as a three dimensional petri dish.
2. In front of a flow hood, dump the cake out of the jar and cut off the upper portion just in case it harbors a contaminant.
3. Drop chunk of colonized BRF cake into sterilized mason jar containing about 200 ml of water, using a blender blade assembly as the lid (tighten the band firmly!).
4. Blend until it's a uniform slurry, usually takes several 3-5 second bursts.
5. Switch blades for lid with dispenser nozzle.
6. Pour slurry into grain jars.
7. Shake jars as vigorously as you can for about 20 seconds each (a long time, in other words).
8. When fully colonized (95% colonized works too), shake them again the night before spawning to bulk or casing the grain. The following morning they should show significant recovery if the temps are correct, otherwise suspect a bad batch.

There are two ways to use this as described: Colonizing jars of grain extremely quickly or inoculating a large number of jars from a very small amount of spawn. So far I've only been interested in setting speed records for quart jars, and my fastest time so far was a quart half-filled with 100% cracked corn that fully colonized in 56 hours (though I don't use cracked corn anymore for various reasons).

Materials Required:

• Regular mouth mason jar (pint size)
• Blade assembly (including gasket) that fits regular mouth mason jars.
• Autoclavable plastic lids or regular metal lids, either will work but I prefer the plastic ones (and they are worth every penny)
• 1/2" hose barb X 1/2" FIP threaded brass adapter
• 1/2" MIP thread X 3/8" FIP thread brass hex bushing
• 1-1/8" O.D. X 23/32" I.D. rubber grommet
• Teflon tape
• Silicone sealant (any type that works for an airport)
• Double-sided tape
• Aluminum foil

Tools:

• Drill
• Two crescent wrenches that can open to 7/8"
• Small bit for pilot hole (~1/8" is fine)
• 5/8" countersink bit (this was $9 at the Big Box store, but worth it)
• ~ 3/4" tapered abrasive grinding bit
• hammer
• nail
• scrap wood as backer for drilling

The Blender Blade Assembly:



This is the easiest part. Get a blender with a blade assembly that is the same diameter as a regular mouth mason jar (approx. 2.5 inches or 65 mm). Oster brand blenders have several models of this size, and if you already have a blender or want to make several mason jar blenders, the cheapest source for just the blades and gasket is here ($6.99 each).

By itself, the gasket tends to get tangled up in the blades, which was a problem I tried numerous ways to solve.



The simplest and most effective solution was just sticking the gasket on with some double-sided tape. Use four pieces of tape to stick the gasket to the base, then trim off any extra tape around the outer edge. It doesn't hold very tightly, but it's only there to add just enough adhesion to avoid the entanglement problem. DO NOT use silicone or anything else to attach the metal band to the blade assembly. I discovered the hard way that the band must be loose or you cannot tighten the lid enough to prevent leaking.





The Dispenser Nozzle:


Here's a photo of the parts needed for the dispenser nozzle. I will show one being made with both a metal and a plastic lid.



These are the tools, and I've already marked the center of the lid. The hammer and nail are just for punching a little dent where you want the hole so the drill bit doesn't wander across the lid.



Drill out a pilot hole, using some scrap wood as a backer.



With the 5/8" countersink bit, expand the hole until the bit passes all the way through. This can be tricky at first, so use light pressure and medium RPM to get the hang of it. Be careful not to crimp the lid anywhere or it won't work well and makes a mess later. The bit works well in wood, metal, or plastic.



Now expand the hole further with the abrasive bit. This also takes a little practice to get good at, and I suggest holding the lid in one hand and rolling your wrist so no part of the bit gets a rut dug into it by the metal. Hold the drill firmly at max RPM with your other hand. It's not hard to make a nearly perfect hole if you're patient, and have a few practice sessions. This bit also works on plastic (watch out for it clogging up with plastic, a stiff brush can clean it off).



This is the step that requires the most patience. Still using the abrasive bit, keep shaving off material a little at a time and then test the grommet to see if it fits. It should be easy to attach it to either type of lid, and it's ok if the hole gets a little too big. When the grommet spins freely in the hole, it's big enough. Ideally, to fit the threaded brass fitting through the grommet, you should have to screw it in. The brass threads will cut into the rubber as you twist, and so long as it'll fit through far enough to attach the nozzle it's fine.



This is the view from the bottom and side. You want the threads oriented this way or it won't work.



Now wrap the threads with Teflon tape. This makes it much easier to take it apart later if necessary.



Using the wrenches, tighten the barb fitting (the nozzle) onto the taped threads. As the barb screws on, the grommet will compress a little, so you can tighten it further than it appears and the fittings can handle a lot of force, so don't be shy when you tighten it. Watch your knuckles!



Clean the lids really well, then seal the fittings and grommet to the lid with silicone (seal both sides of lid). Let cure at least 24 hours.



The finished dispenser lids.



Continued in the next post...

[TVCasualty]

Now it's time to get everything ready for the pressure cooker. Gather the dispenser lids and the blender lids, along with a mason jar, a kitchen knife or spoon, and aluminum foil.



You'll need to cut two pieces for each dispensing lid, one that's about 4" X 4" and one that's 12" X 12" (the pieces in the pic are not the right size, but illustrate the idea).


Take the small piece and make a cap for the end of the nozzle. The easiest way is to take a dowel or piece of tubing (5/8" diameter works perfect) and wrap the foil around it tightly, twisting in one direction and folding one end over. Remove it from the dowel or tube and slide it onto the nozzle. Be careful not to crimp the foil into the barbs of the nozzle or you won't be able to easily (and therefore cleanly) remove it later.


Next place lids in the center of the larger piece of foil.


It's important that you wrap them carefully; first gather up the corners.


Next, wrap the folded-up corners by gently twisting them around the nozzle, then bend the top down as in the picture and your lid is ready for the cooker. Being careful here makes things a lot easier later, so start over if it gets messed up.


To prepare the blender jars, cut a square of foil about 6" X 6", fill the jar with 200 ml of water, and place a blender blade w/ gasket on the jar.


Secure the blade with the metal band, and cover w/ foil.


Take a knife or spoon and wrap it with foil.


Now comes a part that's a little tricky to describe but simple in practice. Cut a 6" X 6" piece of foil for each blender jar. Wrap it/them in an outer envelope that's also made of foil so the pieces remain sterile after being removed from the cooker.
(pic shows open envelope full of foil squares, fold flap over and crimp lightly to seal).


At this point, I place all the parts into a stainless steel pot that fits into my pressure cooker, and I cover the pot with yet another piece of foil that I tightly crimp around the rim. I put the pot in the cooker and PC for 30 minutes at 15 psi, which is probably overkill but too much is better than not enough, right? I can usually PC about 6 complete "Blender Teks" in an AA 921 (including all jars w/ blades, knives, lids, and foil squares). Making extras is a lifesaver for the inevitable screw ups like dropping something on the floor or whatever.

While the tools are cooking, clean your lab space and turn on the flow hood. It's best to let it run at least 30 minutes after turning it on before doing anything in front of it. Let the pot cool off in front of the hood (with foil cover still on).

Lay out the gear in front of the flow hood, and pick a colonized half pint that looks good. With the lid still on and while wearing latex gloves, wipe the outside of the half pint with a paper towel soaked in alcohol to clean off any contaminants that might be on it.


The next step is something I do to be extra cautious, and in most cases is probably not necessary, although I do it every time. Remove the lid from the half pint and dump the dry verm into something. With your gloved index finger, scrape/wipe as much loose verm out of the jar as possible. Then take an alcohol-soaked paper towel and wipe the glass inside the jar from the rim down to the substrate so it's squeaky clean (we want to eliminate any nasties that might have ended up there).

Taking the foil square off the top of the blender jar, place it on your workbench so the side facing the jar is now facing up. Smack the BRF jar onto the foil square so the cake slides down.



The following step is one that should be performed as quickly as possible. I suggest practicing the motions first until you're comfortable with them.

Unwrap the knife or spoon, tilt the jar over so the cake begins to slide out, then cut about a quarter or so of the top of the cake off and let it fall aside, being careful not to let the larger chunk fall out of the jar. Set down the knife and with a smooth, quick motion lift the half pint up to the blender jar, lift the blade/gasket off the blender, dump the BRF chunk into the blender, then quickly replace the blade assembly. Discard the knife, half pint, foil piece, and chunk of BRF substrate. Clean up any spilled verm or BRF.



Open the foil envelope and get a 6" X 6" piece out. Place it over the blade assembly and secure it with the band. Tighten the band firmly. Tear off enough foil to expose the part that attaches to the drive shaft of the blender (see picture). The foil works like an additional gasket to prevent spills in case something doesn't seal properly. I didn't do this at first, and it's often unnecessary, but they never leak when I use the foil.


Take a clean blender base (one dedicated to the lab is ideal, and this model is cheap) and wipe it down with alcohol, letting all the alcohol dry off before plugging it in. Put the blender jar on the base, which you'll notice doesn't hold it very well. I found the best way to blend it is to hold the jar with one hand and the base with the other. My hands are big enough to hold the base and press the buttons at the same time, so I hold it all at about a 45 degree angle (the chunk floats so tilting helps get it to hit the blades) and press the Pulse button for 5 second bursts (on "High") and slightly shaking the whole thing while it blends. Let it settle down and check to see if there's any big chunks still floating. Keep blending until the chunks are gone.


Your slurry should look like this.


Next, remove the band and foil from the jar. Unwrap the dispenser nozzle from the foil (hope you wrapped it carefully!) being careful not to lift the base off the foil. I press down on the brass fitting while unwrapping so the "inside" of the lid is not exposed to the air.


In one smooth, quick motion remove the blade assembly and replace it with the dispenser nozzle and tighten. If using the metal version, secure the lid with a band (the one you just took off the blender jar is fine).


Arrange 10 quarts of sterilized grain in front of the flow hood. Loosen the lids of the quarts.


I was unable to photograph the following step, since I did it by myself. It really requires a video to show it right anyway. What you want to do is gently shake up the slurry in the jar, remove the foil cap from the nozzle (I hope you didn't crimp it on too tight!), set the cap down, then quickly and methodically open a quart jar and roll your wrist slightly as your pour a shot of slurry into it, then replace the lid of the quart and move to the next. Tighten the quarts after inoculating all 10. Shake them at least 15-20 seconds each. Each jar of blended slurry can inoculate 20 quarts if going for full colonization in under 4 days or up to 50 if trying to stretch the spawn as far as possible. Practice with water and an empty quart jar. The biggest problems here include spewing slurry on the jar threads or all over the outside of the jar (or both), holding the exposed nozzle outside the flow hood air stream (easy on small hoods like mine), or getting slurry on your filter. The stuff tends to have a mind of its own sometimes, so be patient and practice makes mostly perfect.

You can calibrate your dispenser with a small measuring cup. Put 200 mL of water into a pint jar and cover with the dispenser lid, then turn it upside-down over the measuring cup until it stops flowing and take note of how much comes out per shot. Then try two shots, and so on until you know exactly how many shakes or pours it takes to inoculate at the rate you desire. I measured almost exactly 10 mL per shot, so 2 shots per quart gives me 20 quarts. I realize the chunk of BRF cake will add to the volume in the blender jar, but due to the thickness of the brass fitting holding the nozzle you won't be able to use all the slurry anyhow. These things become obvious once you make one and play with it awhile, and another advantage of practice/experience is that each quart will get exactly the same amount of inoculum so they'll all finish simultaneously.

Here are typical results I get with this setup (I took pics when I could):

Just after inoculating, holding the temp at about 80 degrees F (26 degrees C).


The same jars 54 hours later (2 days, 6 hours), then again at 68.5 hours (early morning of 3rd day).



It was ready by the morning of the 3rd day (but I wasn't), and at 77 hours from inoculation it looked like this and was becoming difficult to shake.


Well, there you have it! This is the Tek I'm most proud of, since I get such great results from so little input, and I can see a huge potential for expanding on it and improving it; I'm counting on the mad scientists in the OMC to do just that. My goal with it is to use autoclavable tubing and some kind of pressure system to allow using this without ever exposing substrate/spawn to air, possibly eliminating the flow hood or glove box completely (and yet still being able to do whole grain). I believe it will require modifying the mason jar (I'm drilling holes in them these days).

One more thing: This goes so fast that even a mildly contaminated culture can be used, which can be good or really bad. I discovered this accidentally after having a batch of 20 quarts contaminate almost entirely all at once (inside the substrate), but it only happened after I'd poured the quarts into two trays, cased them, and harvested a flush! Going backwards, I traced the contaminant to my spore syringe, and half pints I didn't blend (which were fruited in the normal PF Tek manner) also contaminated (it was not very virulent, but there nonetheless). If I'd spawned those quarts to a bulk substrate, it's likely I'd have lost the whole thing. That's why I make an extra-large dry verm barrier in my half pints and cut off the top of the cake before blending. A clean culture in the half pints is essential for success.

This is the first in a series of threads that will eventually detail my methods from start to finish, as time permits (and not necessarily in any order). Barring contamination, I can easily produce 20-30 quarts of colonized grain from 2 cc's of spores in 18 days if I'm on top of it, meaning my quarts are cooling off from the PC the morning the half pints are finishing up (I rarely am that organized, but I've done it a few times). It takes 2 weeks for the BRF half-pint jars to colonize from spores, 4 days after that for the quarts to be finished, and if I'm casing them I get my first harvest about 2 weeks after that. At that point I can spawn to bulk or case them, and if casing I can get my first harvest in 32 days, though 38-40 days is more the norm for my lazy self. A lot of magic comes from 20 quarts, but precise yields are dependent on many factors, some of which I will deal with in future posts.

Oh, and all my talk of casing might be obsolete in a month or two. I'm trying to combine Faht's late casing tek with a crazy idea of my own, and I'll post results as they come in.

Finally, I'd like to give a big thank-you to Mycotopia . The ideas and knowledge I used to put this together came from reading the archives and threads of the many brilliant and experienced people that hang out here. Keep up the good work!

[donpuro]

excellent write-up... The colonization times in this thread are

[fedshtkpndrk]

This is pure gold, TV

-feds

[TVCasualty]

Thanks!

I'll probably be adding a few things as I think of them, and one I'll add right now is that at first, I thought every single jar I inoculated with this method had contaminated. It turns out that as the mycelium recovers and begins to grow into the grain, it looks exactly like grayish cobweb and nothing like bright white mycelium. I was disappointed and thought I'd lost everything, but the next day it was much more dense and bright white, with rhizomorphic strands beginning to form, so I relaxed.

Also, this boosts the temps in the jar very quickly, so I try to keep the room at around 80 for the first day or two, then bump it down a notch to 76-78 degrees after that.

[camMyco]

I have never learned so much from a TV_Guide!

[tecnikal]

thats awesome! I definitely see that in my future

[eatyualive]

osterizer blenders fit a 1/2 pint perfectly on the end. tis goo d for liquid cultures.

and tv, very nice and thorough. me likes the pictures. very explanatory.

[ShroomGuerilla]

MMmmmm Milkshake....

[Nzo]

lol milkshake..

i dont think i've ever seen this tek before. awesome!!
im still reading it cause im kinda confused (im sober lol)
but creative!

[WHITE RABBIT]

Thats a pretty cool trick TV! Glad you showed us!

[SporeCrazy]

Excellent write up... I've been looking into a fast effective way to do some bulk grows and this method looks killer! You'll have to let us know what kind of results you achieved from those jars!

[fahtster]

pretty sick chubs! nicely done.

fahtster

[~Hippie3]

archive material

[OG Royal Grower]

mad props

[the_chosen_one]

WOW bro! you weren't kidding! this is some piece of work!

[Lazlo]

Nice!

[TVCasualty]

Thanks for the good reviews! So what do y'all think we ought to call this thing?

When you see the parts to this sitting in front of you it doesn't look very complicated, and really it's just making a myco-smoothie in a way that involves a lot of aluminum foil, but writing it up with all the relevant details (and without it getting ridiculously huge) was harder than doing it! I was trying to give enough detail to allow someone with minimal familiarity with tools to make it, but it does require some fabrication skills, so I'd been toying with the idea of making lots of the dispenser lids and maybe selling it as a small kit.

I think it needs further refinement to be a retail item, and when time permits I'm going to make a lid with two medium-size nozzles instead of the one large, and use autoclavable silicone tubing to eliminate the open-air pouring by pushing filtered air into one nozzle to force the slurry out of the other. With a large syringe (no needle) as a source of compressed air, I can push precise amounts of the slurry into jars by pressing the plunger of the syringe, or at least that's the plan. With a large-bore needle on the end of the tubing and a silicone port on the jar lid, I could inoculate jars without opening them.

Also, drilling a hole in the side of a jar and covering with silicone works well for an airport and frees the lid area for another purpose, like blender blades.

This setup works well for making isolates, and I've used almost an entire stem as the source material, which I can do thanks to the sharp blades (just mix up the water with your favorite LC formula instead of plain). I peeled the outer layer off and dipped it into a dish of peroxide before dropping it into the blender jar, and the blades turned it to mush. It recovered and grew fast thanks to using the whole stem instead of just a little chunk, and I left the blades attached until it was ready to blend again just before using it to inoculate the next step. For air exchange, I had an airport stuck in the hole I'd drilled in the side of the jar. You can draw the isolate back up through the port or switch the blades for the dispenser lid. When making isolates, it's good to have a few redundant blender jars available as cloning is more challenging than blending the BRF cake.


One thing that's been bugging me for a long time is while I'm certain I'm not the guy who came up with using these blades on mason jars, I can't seem to remember or find the place I'd seen it described before (years ago), and so far I have not read of anyone around here using them. So, what's up with that? Anyone else out there know of someone using blender blades on jars for home mycology?

Oh, before I forget, check out this interesting math: A case of 12 half pints of colonized BRF (using 24 cc's of spores) can provide you with 240 colonized quart jars within three weeks of shooting the spores (that's a theoretical maximum, anyway). The 12 blender setups would cost about $200, and I included the cost of a cheap drill! Compare that to a blender designed for lab use; a SINGLE 250 mL Eberbach blender can cost $250, then add the required $180 base and you can inoculate about 20 quarts at a time for just under $500 including shipping. It'd cost almost $750 to get the 1000 mL model+base, and that's only good for about 100 quarts at a time. So, being able to inoculate 240 quarts for $200 instead of 20 quarts for $500 seems like a good deal, and makes me think this is an option for a commercial edibles grower on a low budget or just starting out (and you get to keep the drill!).

[joystik]

My respects to you. Excellent writeup!! Invaluable information.

[GordianHyphae]

First of all, ! Fantastic idea, implementation and write up! I am much inspired, and it turns out, I've already got an osterizer blender, the base of which screws perfectly onto a regular mouth canning jar. I'm intrigued about your pressure dispensing idea, and it occurred to me that once you plunge the air syringe to pour a shot, you'd need to pull the tubing off and suck more air into the syringe to push the next shot out. This air would need to be filtered or else it's a contamination vector. What if, instead of air, you used a mini co2 injector, like this one. it costs $30, with replacement cartridges at a buck a piece. each cartridge holds six liters of pressurized co2, which is bound to be pretty damn sterile. It says on the site that the trigger mechanism allows a measured injection. It seems like it would be pretty easy to rig this up to a jar. just an idea i thought you might be able to work with. they also sell injectors like this at bike shops for inflating flat tires. i'll be tinkering with your ideas over the next couple of weeks, and i'll let you know if i figure anything cool out. Thanks again TVC!

[vinz]

what an idea TV.. damn
we are lucky to have you here with us to share the things you come up with..
3 days is insane!
amazing

[eatyualive]

Thanks for the good reviews! So what do y'all think we ought to call this thing?
This setup works well for making isolates, and I've used almost an entire stem as the source material, which I can do thanks to the sharp blades (just mix up the water with your favorite LC formula instead of plain). I peeled the outer layer off and dipped it into a dish of peroxide before dropping it into the blender jar, and the blades turned it to mush. It recovered and grew fast thanks to using the whole stem instead of just a little chunk, and I left the blades attached until it was ready to blend again just before using it to inoculate the next step. For air exchange, I had an airport stuck in the hole I'd drilled in the side of the jar. You can draw the isolate back up through the port or switch the blades for the dispenser lid. When making isolates, it's good to have a few redundant blender jars available as cloning is more challenging than blending the BRF cake.
One thing that's been bugging me for a long time is while I'm certain I'm not the guy who came up with using these blades on mason jars, I can't seem to remember or find the place I'd seen it described before (years ago), and so far I have not read of anyone around here using them. So, what's up with that? Anyone else out there know of someone using blender blades on jars for home mycology?

hey tv, this was used in 9er tek cloning method with an osterizer blender. it attaches a 1/2 pint jar rather easily. makes for good clones and lc's.

Mycotopia Web Archive: Cloning
Mycotopia Web Archive: Blender


you won't have to buy that many blenders. foaf has 4 blender assemblies. only and uses one blender to blend each one. just break your cake into 4. all you do is pc a few at a time if your doing large amounts. so 4 quart jars with blender assemblies attached with foil over them. then you can cut your cake into 4 pieces and use the same amount of water. diluting it will only make your slurry less chunky. i think 1-1/2 pint brf cake would easily do 4 times what your saying. especially in an lc.


none the less. this is a great writeup.

should we make a contest to see what to name it? how about "Tv's Mcelial Blast Tek"

i don't know just throwing something out there. foaf does something similar with lc's like this but doesn't use the brf cakes. and uses syringes
to inject quarts directly. but using brf cakes would pose problems for syringes unless you get the large gauge needles. and even then you sometimes get clogs.
also, foaf does something very similar to this with brf cakes but just uses a sterile fork to break up the cake and transfer it to each jar. however, after seeing this, ahhh foaf is going to use this from now on. 1+1=2. why didn't foaf put this together earlier lol? anyway, it seems to be more work constantly scraping the cake with a fork. however, since the colonized brf cake is already
in 1/2 pints, couldn't you also just cut the cake in half and pour sterile water into the 1/2 pint? i guess either way works, but you have more space with the larger jar attachment and get more liquid culture this way. im really loving this man! can't wait to put it into action tommorow with some pan mycelia. oh yeah eat's got a cool new project to do thanks to the TVcasualty!


one more thing id like to add. i see you have a second lid with something bolted into it. this is for pouring?
foaf would actually leave that step out and pour directly from the jar. im betting you tried this and it
was a mess huh? but you would be able to use all the slurry.

what happens is the lid to the blade assembly is just laid flat across the top and then transferred directly into
the jars right after the blending takes place so it is done all in one sitting. poured kinda like a g2g transfer. in
between each liquid to grain transfer, foaf would lay the blender assembly flat across only opening it slightly
per transfer. this can be done with one hand, you just have to get used to it. this makes it one big step and
if you prep everything right, you just did all your work in one sitting. can't beat that!

storage or quick use:
and if you are storing this, how long would a brf cake slurry last in a jar would you say? ive had brf cakes last at
least a year and grow out even if they were gooey or not so solid. and quarts can last even longer. but would one
be skeptical about using brf stored in liquid like this for a longer period of time.? im not really sure how long it would last so this is something to throw into the mix. i would say if you were going to do this, and store it, you may want to keep it only a week or so. but unlike fahts mycelia syringe tek, the jar isn't dried out. i think with grain, the grain would recover once the liquid is removed and last a very long time. but with this tek, i can't see the brf cakes lasting that long pulverized in liquid. so in laymans terms, would this be a week long storage with this lid or would one be able to store it longer.



ah ok i see, its for pouring. neat! and cool idea. foaf is gonna try this with blade assembly lid only and see if it works. im sure there can be a million variations of this. very very nice!

[~floppypeter]

very nice write up !

You make it look easy !

[Godflesh]

[hyphaenation]

This is plain out fantastic !



I can't wait to try this with "edible" species.

Thanks TV-C

[TVCasualty]

Wow, thanks for digging up the links and for your thoughts. I have to shut my computer down in a minute (tornadoes approaching, lightning, etc.) but wanted to say that the nozzle dispenser allows a precise metering of the exact same amount of slurry into each quart, which is how to get them all to finish at the same time (that's more important when you're only incubating for three days).

I'll be back when the coast is clear to discuss some of the other points y'all have brought up, and I really appreciate the feedback from everyone, thanks!

P.S.- Use the metal mason jar band, not the original plastic one that came with the blender. Mine melted.

[eatyualive]

Wow, thanks for digging up the links and for your thoughts. I have to shut my computer down in a minute (tornadoes approaching, lightning, etc.) but wanted to say that the nozzle dispenser allows a precise metering of the exact same amount of slurry into each quart, which is how to get them all to finish at the same time (that's more important when you're only incubating for three days).

I'll be back when the coast is clear to discuss some of the other points y'all have brought up, and I really appreciate the feedback from everyone, thanks!

P.S.- Use the metal mason jar band, not the original plastic one that came with the blender. Mine melted.

tv, easy way to solve this problem. foaf only pcs the metal blade assembly and the rubber ring. it is laid flat on top of a regular mouth 1/2 pint or quart. foil is then wrapped over that and pced. when everything is cool and sterile, the plastic assembly is rubbed down heavily with rubbing alcohol and that is all. this is because the plastic mount for the pc is not touching anything sterile. it will only touch the exterior of your jar. you then blend and remove the assembly. when you g2g you would then just slightly open up the metal blade assembly and pour.

i love the idea of the measurements, its great when you have a certain # of jars you need to knock up. as for just colonizing quickly, me thinks the pouring method should workout if your only doing a few jars just for speed. and i like the statement above that you directed at the jars that the jars were ready, but you weren't ready. always a good thing!

want to hear a funny story? foaf did that and pced the plastic assembly with the blade assembly. well when it was cooled and removed from the pc, it was melted to the jar. foaf ended up tossing the jar about 2 stories down to the concrete and broke the glass jar to get the plastic lid off. It actually worked, and the assembly was reused. But the assembly was only pced for 15 psi for 20 minutes. foaf had to learn the hard way, and we won't even go into the blowing up the microwave story....

luckily, it works. any longer and it may have been permanently attached.

that was one of those "doh" moments!

good luck and hope your safe with those tornados.

[kocos]

Great wrightup man!!

[TVCasualty]

tv, easy way to solve this problem. foaf only pcs the metal blade assembly and the rubber ring. it is laid flat on top of a regular mouth 1/2 pint or quart. foil is then wrapped over that and pced. when everything is cool and sterile, the plastic assembly is rubbed down heavily with rubbing alcohol and that is all. this is because the plastic mount for the pc is not touching anything sterile. it will only touch the exterior of your jar. you then blend and remove the assembly. when you g2g you would then just slightly open up the metal blade assembly and pour.

I think the way I do it requires the metal bands, since I like to make a few blenders and stack them in the PC. The band helps hold it all together, and then each blender jar has it's own, sterile band. In a residential context, my philosophy is the more sterility the better! And it's not like I don't have an endless supply of metal bands laying around...

i love the idea of the measurements, its great when you have a certain # of jars you need to knock up. as for just colonizing quickly, me thinks the pouring method should workout if your only doing a few jars just for speed.

Yes, that's a good point. For a couple of jars, it's not that critical. In fact, this might not be the best way to do only a couple of jars (more effort than necessary). The method I posted took me awhile to develop, and I got it to the point where I thought it was ready to share when I'd managed to go from 12cc's of spores to 6 BRF half pints to 120 quarts of colonized grain in 19 days (I was trying to get a huge amount of spawn to make an outdoor bed of edibles; the armadillos had other ideas however so now I'm building an armadillo blender ). The nozzle allowed the liquid to be precisely estimated so I never ran out too early or under-spawned some jars, and I used a separate blender/nozzle assembly for each of the 6 half-pints for cleanliness.

It took me slightly less than two hours to dump the half-pints into the blenders, blend, and inoculate all 120 quarts (and that includes the time to shake the hell out of them).

As to storage, I really don't know how long the liquid would keep; might be worth some experiments. I'd imagine it would last longer by adding a small amount of peroxide to it before putting it in the fridge or whatever (extra oxygen), and I suppose freezing it might kill it (but is that certain??) though the thought of frozen spawncubes is appealing. Maybe propylene glycol (the less-toxic version of antifreeze found in Mountain Dew and other "food" products) could be added to or in lieu of water, and then it could be frozen without killing it (preventing ice crystal formation). Ahh, more experiments...

I'm intrigued about your pressure dispensing idea, and it occurred to me that once you plunge the air syringe to pour a shot, you'd need to pull the tubing off and suck more air into the syringe to push the next shot out. This air would need to be filtered or else it's a contamination vector. What if, instead of air, you used a mini co2 injector, like this one.

I was thinking about using a rather large syringe to minimize or eliminate the need to refill it with air, but ultimately I'm leaning towards an air compressor. The CO2 things might work if there was a way to precisely meter the flow, since for filling tires and staying affordable I bet the inflator would still blast way too much CO2 out even if set to the minimum. I'm also not absolutely certain that they are sterile, or what the effect might be of introducing 100% bone-dry CO2 to a liquid culture. I suppose you could make one with a piece of dry ice in a plastic bottle (though NOT sealed!!) and a regulator that switches between venting to the air and feeding to the dispenser; as the ice sublimates it creates a positive-pressure flow of CO2.

Since air compressor accessories are common and compatible, I'd been looking into using one of those "air carry" tanks that you can fill at gas stations. By attaching a hose with a pressure regulator and a foot switch, then adding an in-line micron filter, I think I can make a setup that will allow me to dispense one precise shot each time I hit the foot pedal (freeing a hand). That would be the decadent luxury model, of course. It would also allow use of a dispensing needle on the end of some silicone tubing (autoclavable) since the air pressure would likely blow out chunks that would normally clog the needle. Then, you can just use rubber or silicone ports to inject the slurry instead of pouring it. That is a major part of my idea for developing a spore-to-fruiting method that requires no glovebox or flow hood and produces large quantities of spawn very quickly, but no time and low funds are slowing me down.

[the jesus]

Phenomenal TV.

[hyphaenation]

TVC presents :

Slurry-In-A-Hurry

I made my rig yesterday as soon as I read this thread ! I'm trying it out this morning with King Trumpet Oyster. If it goes well I have another batch of WBS ready that I want to try falbino slurry on.

Can 100 % colonized grain be used to make S-I-A-H ? If so yeeeehaw

thanks TVC

much appreciated

H

[Dank Side Of The Shroom]

holy shit that is awesome.

[hyphaenation]

I've been thinking about this thread for a couple of days since I first saw it. Last night I did all the above with a king trumpet oyster cake and made a nice slurry. I used the slurry to inoculate jars of WBS. To compensate for the extra moisture I put a good layer of verm on the bottom of each jar.

So far so good. Its really easy to use this tek.

Also I tried to do this with PF albino on rye grain. Problem was that even with a small amount of water the grains don't blend well, they shoot up and stay basically whole. After a few grinding whirls the water is covered in mycelial strands. This made the liquid quite runny but it still worked good.

Can't wait to see how these go in the next few days.

[eatyualive]

Slurry-In-A-Hurry

now that is a good one!

Can 100 % colonized grain be used to make S-I-A-H ? If so yeeeehaw

i bet you can and i don't see why not! hehe something new to try.

[TVCasualty]

I've been thinking about this thread for a couple of days since I first saw it. Last night I did all the above with a king trumpet oyster cake and made a nice slurry. I used the slurry to inoculate jars of WBS...

Also I tried to do this with PF albino on rye grain.

That's awesome, I'm looking forward to hearing about both, especially the whole grain since I've not tried that before. I'd guess that 100% millet would be a great whole-grain spawn for blending, since even if the grain didn't break up it's still small enough to fit through the dispenser, though poring directly from the jar is always an option. I try to avoid open pouring because of the vastly increased surface area of the slurry exposed to air vs. the exposure from pouring through the nozzle.

Slurry-In-A-Hurry

Nice one! I should've thought of that since there's an Indian restaurant in my town called "Curry in a Hurry." Of course, eating there can sometimes result in an entirely different kind of "slurry in a hurry," so I'd hate for anyone to get confused...

[eatyualive]

tv,

this was done using basically the same steps as above but with the use of a shmuvbox instead of a flowhood. and there was no drilling done. the blade assembly was used as a lid and 1/10th of a pint of solution was used per jar. the rest of the leftover solution was placed in the fridge to see what happens....(betting its going to turn colors).

all of the slurry was poured even the chunks. everything was just poured like a glass of water poured into other glasses of water only they were quarts filled with wbs grain.

it was shaken and it appeared to be a bit gooey but the chunks of the brf/verm slurry were sticking to the sides of the grain jars.


this was going to be done with pan mycelia but some cubes needed to be done atm. some more pans will be tried very soon and will keep you posted.

the slurry was used liberally and hopefully this will make it colonize even faster. if not, then we may see contams. this was all done very casually in semi sterile conditions without the use of a flowhood. lets hope for the best.

total prep time for materials before g2g. 20 mins
total time it took to transfer 10 mins
very quick!

[mycobri]

Most Amazing Work TV
gonna have to try this out sometime

[waylitjim]

Very creative TV.
I'm glad you shared this one with us.
The evolution of cultivation just took another step forward.

[hyphaenation]

Would albino be a racial slur?

[eatyualive]

lol.....

Would albino be a racial slur?

[Fresh Brewed]

I was thinking about using a rather large syringe to minimize or eliminate the need to refill it with air, but ultimately I'm leaning towards an air compressor.

Seems like a three way stopcock,a sterile syringe, and some sterilzed tubing( one piece going from the 3-way down into the slurry and one piece on the other side of the 3-way to serve as a dispenser) and one of Hip's airport syringes could make a very useable pumping system that would allow the slurry jar to remain sitting on the table.
My FOAF has used a pumping system like this to do multispore injections with success.

[antimatt3r]

Interesting I like the idea of this tek, wonderfully written great pics!Seems like a lot of work, if you wanted to follow this tek you would need colonized pf jars first obviously,

so would you rather make pf jars, wait 2-4 weeks for them to colonize then follow this tek to have fully colonized grain jars in 4 days?
(total 2-4wks +4days)

or just innoculate the grain jars with LC and have them done in 2 weeks?

if you had some extra pf cakes laying around already ready this would be awesome but it seems the preparation and colonization of the initial cakes defeats the purpose of a 3-4day colonization.

Im wondering if you would get larger yields by adding a milkshake pf cake to a quart of grains?

ex. cake yields say ~75g wet, quart jar of grains cased yields ~150g wet that would total 225g wet from both sources seperatley, so using this tek I wonder if you'd get the ~150g from the grains as usual alone, or the ~150g PLUS the 75g that the cake would have yielded???

Im not putting down your tek or anything its great, just adding my thoughts

[TVCasualty]

the slurry was used liberally and hopefully this will make it colonize even faster. if not, then we may see contams. this was all done very casually in semi sterile conditions without the use of a flowhood. lets hope for the best.

total prep time for materials before g2g. 20 mins
total time it took to transfer 10 mins
very quick!

Well, you should be seeing some results by now. (seriously, you should!)

Can't wait to hear how it goes, and the pic of the blended cake you posted looks just like it's supposed to (sometimes chunks just won't break up, no big deal since they float and so don't clog the nozzle if using one).

[TVCasualty]

The evolution of cultivation just took another step forward.

Dude, that's a pretty intense compliment that took me by surprise! Thanks for that; time will tell if it's true, but considering your legendary past and ongoing contributions to amateur mycology, the comment made my day!

[little white rabbit]

[img]so would you rather make pf jars, wait 2-4 weeks for them to colonize then follow this tek to have fully colonized grain jars in 4 days?
(total 2-4wks +4days)[/img]

but with four days more you get 20 jars out of one

and it also takes some time to colonize LC-jars


@TV: interesting tek. if i have time i'll try it for a bulk. should work nice too

[TVCasualty]

Interesting I like the idea of this tek, wonderfully written great pics!Seems like a lot of work, if you wanted to follow this tek you would need colonized pf jars first obviously,

so would you rather make pf jars, wait 2-4 weeks for them to colonize then follow this tek to have fully colonized grain jars in 4 days?
(total 2-4wks +4days)

or just innoculate the grain jars with LC and have them done in 2 weeks?

It takes awhile to get a good LC, too! This tek is not for all situations, and someone trying to fill a single small tub or aquarium would be better off fruiting the cakes directly.

Here's the thing: In the time it takes to colonize the BRF jar, you will likely have seen any contamination show up (thus saving you from contaminating a bunch of quarts) and vastly more mycelial mass will have grown than is possible to produce with an LC in the same amount of time. Actually, an LC can never produce the same amount of mycelium as a BRF jar since an LC can't contain nearly as much food as a BRF jar, and BRF jars are lower maintenance as well.

If you don't want to wait around for the BRF jars to colonize, then all it takes is some basic management. Shoot the spores into the BRF a couple weeks before you need them, then shoot a few more BRF jars a few weeks later so that as soon as your first batch is finished, the next is ready to take it's place in the FC right away.

if you had some extra pf cakes laying around already ready this would be awesome but it seems the preparation and colonization of the initial cakes defeats the purpose of a 3-4day colonization.

It might take two weeks to colonize, say, a case of 12 BRF half pints using 24 cc's of spores. By day 19 or 20 (from shooting the spores) you could very well have 240 quarts of fully colonized grain ready for fruiting or expanding further to a bulk sub. As far as I know, mine is the fastest way to get ratios like 240 quarts of grain from 24 cc's of spores in under three weeks. This tek helps achieve an economy of scale, and is really too fast for home cultivators to use to it's full potential. I'd actually been working on it so I could get into growing a (small) commercial volume of edibles without the significant investment it normally requires (your backyard sheds/growrooms will be maxed out with mushrooms long before you reach the output limits of this procedure, in other words).

Im wondering if you would get larger yields by adding a milkshake pf cake to a quart of grains?

You mean the entire liquified cake to a single quart? That would be too hard to get right, since you'd have to initially make the grain extra dry to compensate and it might not cook up properly, and it certainly won't shake up well after coming out of the PC. Then, if you oversaturate the substrate with too much water from the slurry, it will likely contaminate. In terms of inoculation rates, there's a point of diminishing returns with a procedure such as this, and finding the optimal balance is trickier than it seems, just takes some hand's-on practice.

Im not putting down your tek or anything its great, just adding my thoughts

Thoughts, questions, comments, suggestions, concerns, and criticisms are all equally appreciated; it's all about moving forward, and this is a group effort.

[eatyualive]

Dude, that's a pretty intense compliment that took me by surprise! Thanks for that; time will tell if it's true, but considering your legendary past and ongoing contributions to amateur mycology, the comment made my day!

waylit is right tv. nice one man!

the slurry blended up nicely for me and no chunks at all actually. only half of a pf cake was used. the pf cake itself had fine vermiculite in it.

with g2g transfer using str8 pf cakes to grain quarts i think the fastest seen in these woods is around 3-5 days tops. and thats using quite a bit of mycelia from the master pf jar.

the jars are showing a little bit of growth but it almost appears to be from the center first. the jars were shaken well and hopefully in one more day. we shall have full colonization.

[hyphaenation]

Who doesn't have a jar or 2 of fully colonized something kicking around at any given time. When I look I see oysters , shitake , cubes, pans all needing to be dealt with. This slurry idea can take one lonely colonized jar and within minutes its dealt with and expanded many times.

It feels great to take a jar in that state and slurry it into a dozen PC'd jars. Now the trick is to be ready when those dozen jars are ready in a few days !

[bear]

I'm convinced. I have all these contamed? (who knows, one is, and Im not going to check the rest of them with six jars a piece - lost all of them) lcs sitting here - id be happy to see a fully colonized healthy cake and really innoculate the shit out of the grain with some very serious mycelium

[antimatt3r]

post this at shroomery!