10 replies to this topic

[planetcaravan03]

Do these three jars look ok? 

 

So, I started my jars last Friday and had checked them a couple times over the week. I went up to check tonight and it is finally starting to grow some mycelium However, I did notice a couple jars looked kinda "mushy". I admit that I did not do the squeeze test for checking the verm for the proper water amount.  I actually think this may have been caused by me not making sure the foil was tight enough before I put it in the pc. All the jars looked pretty good before they went in the pc. I did start these jars out using Micropore tape after inoculation but ended up removing it about four days later. The temp in the cooler has been around 73f on average. I tried a heating pad for the first day but it stayed around 84f and that seemed kinda warm to me.

 

So my question is this, should I just let them go and see what happens?  Is this normal growth, meaning does it start looking like this before it turns white? Or should I quarantine these from the rest? I will of course will be looking for odd colors and smells.

 

This is my first time and obviously newbie mistakes have been made.

 

Thanks,

Planetcaravan

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[mushit]

Sad to say that it looks like bacteria.

You are not alone.

I have been fighting with bacteria myself.

Damn dirty syringes.

[CrystalShip]

Yeah my jars didn't look like that and I'm using the same tek. I just started growing mushrooms as well by the way but I really made sure to have proper Field Capacity in the substrate before loading into jars. Maybe it was too wet? Sorry can't really give the best advice yet. lol

[Dabluebonic]

I lost 5 jars as soon as the temp in the room reached around 85 in the room they were in. Along with being a bit more sterile, try incubating in the low 70s.

[TVCasualty]

Do these three jars look ok? 

 

So, I started my jars last Friday and had checked them a couple times over the week. I went up to check tonight and it is finally starting to grow some mycelium However, I did notice a couple jars looked kinda "mushy". I admit that I did not do the squeeze test for checking the verm for the proper water amount.  I actually think this may have been caused by me not making sure the foil was tight enough before I put it in the pc. All the jars looked pretty good before they went in the pc. I did start these jars out using Micropore tape after inoculation but ended up removing it about four days later. The temp in the cooler has been around 73f on average. I tried a heating pad for the first day but it stayed around 84f and that seemed kinda warm to me.

 

So my question is this, should I just let them go and see what happens?  Is this normal growth, meaning does it start looking like this before it turns white? Or should I quarantine these from the rest? I will of course will be looking for odd colors and smells.

 

This is my first time and obviously newbie mistakes have been made.

 

Thanks,

Planetcaravan

If they are contaminated with bacteria you should be able to smell it (it won't be subtle).

 

Looking at the pictures I would have thought bacteria seemed likely but then when you mentioned the heating pad and how hot it got another possibility emerged, which is that the heat from the heating pad drove the moisture out of the jar from the bottom up and the clumping is basically condensation saturating the flour.

 

So they may not be contaminated, and if not they are probably recoverable.

 

It mostly depends on whether or not they are starting to stink.

[planetcaravan03]

 

Do these three jars look ok? 

 

So, I started my jars last Friday and had checked them a couple times over the week. I went up to check tonight and it is finally starting to grow some mycelium However, I did notice a couple jars looked kinda "mushy". I admit that I did not do the squeeze test for checking the verm for the proper water amount.  I actually think this may have been caused by me not making sure the foil was tight enough before I put it in the pc. All the jars looked pretty good before they went in the pc. I did start these jars out using Micropore tape after inoculation but ended up removing it about four days later. The temp in the cooler has been around 73f on average. I tried a heating pad for the first day but it stayed around 84f and that seemed kinda warm to me.

 

So my question is this, should I just let them go and see what happens?  Is this normal growth, meaning does it start looking like this before it turns white? Or should I quarantine these from the rest? I will of course will be looking for odd colors and smells.

 

This is my first time and obviously newbie mistakes have been made.

 

Thanks,

Planetcaravan

If they are contaminated with bacteria you should be able to smell it (it won't be subtle).

 

Looking at the pictures I would have thought bacteria seemed likely but then when you mentioned the heating pad and how hot it got another possibility emerged, which is that the heat from the heating pad drove the moisture out of the jar from the bottom up and the clumping is basically condensation saturating the flour.

 

So they may not be contaminated, and if not they are probably recoverable.

 

It mostly depends on whether or not they are starting to stink.

 

I hope the condensation is the problem. I did pull them out of the cooler and quarantined them for good measure. I didn't notice any smell at all to them. I will check them in a couple days and see how they are doing. Thanks for the input. 

[planetcaravan03]

Yeah my jars didn't look like that and I'm using the same tek. I just started growing mushrooms as well by the way but I really made sure to have proper Field Capacity in the substrate before loading into jars. Maybe it was too wet? Sorry can't really give the best advice yet. lol

I will be definitely checking the Field Capacity next time. There are a couple things that I will do differently and double checking. Hopefully it was just too wet. They didn't look like that before I put them in the pc so I am hoping that's the issue. I'll be keeping an eye on them. First grow so my expectations aren't all that great. If I get a couple decent cakes that grow and I can get prints from I'll be good to go. 

Thanks

[Uncle G]

The one jar looked fine to me.  

[Uncle G]

Yeah, they are good to go. next step set them and forget them.  stop touching them.  

[Uncle G]

 

Do these three jars look ok? 

 

So, I started my jars last Friday and had checked them a couple times over the week. I went up to check tonight and it is finally starting to grow some mycelium However, I did notice a couple jars looked kinda "mushy". I admit that I did not do the squeeze test for checking the verm for the proper water amount.  I actually think this may have been caused by me not making sure the foil was tight enough before I put it in the pc. All the jars looked pretty good before they went in the pc. I did start these jars out using Micropore tape after inoculation but ended up removing it about four days later. The temp in the cooler has been around 73f on average. I tried a heating pad for the first day but it stayed around 84f and that seemed kinda warm to me.

 

So my question is this, should I just let them go and see what happens?  Is this normal growth, meaning does it start looking like this before it turns white? Or should I quarantine these from the rest? I will of course will be looking for odd colors and smells.

 

This is my first time and obviously newbie mistakes have been made.

 

Thanks,

Planetcaravan

If they are contaminated with bacteria you should be able to smell it (it won't be subtle).

 

Looking at the pictures I would have thought bacteria seemed likely but then when you mentioned the heating pad and how hot it got another possibility emerged, which is that the heat from the heating pad drove the moisture out of the jar from the bottom up and the clumping is basically condensation saturating the flour.

 

So they may not be contaminated, and if not they are probably recoverable.

 

It mostly depends on whether or not they are starting to stink.

 

TV 

 

I think they are fine.  They look a little fuzzy starting out sometimes 

[TVCasualty]

It was the wet/slimy looking saturated flour at the top that was causing the concern, which was most visible in the first pic. And that's usually associated with bacterial contamination, but the lack of stink suggests it's not bacteria so my hypothesis (which was that they're basically fine and not contaminated) seemed like a reasonable alternative explanation to me due to the heating pad since heat drives moisture from warm areas toward cooler areas.