Hi guys, I’m back on the wagon again with my work. I’ve stripped my pc of the faulty electrical and housing and we are rocking like new.&&0){for(var>)throw>
So was your PC originally a "sterilizer" model, with its own electric heating element and all the rest?
It would probably be worthwhile to fix it since there are some really nice advantages to having a much more expensive sterilizer model vs. the regular version.
And what's the story with that band of rust around it near the top? That's more than idle curiosity on my part since cast aluminum cookers are more easily subject to damage that potentially makes them dangerous because they're more brittle than steel cookers.
FWIW, that spawn bag looks a lot more cottony than I like to see for cubes, so it could either be a contaminant or a problematic substrain since cottony mycelium doesn't fruit nearly as well as rhizomorphic growth (if it fruits at all). The growth in the jars looks a lot better in that respect, at least so long as all the black specs are something you added like coffee grounds and are not a contam.
If you took tissue samples from the gills of a dried mushroom then chances are you're mostly seeing growth from sprouted spores, not reanimated dry tissue. It could be a bit of both as well, however.
I was never concerned with the nutritional content of popcorn since I was just using it as a carrier for the mycelium to colonize straw with that gives me extremely consistent and reliable results. That said, when I toss a substrate after 2 or 3 flushes the kernels of corn are definitely depleted, and after 4 or 5 flushes they're just little desiccated husks.
Can I be the first to point out that popcorn doesnt need to be pc'd, its food grade and does not contain endospores like that found in rye, wbs, millet etc etc.
Now to sit back and wait to read others comments about how wrong I am about something, I'll bet the first one will be about not having to PC popcorn at 15psi lol
Sure, you can be the first to suggest that.
But doesn't it make you wonder why you're the first to suggest that when there are plenty of growers around who have been using popcorn for many years who don't suggest that?
There's a big difference between enjoying a run of good luck and making a habit of "best practices" for mycology. The difference becomes apparent when the luck runs out.
Some growers use organic, food-grade rye or millet, but they don't claim PCing is unnecessary. That's probably because endospores (as well as plain ol' spores) are ubiquitous in the environment and not specific to a type of grain (or grade of it).
So popcorn would only be free of contaminant fungal spores or bacterial endospores if it was grown, harvested, processed, packaged, transported, opened, AND used entirely within sterile environments and conditions. Which it isn't.
FWIW, my approach has been working very well for me consistently for a very long time. That is, every time I attempt to use popcorn for spawn with spores proven to be clean, I succeed. Which means my contamination rates for spawn jars and bags are less than 1%; most are 100% successful and I start to troubleshoot if more than one jar of BRF or jar/bag of popcorn contaminates.