Using The Phorce With Small Agar Jars
In recent memory I've had a few disappointing runs where I wanted to dust off my prints and grow some fruits. I started on the wrong foot , even though I knew better. Not sure if laziness or not thinking it through was culprit. Anyhow I started many jars of grain and inocced a good amount of spores....nothing. Week later started another batch but let the spores hydrate longer , shrunk the size of the grain jars a bit and tried again. Long story short I ended up wasting time, money, supplies and a whole bunch of my patience. Luckily I got no trich! But I also got no redboy myc either for all my efforts.
I decided to go back to the drawing board and stuff I learned here.
I knew already that starting spores on agar is a better bet especially for someone like me who is far less then sterile at the best of times. Some of this is stuff I have shared in the past and its just kind of streamlined a bit. I try and use things I can find in my house wherever possible and try and keep it on the simple side.
I started with 150 ml small glass jars and made a small breather for each. I used a simple potato dextrose agar recipe and stuck with it. Weighed all ingredients and followed procedures. Loaded the small jars and removed from PC and put in clean work space.
From there I tried a few technique of getting the spores to germinate. First i squirted the smallest drop from a spore syringe that I could into the agar jar , let it sit an hour and the swirled and set upside down. The other way was actually flicking flakes of spores off of the tinfoil with a clean implement. They just kind of scrape off onto the agar.
The spores I was using are dated from more than 10 years ago. that's likely why they had such a hard time waking up on the grain jars. Even with the agar many did nothing. Actually 11 out of 12 of the original attempt did nothing and I was ready to give up until I looked in that last agar jar. There it was white mycelium!
As that myelium grew out a bit I added sterilized grain (popcorn) and the myc immediately jumped on to the grain. When that colonized I was ready to start expanding...
Start spores on agar in small jars (or whatever you prefer)
When spores germinate and colonize add sterilized grain
Taller jar is even better for more headroom to add water/shake etc
A simple way is to G2G the colonized grain into another grain sterilized jar
The growth from G2G is very quick
All done in a few days. Ready to be milked
Building Mycelium Milker
I made up this tool with only on-hand gear from in the kitchen... Here were the basic steps I took to build my GLC milker. This tool is used to strip the mycelium from the colonized grain and then that liquid mycelium is used fresh to inoculate.
Guerilla Glue 2 small jar lids together top-to-top (allow to dry properly)
Clean up/scrape off exta glue that fluffed out
Add hose-clamp
Drill holes in jar lid to allow mycelium to freely flow with the water
Basic mycelium milker parts
Guerilla Glued the two lids together and let dry, cleaned extra glue off
Milker ready to go with hose-clam , filter-wheel and assembly
Gluing done and hose-clamp added
Rubber band goes around the milking filter-wheel. It keeps it in the milker instead of falling out
I needed to come up with a way to keep that filter-wheel inside the milker and not have it stay behind on the jar when you lift the milker. This little mod works perfect.
Milking filter-wheel in place. It won't remain on the jar when milker lifted off.
Grain side of the milking wheel. Rubber gasket for better seal
The milking wheel is sterilized inside a PP5 tupperware with the lid slightly cracked to avoid vacuum-effect.
It gets placed on to the colonized grain jar (for this photo it is just normal popcorn, not colonized)
That gets flipped over and then secured on to the jar with the water. I sterilize my water in PC and let cool. Pop the lid and then attach the grain jar/milker. Tighten that up snug on both connections, tweak the hose-clamp a turn to keep that tight.
Flip that over and now the water rains down into the colonized grain jar which you bashed to break up the grain mass. Swirl, shake , agitate this and turn upside down. All mycelium water rushes out of the grain. I repeat and then let it sit to drain properly, even shaking it lightly to get last drops out.
Now (like 2 pics above) the drained grain jar is above attached to the milker and both can be removed. A lid is placed on the fresh GLC and grain jar is flipped, milker remover and lid with breather placed on it. The GLC can be used in whatever way you like now. I find it a bit thick for any syringes I have so i opted to make a GLC Dabber"
GLC dabber poots out 3 CC every time you "flick" it
These larger jars of popcorn can take up to 10 cc of liquid before maxing out ... so I tried an experiment. I dabbed half the jars with 6 cc (2shots) and the other half with 3 dabs (9 cc). In my clean area I simply lifted the lid on each jar a crack and dabbed in a poot of the fresh GLC milk.
After 24 you don't see any growth and its disappointing and you think to yourself "well I can always add some colonized grain for a G2G..." but then you check in the morning 36 hours after inoc and there it is ...everywhere. The jars are crawling with inoc points in all sectors. Have not noticed big differences in the 6 cc jars compared to the 9 cc inoc'ed jars. Will update.
36 hours after inoc with the dabber
I will continue to edit and update as I have time.
Attached Thumbnails
Edited by hyphaenation, 12 February 2021 - 04:06 PM.
