Pennington Finch seed has birdkote on it. This is apparently a fungicide they use to keep the grain free of fungus. The birdkote is easily removed using jet dry added to your steep or soak. With this method we will use a steep to allow the birdseed to soak up moisture.
Materials needed
1) A big pot
2) A big strainer-preferably the small fine metal strainers available cheap at walmart.
the reason is that it will catch most of the smaller birdseed particles so that you don't lose
them in lets say a bigger hole strainer.
3) Pennington finch seed. im assuming you could do this same thing using rye berry. haven't tried it but
i would do it exactly the same if it were done.
4) A big spoon
5) 10 quart mason jars
6) 10 mason jar lids widemouth
7) 10 cut pieces of tyvek available at any usps or ups store.
8) 10 pieces of foil. thin foil
1) take your big pot and fill it about 1/3 of the way with birdseed . In the case of this big pot, it's exactly 10 quart jars worth of grain. no measurements necessary
2) take a squirt of jet dry and squirt it into the seed.
3) fill the pot about 3" from the top with tap water. make sure the grain has a good 3" over it so it has room to expand.
4) place on stove at high heat and allow it to start to boil. Now the key to this is catching it right when it starts to bubble. Right at boiling.
5) immediately turn heat to low. if you screw this part up like someone i know did last night. then you will have to toss all the seed. you can't boil the seed much longer once it begins to boil. all grains will burst and the seed will become mushy and broken. we don't wan this.
6) keep the heat on low and stir occasionally. check every few minutes to see if any grains burst. the big spoon is used here for stirring
7) roughly you will be steeping this seed for 10-15 minutes maximum. once you begin to see about 3-5 grains of seed burst in the spoonful that you scoop up for observation, it is done.
8) use the big momma strainer and pour all the seed into it.
9) rinse out the seed with cold water.
10) shake the strainer and the seed for a minute or two. with this strainer its easy there are handles. you can just shake it around in a circular motion.
11) now rinse the grain with cold water again.
12) allow the seed to strain for about an hour. stir it every 10 minutes or so. after one hour you will see that the seed is no longer glossy and the moisture appears to be very evenly distributed in the grain. most of all of this tek is observation.
13) now spoon the seed into the quart jars filling them about 3/4th full. you will then see the grain which should look like this after you place it in the jar.
14) cut your tyvek squares and foil. place tyvek over the mouth of the jar.
15) place the band lid over the tyvek and screw it on the mason jar
16) place foil over the jar and run your hand over it to where the foil looks like this over the jar.
17) place all jars in the Pressure Cooker . this is an all american PC and can fit 10 quarts per cook.
18) cook all jars at 15 psi for 1 hour only. that is all. remember we cooked the seed halfway already. now the PC time is reduced and not needed more than 1 hour.
19) after you PC has gone one hour turn it off and allow the pressure to release.
20) once the pressure is gone, open up your PC and slightly place the lid on the PC to where it is open. a slight 45 degree turn usually does the trick.
21) after about 10 minutes get some hot pads and a rack or something that allows you to transport hot jars to your clean room or incubation.
22) use the hot pads and shake all jars to redistribute the moisture in the jars. THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT PART DONT' SKIP IT.
23) now place your hot jars in your awesome coca cola rack and then transport them to your clean room to allow to cool. once cool inoculate or grain to grain transfer.
24) most of the time, liquid inoculant such as spore solutions isn't used. this will generally screw up the moisture content of the jars.
what is done instead is the use of agar clone tissue or liquid mycelial culture using lets say 9er tek or Karo tek. or you can use a colonized PF jar and scrape it using a sterile fork right into these jars.
ive heard of adding a bit of extra dry vermiculite to the jars once you place the wild bird seed(wbs) in the jars. you just put it right over the top of the grain. once you shake it after you PC the jars, it mixes in with the grain and actually lowers the moisture content due to volume of dry vermiculite . this then allows for a bit of play room when you inoculate spore solution into your jars. if you have problems injecting directly into the grain often, then this may help you. personally i have never tried it but it was something i read. im sure someone can suggest something else that is as effective if not more.
the lids:
you don't have to follow this method. it works like a charm though. you can also add a bit of rtv glue to the top to make a self healing injection port as well. this allows you to avoid taping the tyvek if you inject this jar. but you have to do this before you setup your jars. just dab a spot about 1/4" on the tyvek . allow to dry then its ready. rtv glue is high temperature about 620 degrees used in engines as adhesive. its similar to silicone but withstands high heat for the Pressure Cooker . this also avoids any unfiltered air contact inside the jars. when i g2g using these lids, the entire top including foil, tyvek , band are all unscrewed together and treated like one lid. it stays together well and is very easy to work with. and at the same time there is very minimal contamination ratios using this method.
arguments
there is always going to be the argument about soaking vs steeping. one usually says without soaking that endospores aren't started. at the same time, you have to soak for 24 hours and wait on the grain. with this method you can steep and be ready to inoculate that day. saving you one day worth of time. so speed is the key factor using this method. the grains are used as spawn for bulk substrates. usually WBS isn't cased and grown off of however, it will work. has been tested and works fine. imho, i haven't noticed any dramatic difference in yield opposed to steeping and soaking. but this is just personal observation.
so in conclusion, you can use the crappy cheap bird seed with fungicide all over it. you just have to clean the fungicide off of it. and it hasn't proven to be detrimental to yield or growth with years worth of trials.
anyway, there is something in the new Archives that hippie posted about this method. i just re-illustrated this for clarity of this post.
1) autocleavable 1/2 pint lids.( you can use regular lids if you want to. it still works) i just prefer these.
2) rtv high temperature gasket glue up to 650 degrees. you can also use aquarium silicone as well. i prefer the rtv. you can get black, white, red, and blue colors as well. but i believe the colors are indicative of temperature. i should have gotten the blue!
Procedure
1) Drill 1/4" holes into your lid
2) place a dab of rtv glue in the hole. you can use another utensil or your finger to mold the shape. i use a shish kabob toothpick.
3) use the stick to shape the dab of glue so it makes a snug fit to both sides of the lid.
4) allow to dry for 24 hours. now its ready
What this does is create self healing ports that you can use for long store spore solution.
What happens next?
1) Next we place distilled water into a 1/2 pint jar
2) a piece of foil is placed over the lids and the jars are placed in the pressure cooker
3) you then PC your water for 20 mins at 15psi
4) after your jar has cooled simply place them in the glovebox
5) follow sterile procedures and scrape a spore print into the jars. you can also use a bit of jet dry. this prevents the spores from clumping. i would go as far as adding the jet dry into the distilled water before you PC it. exact ratios should be looked up in the Archives .
6) now i like to give it a day and allow the spores to rehydrate but you can suck the spores into a syringe now
7) all you do is rub your needle with an alcohol swab and then rub the swab on the outside of the self healing port.
8) stick in your syringe, suck up water, cover needle.
you can use reused syringes. a good method for cleaning old syringes is listed below.
Syringe cleaning
1) take old syringes and get some rubbing alcohol. 70% isopropyl.
2) get a flat or low piece of tupperware so that you can pour in your alcohol and allow to soak.
3) pour alc into tupperware
4) take apart all syringe parts and place them into the alc.
5) wait 10 mins or so
6) start putting the syringes back together
7) suck up alc into each syringe and squirt it out. repeat this 3 times to be safe. this clears alot of the spores and debris already in the reused syringes
8) now you have a somewhat clean syringe. you can also go as far as squirting some alc into the syringe lid to be safe as well and sucking it out a few times.
9) your syringes will be pced dry. so no water in them. you just place them wrapped in foil sitting in an open mason jar in the Pressure Cooker . cook for one hour at 15psi. ive done it for 20 mins at 15psi with good results but i like to be on the safe side most of the time with syringes.
Attached Thumbnails
Edited by eatyualive, 01 September 2014 - 08:07 PM.
