106 replies to this topic

[Lazlo]

Well, most saw the other thread on this topic. This one is a bit different. As I used the oven to sterilize the grains, rather than a stupid pasturization try.:lol:
This is a square of a Golden Oyster clone on malt agar. It's just started to take to the seed today, along with the other 2. 3 jars done in this fassion total. I'll get to the rest when or if they colonize correctly. Lookin good so far...

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[golly]

So how do u sterilize in the oven without em drying up laz...? B pretty cool if it works...

[Lazlo]

So how do u sterilize in the oven without em drying up laz...? B pretty cool if it works...

Grains were soaked for 36 hours and drained well.
I used foil under the filtered lids to hold in the moisture and heat from the sterilizing process. Sterilized for 90 minutes in the oven on 250 degrees. The foil can stay inside the lids. You won't even know it's there, even when taking the lids off. After the MEA squares were placed in to the jars, I put a syringe through the filter to tear the foil for gas exchange. Simple! You can knock up with spores or LC and tear the foil all at once too....

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[Lazlo]

If it works that is....

[the_chosen_one]

The oven should work fine. I do my 1 quart jars of rye and spelt in the oven all the time with great and fairly consistent results. Your temp is a bit lower than mine Laz. I usually go around 350 deg F. Takes about an hour maybe a little more. Gotta keep an eye on this though. Anything that can free us of the ball and chain pc is great imo.

[Lazlo]

Well, i've got a massive sterilizer that's 25qt. So, it really doesn't matter to me weather it works or not. I thought it would be nice for people without pc's to be able to sterilize grains well and consistant. After the process, I realized that it was so easy to do that you could have 20-30 qts of whole grain sterilizing in the oven with ease. Hell of a lot better than 10qts a pop in my sterilizer. You could have mad grains sterilizing if it indeed works. In which i'm pretty sure it will. I've ran one try already and realized I forgot to knock up the jars. lol! They were in a box for 8 days and looked just as good as day one. No molds or bacteria. Nodda!

[AfraidofAmerica]

I'll have to give this a try since I have two ovens and a rather small PC.

Peace
-AoA

[Elf Salvation]

http://mycotopia.net...html?1053036451

Tyndalation

[Lazlo]

Elf Salvation. I'm not trying to add a ka zillion steps to the process. Mycota has a similar try going as well at the Shrooomery. A bit different than mine and along the same lines as that link sorta, but freezing is involved. I'm not in to that. One shot and that's it. If it works, then cool. If not, the log will go on until it's concrete and has a high percentage of success. In which, I think there's some potential here or I wouldn't try it. Don't forget! This is a log and not advice. I ain't afraid of failure by no means. Never know till ya try, RIGHT! 250 degrees is 250 degrees no matter how you look at it. Yes, steam is more wholesome, but 250 is 250. No mattter what the source of temps is.....

[OZ]

all i knows is, if this works, i am the happiest camper in this place man! i have a huge oven, and if this works, i can start some of that bulk growing ive alwasy wanted to do, cuz i have no pc....

ive had luck with a shortcut on fractional, and its worked 2 outa the 2 times ive did it...

i simmered the cornfor 30 minutes, drained, packed, steamed for 30 minutes, let cool for like 8 hours, and then steamed for 45 minutes, and then let cool overnite, and then nocked up... havent gotten contams

[drwombatt]

im wondering how you set the jars up in the over did you place them on a big ol' cookie rack? or would that make them break? do you have to have a hole'd racket like on the pc or can you simply place them in a fashion on the rack so they do not fall over

[Lazlo]

They were (hopefully) sterilized on the rack alone. A cookie sheet would be fine as well. I'll update the progress in a couple of days. So far, so good I guess....

[tripinstein]

Good idea there, Lazlo. I'm sure it will work out for ya. When I first started growing I was discouraged because I had no PC, but since then, I've been using bleach and the oven to sterilize several things and have had no problems. Though I've never put jars in the oven, but I'm sure it would work. Good luck and keep us posted.

[blackout]

I have sterilized grains in the microwave and have been thinking of using the oven too. I do use fractional sterilization to do it. I have 4.5l wine jars I was planing on using. I would turn the oven up very high to get them up to temp, check temp with a probe thermometer or visually check for lots of steam, then drop it down to just above 100C. This is what I do in the microwave, high until steaming, then low for the rest of the time. I just innoculated about 2kg of wet WBS this morning which was microwaved.

[anticheffy]

And if the grains were actualy getting to 250 degrees in the jars without pressure, as in , in the oven, they would come out completely dry as all the water would have vaporized as the grain passed 212 degrees. Pressure keeps this from happening, only pressure.

[Lazlo]

Yeah, that's true. The heat index goes up. Shit! If this ends up contaminating, I guess i'll extend the time to 2 hours. I hope it works out on this run though. Maybe i'll do a couple more and inoculate these with spores...

[anticheffy]

Im sure youll get results, you usualy do bud.

[Lazlo]

Well I was hoping the foil would prevent a lot of moisture loss and would provide a little bit of pressure as well during the sterilizing process. But the there's obviously not too much pressure as the foil or jars would crack. Well, the seed looked really nice after the jars had cooled. And when they had started to cool, you could tell the moisture content was in good shape. Well, let's see what happens with these and i'll prepare a print and syringe to use on a couple of new ones. As a lot of people use spore syringes instead of agar wedges or any other hot inoculants...