Hello again fellow mycotopiates.
The meaning behind this thread's title is twofold. Firstly it is an homage to the fantastic growers on this site, that have inspired me and that I oft emulate. I have culled, copied, and patterned my process from our amazing members, without whom, I'd still be trying to figure out how to birth a PF/BRF cake. Secondly, I will try to make it as clear and as easy as possible, so that any eager reader may follow (copy) the process and not be intimidated (being a copycat is encouraged). Paying it forward if you will, there is no groundbreaking information here, it's intended to be user-friendly for our newish members.
So let's begin!
Things that one will need to do this grow:
Spawn/inoculant or spores/spore syringe.
Quart jars and lids, I make my own lids out of pp5 plastic, but one may absolutely use the lids one has, as long as they have a gas exchange (GE) filter, and for those using a syringe, a SHIP.
A pressure cooker/autoclave.
A space for your 'clean work' i.e. SAB/GB, flow hood etc, which you should already be employing at this point, for transfers, inoculation, etc..
Grain, I use oats, but one could certainly use wild bird seed (WBS), or any grain that is traditionally used. If you use popcorn, you will have to give them a good rinse after hydration, which is unnecessary for oats or WBS.
A cooler for the steep.
Coir. I do not suggest using a substitute or replacing this part. Coir is purrfect for bulk for many reasons. It is extremely contaminate resistant, which makes it very user friendly. It is renewable, as opposed to peat (harvested from swamps) or vermiculite (which is mined). It also does not need a PH adjustment (like peat or grass clippings). One could use straw in lieu of coir, however straw is a different animal, and I suggest that for our purposes one only use it as an additive (optional) to give your sub a little extra air for the mycelium colony.
Dirt or manure. There is some confusion among newer growers about bulk recipes. This particular process is primarily a 50:50 recipe. Half being the reservoir (coir) and half being a nutrition source (dirt). I'm here to tell you that virtually any quality dirt may be used. I use field collected composted horse manure, but I have used Black Kow right out of the bag, as well as organic topsoil. Don't over think it or try to reinvent the wheel. The goal is fluffy, hydrated, relatively nutritious material, that the mycelium can consume/colonize quickly with room to 'breathe'.
Calcium source. When following a steep tek (which we will), there is usually a handful of lime added (I use pickling lime, which is food grade), it's purpose is PH adjustment, which makes the sub more resistant to trichoderma contamination, but an oft overlooked benefit is the calcium boost. Oyster shells, egg shells, lime (calcium hydroxide) etc, will give the mycelium a calcium boost that they respond extremely well to in my experience.
Turkey tins for pasteurizing sub.
Sterlite bins. In this process, we'll be doing monotubs, therefore eliminating the need for a separate fruiting chamber.
Trash bags (optional, used to discourage side pinning after consolidation)
The first step is grain hydration
I have done the boiling corn until it swells, I've done overnight soaks, and I've done no-prep. I've been successful with all of them to some degree, but steeping is NO guesswork. If you can make ramen noodles, you can use steep tek.
Take your preferred grain and measure roughly half of your desired end result of hydrated grain. For example, my PCs hold 7 quart jars. I prefer there to be plenty of room for a good shake, so if I were to do one run, I'd measure out ~4-5 quarts of oats. Any extra hydrated grain can be stored successfully in the freezer for later use, or better yet, just do more runs. The hydrated grains won't sprout for a couple of days.
Place the grain into a cooler, this is the stage that I add lime for the PH adjustment, a little dab will do, approx 1/4c but I usually just eyeball it. If you have ph strips, the desired ph is around 7 to 7.5. If you want, this is when to add eggshells, especially if you aren't doing the ph adjustment with lime. After that just boil enough h2o to completely cover the grains, and once added there is enough h2o to stir the grains easily.
Cover with the cooler lid and wait 60min. Once 60min is up (one could let it go 90min, but I always error on the side of too dry in every stage of mushroom growing), drain using the cooler drain or use some sort of strainer. I save the drained liquid for other projects, but I digress. I use a rice strainer like this one pictured:
Now comes the drying. The advantage of this rice strainer, is that I can shake/spin it and do the entire drying process in the strainer. The goal is just dry on the outside of the grain kernel. If you don't have a suitable strainer, just spread them out on a towel in the sun.
Time to sterilize and then inoculate:
Alright, put the grains in your quart jars and tighten. The gas exchange vents in your lids will keep the jars from exploding. I prefer to fill with an inch or two gap from the top, which allows me to shake with abandon.
The vanilla is added to the oats to make it smell more like cookies than mushroom spawn when PC'd
Here's a closer look at 3 lids:
The top lid was just purchased from a vendor, the next one is a homemade lid with a manufactured SHIP, and the last one is completely homemade, tyvek gas exchange and a clear silicone SHIP.
PC the jars for at least 90min, I have moved to a 2 hour PC time to insure sterility, but be mindful of not running your PC dry.
After the PC run, allow it to cool slowly as is, preferably overnight. Do not take the rocker off or any other 'cheat'. Patience is our most valuable intangible, if you don't have it, you will acquire it in this "hobby".
Inoculate your jars with your preferred method. If you have a spore syringe, saturate the SHIP with a non-flammable disinfectant and torch your needle and inject away! I do this open air, but if you're new, do it in your SAB/GB/flow hood. You can also follow those steps and do grain to grain, agar to grain, or if you are super special, a cloned sample acquired in a sterile/aseptic manner. Shake your jars at 30% colonization to expedite the colonization. Right before you spawn to bulk, give them a final shake to make sure that they do recover, this ensures that they are contaminant free.
Let's go prep the bulk!
Let's get the math out of the way. The purrfect ratio of grain spawn to bulk substrate is 1:3 in my experience. Less than that (spawn) is going to lengthen the colonization time, and more than that will probably end up giving one too much excess moisture as the myc makes it's run.
So lets say that you have PC'd 7 quarts. If you do the math, you need 21 quarts of bulk substrate. Let's just call it 20. So 10 of coir and 10 of dirt/manure/compost.
Here are two of the most common coir/s that I find at the hydro store:
If you are pressed for time and have the money, do yourself a favor and get the bag, it's pretty much purrfectly hydrated already. If you have time and/or are low on funds, get the block form. If you don't have a hydro store, go to a petsmart and get the 3 brick eco-earth coir. It's cheap and the hydration ratio is roughly 3 quarts of h2o per brick (thanks @mlbjammer).
Now the main nutrition source. If you are blessed like me and have access to field collected horse dung, by all means use it. All one has to do is let it dry cracker dry and crumble. Field collected horse manure > than stall collected. The dung from a stall is covered in urine, which requires ph adjustment or at the least composting.
I'm going to assume that not everyone has access to dung, so grab a bag of black kow/organic soil/dirt, which should be sifted to get rid of rocks or twigs, however I have skipped that step with no ill effects.
Now mix 10 quarts of both together thoroughly. Excuse my french but FUCK field capacity, it's too wet IMO. I hydrate bulk sub so that it holds it's form when squeezed, with no dripping. The incredible hulk couldn't get one drop of water out of my sub. Like I said before, too dry > too wet in every stage of cubensis cultivation.
The goal is light and fluffy, if you get muddy, add more coir.
Pasteurization time!
A standard turkey tin will hold about 9 quarts of sub which is the amount one would use with 3 quarts of spawn. I am in the @tvcasualty camp of long slow and low on the pasteurization. I do mine on a grill that I can maintain 150-160f for as long as I want. The thought being that at 140f-170f, the thermophilic bacteria are active. The minimum pasteurization to kill off unwanted competitors is 2hrs at ~150f. Start the timer when the middle of your covered sub reaches 150f.
If you want, put a large pan of water in with your tins to keep the air saturated, therefore avoiding moisture loss from your already purrfectly hydrated subs. ;) Just make sure to keep it filled (This trick also helps if you are roasting meat, keeps it moist).
Personally I pasteurize at 150f for ~6-8hrs on the grill (you could do it in the oven or a homemade steam pasteurizer). Then I place the turkey tins in a cooler with towels and blankets surrounding it. The long slow cool off allows different thermophiles (active at different temps) to sex and multiply, in turn occupying more space on your sub.
Almost done kids!
Let's fill some monos. Get your bins ready. I use the 27qt sterlites. If you want, drill three or four 1" holes right above where the sub levels out which is should be about 3" deep (the sub depth). Cover the holes with micropore tape, fill tightly with polyfill (loosen during fruiting), or easyfelt. I have also forgone the holes and just did a lid cracking for half the day and closed the other half with excellent results (@sgfchamber style) If you don't want side pinning, use a trash bag here (I don't usually). If you skip the bags, wipe out your bins with h2o2 or any other environmentally friendly disinfectant. Now just mindfully mix 3qt jars of spawn with 9qts of your exquisitely prepared sub. I do it open air with disposable gloves. Just get all of your grains broken up and mixed real well.
The colonization run should take about 2 weeks, depending on how aggressive your strain is. Once it's 100% colonized, the sub should start to consolidate and shrink a little bit off of the sides of your bins.
Once you see little hyphal knots on the sub, place into fruiting, just increase FAE to initiate pin formation. This happens at about 75% relative humidity. Fan 3x a day and/or do the cracked lid method, slightly cracked 12hrs, closed 12hrs. If you gave it GE holes make sure there is a fan in the room keeping the air circulating. Ideally you want evaporation happening on the bulk surface. You know that this is happening as the moisture on the walls of the bin. When they dry, spray the walls.
Basically you want evaporation off of the sub surface, and wall surface. Spray the sides of the tub when they dry out.
Here's how they look when you are in fruiting:
Here's how they look right before harvest, sidepins and all:
*catEdit Both of those tubs were Ban Phang Ka, MS and took 5-7 weeks from "spore to spore". Both prepared with the above method.
Hope this helps you budding hobbyists. Please feel free to ask any questions you may have.
@microbe77, @mlbjammer, @wharfrat, @tvcasualty, @cue, @coorsmikey, @peacefrog, @hyph, @roscoe, @turkeyRanch, @seeker2be, @kcmoxtractor @myc, @happy, @agama, @psybearknot, @numeric, @sgfchamber, @whitethumb, @zen, @gadgetguy @alder, @EntireMycotopiaCommunity (if I missed someone, I apologize, this was more tiring than I thought it'd be) are just some of the members who I copied, was mentored by, or encouraged by to arrive at this point.
And of course our beloved founder @hippie3. RIP
Edited by Sidestreet, 05 September 2016 - 02:25 PM.
added archive tag
