I always always seem to get good flushes on my cakes and for the life of me I
don’t know what I do that’s different from anyone else, or do I? Well here in
a few simple tips and I will give all my little secrets, well they ain't exactly
secrets, more must do items, items that if you follow you will also end up with
bigger flushes, maybe.
I always stick to what I know best and what gives me the best results, and that’s
straight Brown Rice Flour cakes done the old-fashioned way, PF style cakes.
These tips may help, they may not but if one person shows an improvement in Flush
sizes we have a winner, so here’s my simple tips.
Quarter cup of BRF. As I said already Organic Brown Rice ground to a fine flour
in the coffee grinder.
Vermiculite I use half a cup. Arthur Bowers Silverperl Vermiculite Horticultural
Grade. It's not the fine vermiculite because we only get the one type here. I don't think
the fine vermiculite would be as good because when this gets to the bottom of the bag
its all smaller pieces which to me don't give as good a cake mix
Quarter cup of water, this is one of the few times I just use tap water. I don't
know how your tap water is but ours is not to bad.
When mixing the cakes I like to do my cakes 1 or 2 at a time it gets the mix better
more even, so your waters right through the whole mix.
First Flush.........
Second Flush.........
Third Flush......
The cups you measure the vermiculite etc with, well when you fill them make sure you
don’t go over the line; you don’t want the cup full to the brim that way the rest
of the mix will be off resulting in to dry a mix, I admit I fell for this one
when I started.
Brown Rice..Well I go for organic brown rice for the simple reason the shop nearest me sells it and if I changed maybe I would get lower yields, maybe I would get higher?
I’ve never seen brown rice flour in Scotland so I settled for the rice ground
in a coffee grinder and make sure its ground to a fine flour.
Now i clean them and scrape with a fork and both are under water in the fridge
for 18 hours.
1st the strain in the pics is Ecuadorian why? because they give great flushes and
are no problem to print from and are easy to maintain. My grow tank is the standard
Rubbermaid type, bought cheaply from the local diy store.1.5 inch perlite pre
soaked and spread evenly over the bottom. Fanning differs because it just depends
if I am in or my wife is in. If I am in they get fanned up to 6 times a day, but
if both of us are out they can go 8 hours without being fanned.Normally they can
get by with 3 or 4 air exchanges a day but I like to give them more.If i am growing
in winter i use a fish tank heater but its OK here at the moment so i am not using
one right at this moment.They get misted every time the sides of the tank seem
to be drying.Light, the tank has I clear lid and is at a window so they get natural
sunlight.Even though I only spray when it looks dry I still water and spray the
casing every day.
My Grow Tanks.
DBL end case after every flush.
Saving a Partially Colonized Cake.
Some of my cakes start OK then slows down to almost stopping.When this happens you don’t have to throw the cake out, a small operation can save the cake and even though the flush will be reduced you still get a gram or two.
The Procedure.
First pic shows a cake I cut, notice how full the cut is, you should use as sharp
a knife as you can.Prepare an area for working by washing with bleach and spraying
Lysol on the surface and wear gloves.The idea is to cut the uncolonized part of
the cake off, leaving you with a cake with 1 small part removed.
Remove the cake from the jar and wash under running water. Get a sharp knife and
plan where to cut the uncolonized part of the cake off, cut the part off with
1 cut no sawing or gouging, 1 cut.Next dunk for 18 hours.Dbl end case your cake
and make sure you pile plenty over the cut part of the cake this helps prevent
contaminations.
A small flush but better than nothing and if you have a few cakes that go in this
direction then a few grams is better than total failure.
Happy Shrooming and good luck.
by scotsman1
