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 Babo911
Pooper Scooper
Registered: 09/05/05
Posts: 1,744
Loc: Arizona Bay
Last seen: 9 months, 10 days
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 AA930 Spawn bag question 
#6326555 - 12/02/06 08:04 AM (6 years, 5 months ago) |
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I am getting sick of jars (mainly because of there expense) I am going to switch to bags.
I know alot of the vendors sell them and was wondering what the best size for an AA930 would be. I do about 12-14 qt's at a time and I know I can put more then that worth of spawn bags in there 
So my question is what size bag and about how many qt's of rye per bag?
One last thing... How many cc's of LC per bag? About 30cc seems to be all I could could dig up around the boards....
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Ronhero on the Growery is me
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Jeremy_Davis
Mycelial NetworkAdministrator
Registered: 04/22/05
Posts: 652
Loc: Florida
Last seen: 1 year, 1 month
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Re: AA930 Spawn bag question [Re: Babo911]
#6326639 - 12/02/06 10:02 AM (6 years, 5 months ago) |
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Spawn bags are very temperamental. I went through the same feelings you are having and wasted a lot of time and energy on spawn bags and had a terrible success rate. I have usually about 1% contam rate when using jars, and with bags it became about 50% or even more. My experience with them was terrible. I think they work best for huge commercial autoclaves with the racks that move in on wheeled carts. When stuffing a PC with them I don't know they're just a mission.
I had everything from the bags melting from touching the sides of the PC, (Thanks Agar for helping me with that! He told me to wrap the bags in wet towels, or use wet cardboard around the inside of the PC), to water boiling away over the long 4 hour sterilization (thanks again to Agar for hipping me to the pressure release valves, as opposed to the pressure weights), to the happy success. In my opinion, and experience, even though you can fit more than double the amount of grain in two spawn bags as you can in 14 quart jars, the advantage is lost due to your sterilization times. I can get 99 out of 100 jars to be contaminant free in 1 to 1.5 hours of sterilization time. Add half an hour to build pressure and half an hour to de-pressurize and you're looking at about 2 to 2.5 hours. For bags, the recommended time from Unicorn bags and from Stamets is to sterilize for 3 or more ofter 4 hours. Add your pressurizing time and depressurization times and you're running at 5 hours.
Now if the bags offered the same contam rate as jars, then it would be worth it, no question. But in my experience it was actually a disaster, and a waste of time and materials, hands down. Jars are a bit of a mission, but they are the way to go.
I'm sure I'm going to be crucified by others with different experiences, but I, of course can only speak for myself. Just as an aside I have 2 AA930s two AA921s, I had an AA915, and then I have an AA925x and AA975x. None seemsed to do better than the others with bags for me, and believe me, I tried.
Either way, best of luck in all you do brother!
Light and Love,
Jeremy
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Jeremy Davis
Educational Concerns for Hunger Organization, Inc.
Check out the ECHO mushroom blog page to see our lab, growing facility, and more-www.echotech.org/greta
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Babo911
Pooper Scooper
Registered: 09/05/05
Posts: 1,744
Loc: Arizona Bay
Last seen: 9 months, 10 days
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Re: AA930 Spawn bag question [Re: Jeremy_Davis]
#6326738 - 12/02/06 11:38 AM (6 years, 5 months ago) |
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well I recently bought 14 cases of qt jars and it came out to be a pretty penny (came out to be about $7 a case shipped)
I think I will just stick to jars for now. I have done some spawn bags before so I was wondering.
Also if you put the heavy tin foil around the sides of your PCer and lids between the bags they don't stick or melt from past experience.
Thank you for the reply
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Ronhero on the Growery is me
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RogerRabbit
Bans for Pleasure
Registered: 03/26/03
Posts: 39,269
Loc: USA Mountain Northwest
Last seen: 5 days, 14 hours
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Re: AA930 Spawn bag question [Re: Babo911]
#6326806 - 12/02/06 12:18 PM (6 years, 5 months ago) |
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Bags have their purpose and they work well, but you'll never save money by switching to them, because they're a one-time-use thing, while jars can be re-used for many years.
If you have a 921 or 930, you can easily fit four of the large, gusseted spawn bags inside. I have never made an attempt to keep the bags from touching the sides, and have never once had a bag melt. Perhaps if you have a poorly adjusted gas burner where the flame is curling around the bottom and going up the sides, it could be a problem, but for a normally adjusted burner, or electric stove, the bags won't melt if up aginst the edges. Bear in mind, I'm talking about commercial mushroom spawn bags, purchased from a reputable dealer, not home made ones using oven bags.
It's important to place jar lids or some other spacer between the bags to separate them. I also drop a single jar lid between the side of the PC and the sides of the bag where it touches in order to allow steam to penetrate nearly all around the bags. The corners of the bags are still up against the side of the PC.
It also helps when using spawn bags in a non-sterile home environment to place a length of cloth or tyvek inside the bag that reaches from the top of the substrate to the top of the bag. By folding the bag with the tyvek along the folds, it allows for a path for steam to escape, while filtering the incoming air as the PC cools and air/contaminants are drawn in from outside. These contaminants entering the non-sealed bags are a major cause of contamination, and they occur before the bags have even been removed from the PC.
There is no need to PC anything in a AA 930, 921, etc., for more than 90 minutes. The four hour PC times Stamets describes in his books are for when you have substrate bags stacked five or six deep and it takes that long for the center to warm up. With four large bags stuffed into a 930 with spacers between the bags, 90 minutes is enough for complete sterilization.
Another important consideration when using bags is that because they hold more material, you prepare the contents drier then you would for use in smaller jars. If you load wet grains into a filter patch bag, it's almost a guarantee of failure.
In addition, many growers still fail to put a plenum of fresh air into bags prior to sealing. For the filter patch to be able to exchange gasses, the bag needs to be partially inflated. I've seen many pictures posted on the boards asking for help with stalled colonization, and the top of the bag was rolled up tight like a scroll, and that's exactly why the mycelium stalled. It ran out of air.
RR
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Download Let's Grow Mushrooms
semper in excretia sumus solim profundum variat
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 agar
old hand
Registered: 11/21/04
Posts: 9,056
Loc: Somewhere Else
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Re: AA930 Spawn bag question [Re: RogerRabbit]
#6326944 - 12/02/06 01:10 PM (6 years, 5 months ago) |
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RR is right on about AA PC times with bags.
90 to 100 minutes works fine.
Also AA 941 sterilizer has the advantage of an INSERT.
So, no bags touch outer walls. 
Even with all that.
I now use Big Bertha, for bags.
Simply because it has a rack.
And I can set bags side by side upright on it. 
The largest spawn producer IN THE WORLD.
http://www.sylvaninc.com/
Does not autoclave bags.
They buy them STERILE.
Then, load them with rye pre-sterilized in an SS autoclave.
The size of a 3000 gallon tank truck.
Then, in another large SS chamber cool the rye.
Then, load sterilized (cool) rye in STERILE pillow type bags.
Add pre-colonized grain spawn (G2G) at the same time.
(think clean room)
Then, incubate & colonize those pillow type bags.
On SS racks, until fully they are fully colonized.
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Blutjager
Inhuman
Registered: 06/12/06
Posts: 9,220
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Re: AA930 Spawn bag question [Re: agar]
#6327380 - 12/02/06 03:48 PM (6 years, 5 months ago) |
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Quote:
agar said:
RR is right on about AA PC times with bags.
90 to 100 minutes works fine.
Also AA 941 sterilizer has the advantage of an INSERT.
So, no bags touch outer walls.
Even with all that.
I now use Big Bertha, for bags.
Simply because it has a rack.
And I can set bags side by side upright on it.
The largest spawn producer IN THE WORLD.
http://www.sylvaninc.com/
Does not autoclave bags.
They buy them STERILE.
Then, load them with rye pre-sterilized in an SS autoclave.
The size of a 3000 gallon tank truck.
Then, in another large SS chamber cool the rye.
Then, load sterilized (cool) rye in STERILE pillow type bags.
Add pre-colonized grain spawn (G2G) at the same time.
(think clean room)
Then, incubate & colonize those pillow type bags.
On SS racks, until fully they are fully colonized.
 That is simply beyond inspiring
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Cake makers please read this before you waste more time/effort >>
http://www.shroomery.org/forums/showflat.php/Cat/0/Number/6236058/an/0/page/0
My LC tek >> http://www.shroomery.org/forums/showflat.php/Cat/0/Number/7320516/an/0/page/0
""THEY CAN NOT KILL ME,I STILL WALK THE EARTH,WEAKENED BUT ALIVE.THEY HAVE TAKEN ALL FROM ME BUT THE BEATING OF MY COLD DEAD HEART.
THEY WILL NOW LEARN OF FEAR,THESE MEWING BABIES WHO THOUGHT THEY COULD DESTROY ME.
I HAVE REGAINED MY POWERS AND SHALL COME TO THEM IN THE NIGHT........
MY VISITS SHALL NOT BE KIND !! ""
 BlutJager
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RogerRabbit
Bans for Pleasure
Registered: 03/26/03
Posts: 39,269
Loc: USA Mountain Northwest
Last seen: 5 days, 14 hours
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Re: AA930 Spawn bag question [Re: Blutjager]
#6327390 - 12/02/06 03:53 PM (6 years, 5 months ago) |
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How long did you spend polishing big bertha before that picture? Does she have a sister? I'm jealous.
RR
--------------------
Download Let's Grow Mushrooms
semper in excretia sumus solim profundum variat
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