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mantid
mycelium runner
Registered: 06/01/08
Posts: 54
Loc: oregon coast
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Building a fruiting room
#9187923 - 11/05/08 09:45 AM (15 years, 4 months ago) |
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Hello-
Just got back from the Stamets Seminar and highly recommend it. Really fantastic. It has me pretty excited about builing out a fruiting room. I have a couple choices, and am not sure which way to go:
1) build a sub-room in a metal pole barn. It has plenty of electricity, water would have to pumped in from nearby creek and via rain collection. I plan to do this anyway for outdoor garden in the area. Drainage will be a problem but not insurmountable; I believe a decent approach would be to build a raised and slightly tilted floor with tile backerboard and have a drain below it go to the outside.
2) convert a sauna we do not currently use. It is a very solid and perfectly shaped small builing with cement floor w/ drain, cinderblock walls, although they are cedar for the top 6 or so feet. Stamets says to avoid wooden fruiting rooms, but doesnt mention rot-resistant wood like cedar. This sauna has been used with heavy steaming for 10 years and has no signs of decay. It is in a very humid and shadowy part of the forest so stuff outside rots immediately and there are mushrooms all over. I believe this is a great building but am nervous about converting it. I assume the cedar panels shoul be covered inside with some kind of insulative vapor barrier. Or fungicidal paint? The building has water, but no power. It is not a huge deal to run a power line out to it, and I am much more in favor of this conversion than option 1.
3) Use a prefab plastic building, which would need power and water run to it. Not very interested in this approach, but will consider if it is "best".
Any thoughts?
Edited by mantid (11/05/08 10:15 AM)
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frankenstoen
Registered: 01/26/08
Posts: 385
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Re: Building a fruiting room [Re: mantid]
#9188349 - 11/05/08 11:10 AM (15 years, 4 months ago) |
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Do all three. You can never have too many mushrooms.
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MycoAu
5thKingdomCome
Registered: 07/18/07
Posts: 1,047
Last seen: 3 years, 2 months
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Re: Building a fruiting room [Re: frankenstoen]
#9188520 - 11/05/08 11:42 AM (15 years, 4 months ago) |
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Go with option 2 or 3. Option two is probably going to be easiest and cheapest for you. I would definitely try to cover/coat your wooden areas with plastic barriers before fruiting. Once you start fruiting, you will have a much higher spore burden in that room than usual. Given the humidity of such a room, you'll eventually have problems with decay from species that are aggressive, such as oysters. At least it's cedar and not hardwood.
Your "best" bet is the third option, but it will probably be more expensive. Easier to clean, no real problems with rot.
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German Kahuna
Facepalmer of Stoopid
Registered: 10/31/08
Posts: 15,798
Loc: On a Chemical Vacation
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Re: Building a fruiting room [Re: frankenstoen]
#9188598 - 11/05/08 11:57 AM (15 years, 4 months ago) |
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Since Saunas are usually built to be hot, but not exactly to have very high humidity over an extended period of time, I am not too sure if the sauna is an ideal environment, really. The reason is that a temperature of 27-30° Celsius and a constant humidity of 90-100% is quite different to a Sauna climate, which has the temperature/relative humidity ratio almost exactly reversed.
Dry Sauna: 95-105 °C, humidity around 10% or below; Sauna with Infusion: 80-95 °C, humidity between 10 and 20% "Sanarium", bio, herbal sauna, 60-80°C, humidity 20-40%
A sauna is not a steam bath, which is between 40-60° with humidity between 80-100%, but that's not made out of wood, but usually a tiled room.
I reckon turning an all wooden sauna into a fruiting chamber might work for a short period of time after which it will turn into an ideal fruiting chamber for mold and any other contaminants one can think of.
If you are bent on using it as a fruiting chamber nevertheless, I would recommend that after each growing of a batch you disinfect the whole place and let it run in sauna mode again (very high heat, very low humidity) for a while before using as a fruiting chamber again.
At high temperatures with very low humidity (which is the regular modus operandi of a sauna) the wood can last forever. This is however, very different from your intended use and I reckon that Stamets knows what he's talking about.
-------------------- "Vegetarian" [ /ˌvedʒəˈteəriən/] - Ancient slang meaning "village idiot who can't hunt, fish or ride".
Edited by German Kahuna (11/05/08 11:59 AM)
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mantid
mycelium runner
Registered: 06/01/08
Posts: 54
Loc: oregon coast
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Thanks. The main appeal of the sauna is that it has a nice cement floor with drain, is an ideal shape and size, and it is very close to being "done", it would just need fans and humitidy system. But you are probably correct in that even the cedar would end up problematic. Also, I am trying to make some use of the room since we really don't do saunas very often (the man we bought the property from used it daily). Its probably better suited to plant cultivation, but since I have a greenhouse I don't really need an indoor garden.
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denger
Mycelium keeper
Registered: 09/19/08
Posts: 1,177
Loc: Unites States of Dreams
Last seen: 1 year, 5 months
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Re: Building a fruiting room [Re: mantid]
#9188866 - 11/05/08 12:45 PM (15 years, 4 months ago) |
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It should not be that hard to convert the sauna. Open wood is definitely a problem in the long run, but should be fine after two coats of regular alkyd oil based paint.
I wouldn't use anti-fungal paint, it may interfere with your grow depending on what fungicide it has in it.
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German Kahuna
Facepalmer of Stoopid
Registered: 10/31/08
Posts: 15,798
Loc: On a Chemical Vacation
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Re: Building a fruiting room [Re: mantid]
#9188910 - 11/05/08 12:54 PM (15 years, 4 months ago) |
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Well, Red Cedar contains natural fungicides that prevents the wood from rotting, which is probably why it is used to build saunas. Not sure how much it can take. A fruiting chamber is putting pretty heavy environmental stress on wood, I suppose.
-------------------- "Vegetarian" [ /ˌvedʒəˈteəriən/] - Ancient slang meaning "village idiot who can't hunt, fish or ride".
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German Kahuna
Facepalmer of Stoopid
Registered: 10/31/08
Posts: 15,798
Loc: On a Chemical Vacation
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Re: Building a fruiting room [Re: denger]
#9188937 - 11/05/08 12:59 PM (15 years, 4 months ago) |
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Painting it in such a way prevents it to be reconverted into a sauna easily at a later point, though. Even if they don't use it much now, one never knows. They might regret it later on. I know I wouldn't do it. If you don't lack space on your property, there are inexpensive solutions that can do the same thing for you without ruining a nice sauna worth a couple grand. The environmental equipment will have to be bought either way.
-------------------- "Vegetarian" [ /ˌvedʒəˈteəriən/] - Ancient slang meaning "village idiot who can't hunt, fish or ride".
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solumvita
Q.B.E.
Registered: 02/12/08
Posts: 2,061
Loc: South Africa
Last seen: 9 months, 6 days
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Seems a waste of a good sauna, perhaps you can line the wood with some sort of plastic lining. Maybe one day you sell the house, good selling point a sauna?
-------------------- One of these days all the answers will be revealed until then we learn from each other! www.mushrush.co.za
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mantid
mycelium runner
Registered: 06/01/08
Posts: 54
Loc: oregon coast
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Re: Building a fruiting room [Re: solumvita]
#9201605 - 11/07/08 11:37 AM (15 years, 4 months ago) |
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Yeah I have vetoed the idea. I'm sortof jumping the gun anyway, I should ramp up with Marthas and tubs. The sauna conversion, if a good idea, would have only been a little bit of work though and would be pretty exciting to have a dedicated grow room building. I do not think I can afford to build a nice one from scratch in the forseeable future. A real problem with this hobby/business is that I am not sure there is a way to ramp from farmers market/local restuarants to the next level. It seems to require a huge investment. I was excited to be able to take advantage of my property to have something close to a commercial (though small) growroom for relatively little expense. The thought of populating a real growroom with just pressure cookers is also daunting though, so I will be patient and make do with small fruiting chambers for as long as I can, as I do not see a boiler and retort in my future.
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