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 Spudz76
Got mycelium on the brain...
Registered: 02/08/04
Posts: 391
Last seen: 2 years, 2 months
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 Re: The Coffee Project [Re: Mycofriend]
#2980499 - 08/09/04 03:15 AM (7 years, 9 months ago) |
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I had that thought when deciding to try cola, but noticed one of the acids it has is phosphoric acid, which I thought perhaps the mycelium might be able to deconstruct and then furthermore use the phosphors for nutes too. But that was mostly a guess, probably they can't break down the acid into usable phosphors (and even then I'm not sure the phosphor is a good nute to have lots of). I wouldn't try it in a mix I was trying to innoculate with spores for sure, but I thought the mycelium could probably 'fight' their way through the slightly harsh conditions, especially with the help (or, suspected help) of the caffeine (and H2O2 as an oxygenator/sterilizer).
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FirstAvailable
enthusiast
Registered: 02/14/04
Posts: 728
Last seen: 1 year, 7 days
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Re: The Coffee Project [Re: Anno]
#2985302 - 08/10/04 08:33 AM (7 years, 9 months ago) |
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what do they do with the pure caffein that is extracted?
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 GnuBobo
Frilly Cuffs Extraordinaire
Registered: 06/17/04
Posts: 43,754
Loc: Charisma
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Update: I made a solution of 1:250 bleach/water and diluted 50% coffee. I used this to mist my casings (this was while I patched the casings.) A few days later. One was pretty contamed with green. I gutted that out and used Hippie's salt tek to patch the hole.
It looks like the other 2 casings I used this spray with may be contamed as well. I will add, however, that the myc appeared along side the contams, and pretty quickly after the patching. Don't know if this is the coffee or just the myc.
So, one casing I will check on today (it has some gray looking stuff that's not cobweb, but, may be the tip of green again. Don't know). The other, which shows no signs of myc or contams over the patching....well, I don't know. This one may be doomed.
On the bright side, the two other casings I made are pinning nicely (no coffee used on these).
Oh, and AFOAF spawned the other rye jars to some nice big pans of poo/straw; G2G'd to 7 quarts of popcorn, and fooled around with transplanting some myc. tissue to three pint Karo jars. This friend of mine is thinking that a simple calculation of the numbers and options going right now should provide confidence that one of them will produce *something*. This is his first time out, y'know. Cheers everyone. 
GB
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Jerry Garcia. JERRY GARCIA! JERRY GARCIA!!!!
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mycopsycho
Tit Inspector.
Registered: 06/17/04
Posts: 3,712
Loc: Going Nowhere Fast
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Re: The Coffee Project [Re: GnuBobo]
#2987033 - 08/10/04 03:22 PM (7 years, 9 months ago) |
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GL! i ordered some pharm grade caffeine so i can see if straight caff will do anything (i'm pretty confident about this one). 
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I Am The Sickness.
Diploid: I think adults have a right to make stupid decisions and it's nobody else's fucking business.
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Spudz76
Got mycelium on the brain...
Registered: 02/08/04
Posts: 391
Last seen: 2 years, 2 months
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Re: The Coffee Project [Re: Spudz76]
#2991098 - 08/11/04 11:27 AM (7 years, 9 months ago) |
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Update: The "1L Bottle" culture is alive but not exactly kicking ass like I was hoping. Probably used a bit too much of all sorts of things, not to mention I ought to have adjusted the pH with something. I will try again when I get back from vacation (or, maybe it will have done something while I'm gone). I think there's more mycelium bits floating around than what I put in, but no clumping or anything I would consider to be healthy or voracious. I probably also have too much sugar in it, as I used karo along with cola and dew in the "mess". One step at a time next time I think, I was in a "fit of innovation" (high) at the time. 
The corn which was soaked/simmered in a mix containing cola is now in bags and colonizing, set it up yesterday using a few small mycelium chunks from a couple cakes I cased, and today there are already some partially fuzzed kernels... so it looks like that worked, assuming the corn helped balance the acidity compared to the "Dew Bottle", plus I didn't add all sorts of other crap on a whim. And I soaked for 48 hours before simmering for a little under two hours.
And of course by "I", I mean not me.
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RogerRabbit
Bans for Pleasure
Registered: 03/26/03
Posts: 37,011
Loc: USA Mountain Northwest
Last seen: 1 hour, 39 minutes
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Re: The Coffee Project [Re: GnuBobo]
#3002420 - 08/13/04 08:19 PM (7 years, 9 months ago) |
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Definitely don't use coffee to mist on a casing. That will guarantee contamination. It's a very rich food for fungi, both perfecti and imperfecti. Contaminate spores are constantly landing on your casing. It's no problem unless they germinate and grow. Don't do anything to help or feed them.
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GnuBobo
Frilly Cuffs Extraordinaire
Registered: 06/17/04
Posts: 43,754
Loc: Charisma
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Thanks for the clarification Roger. Well, experience *is* the best teacher. My poo casings are doing pretty well, though. Just rigged up a new incubator for them so they're a little warmer than 70 degrees.
By the way, I believe it was you who posted on mycotopia about the straw tek? I think I may give that a shot with just a gallon ziplock bag and some straw; but your tek notes were very helpful. Thanks!
Please let us know how the pure caffeine works out...that might be the key.
GB
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Jerry Garcia. JERRY GARCIA! JERRY GARCIA!!!!
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crAckZ
Stranger
Registered: 07/06/04
Posts: 25
Last seen: 2 years, 6 months
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Re: The Coffee Project [Re: GnuBobo]
#3012386 - 08/17/04 06:29 AM (7 years, 9 months ago) |
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what about powdered caffine? i know there is a medication for migrains called ergomar =(2mg of ergotamine) and one that has 100mg caffeine and some ergotamine in it. maybe if that was added to the substrate it would help. the only thing is i would be worried about st. anthonys fire or its side effects.
to bad you cant just take that ergomar and ummmm get some cloroform, well you know where i am going with this.
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RogerRabbit
Bans for Pleasure
Registered: 03/26/03
Posts: 37,011
Loc: USA Mountain Northwest
Last seen: 1 hour, 39 minutes
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Re: The Coffee Project [Re: crAckZ]
#3012405 - 08/17/04 06:41 AM (7 years, 9 months ago) |
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Personally, I'm leaning towards it being the nutes in the coffee that make the tek worthwhile, and not the caffeine. I have a friend who grows oyster mushrooms commercially, and he gets a pickup truckload of spent coffee grinds every day from Starbucks. They save the grinds in a bag for him, and he picks them up every afternoon. They give them to him for free, as they're glad to get rid of them. No effort is made to separate the decaf from the regular. He gets massive flushes of oyster mushrooms, using the coffee grinds mixed with compost as his substrate.
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duncan8r
Scum
Registered: 08/07/01
Posts: 91
Loc: Syd, Australia
Last seen: 2 years, 8 months
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Yeah, I gotta agree with Roger. My coffee plunger left uncleaned over the weekend grows a tinload of mould - without any interaction from me. On that basis I now collect my spent coffee grounds and freeze them until Im making up jars, then I just chuck random amounts in. 
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Not all chemicals are bad. Without chemicals such as hydrogen and oxygen, for example, there would be no way to make water, a vital ingredient in beer. --Dave Barry
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whiterasta
Day careobserver
Registered: 04/09/02
Posts: 1,780
Loc: Oregon
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Re: The Coffee Project [Re: duncan8r]
#3022426 - 08/19/04 06:52 AM (7 years, 9 months ago) |
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There are a lot of complex carbs in coffee as well as polycellulose chains both are primary decomposition products for saporophytes.
I would go with the bean itself rather than caffeine being influential.Until there is some evidence that methylxanthines are metabolicly compatable with various growth factors, I would have to lean to the traditional fungal nutes in coffee grounds rather than place any special effort with caffeine alone.I do not believe any research backs up caffeine as a fungal growth enhancement but coffee grounds are listed along with several hundred other substrates in stamets book.
WR
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To old for this place
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RogerRabbit
Bans for Pleasure
Registered: 03/26/03
Posts: 37,011
Loc: USA Mountain Northwest
Last seen: 1 hour, 39 minutes
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Re: The Coffee Project [Re: whiterasta]
#3030671 - 08/20/04 09:53 PM (7 years, 9 months ago) |
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There is some research pointing to caffeine as a help with sclerotia producing species. http://www.mycotopia.net/cgi-bin/discus/show.cgi?tpc=5&post=156273#POST156273
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whiterasta
Day careobserver
Registered: 04/09/02
Posts: 1,780
Loc: Oregon
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Interesting...It seems to me that caffeine is overall increasing the of laccase's effect on many of the nutes already in coffee( and substrate).
My only other thought is sclerotia are formed as a response to a "dormant" state and pinning is associated with much more active mycelial conditions and may actually inhibit pinning(?)Does anyone know for sure if sclerotic fungi fruit at the same time as they are forming sclerotia?
Additionally Ps semilanceata are known to form sclerotia but are notoriously difficult to fruit indoors.Would caffeine perhaps bring this species into cultivation as a sclerotia forming species(I would expect semi nuggets to be quite potent).
Thank you for the link and info, very interesting and thought provoking on sclerotia production as I have several(Oregon white) truffle patches this process would be quite interesting to experiment on as I know fairly close what each site will produce in a year I could roughly see if an increase occcurs.
WR
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To old for this place
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EonTan
bird
Registered: 08/18/04
Posts: 468
Loc: very south
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Re: The Coffee Project [Re: whiterasta]
#3033725 - 08/21/04 05:14 PM (7 years, 9 months ago) |
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Psilocybe mexicana and tampanensis both fruit and produce sclerotia simultaneously. Fruits can originate from casing surface and also from sclerotia themselves.
Sclerotia act as a survival stucture, but this does not mean they only form them under dire circumstances. They seem to go about producing them throughout a wider range of environmnetal parameters, then is needed for good fruit developemnet.But they do go about producing them before, during, and after fruiting. The two events seem to be unrelated in the sense of it has to do one to do the other, it doesn't. It seems to be very difficult if not impossible to get fruits and not get sclerotia, but you can get sclerotia and not get fruits. Sclerotia form rapidly, before colonization of the substrate is complete.
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mycopsycho
Tit Inspector.
Registered: 06/17/04
Posts: 3,712
Loc: Going Nowhere Fast
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Re: The Coffee Project [Re: EonTan]
#3039319 - 08/23/04 10:35 AM (7 years, 9 months ago) |
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i've read that you will get more prolific pinning if there is more sclerotia in the substrate.
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I Am The Sickness.
Diploid: I think adults have a right to make stupid decisions and it's nobody else's fucking business.
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NNY
Z?
Registered: 07/17/04
Posts: 120
Loc: USA
Last seen: 6 years, 9 months
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Re: The Coffee Project [Re: mycopsycho]
#3044524 - 08/24/04 01:15 PM (7 years, 9 months ago) |
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i just started 8 jars of grain/rice with 1cup coffee to 1.5 cups water. half cubes and half pan cyans.
i had a question, though, for future reference: since adding coffee to the casing layer will contaminate, what if i sprayed down the bulk substrate (straw/manuer) after it had colonized and then immediately cased it with coir or something. i would think that could be sufficient to keep the contamination out of the coffee?
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RogerRabbit
Bans for Pleasure
Registered: 03/26/03
Posts: 37,011
Loc: USA Mountain Northwest
Last seen: 1 hour, 39 minutes
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Re: The Coffee Project [Re: NNY]
#3047554 - 08/25/04 03:58 AM (7 years, 9 months ago) |
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Most who have used coffee on bulk substrates have reported contamination. I doubt casing over it would change things, but give it a try and let us know if it works out. Used coffee grinds from the coffee pot are a good addition to casing mixes. Use about 5% - 10% of the total casing mix as coffee grinds.
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absolute zero
The Hero
Registered: 11/04/01
Posts: 796
Loc: 127.0.0.1
Last seen: 3 days, 14 hours
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 Re: The Coffee Project [Re: Hippie3]
#3048038 - 08/25/04 09:10 AM (7 years, 9 months ago) |
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Very nice discovery.
It was kinda unclear to me whether the 50/50 brewed coffee to water solution was used as the full moisture content of the rye (i.e. could it be simmered in this solution?) or simply during the initial soak in regards to eliminating contams.
In regards to the casings, has anyone tried putting the substrate into their container, lightly misting the actual substrate, then putting the regular casing mix on top? Seems that might eliminate some of the concerns regarding soaking the whole casing layer in the solution while possibly still helping the formation of pins... just an idea
If in fact there is plan to create an invitiro tek with coffee/rye, consider this:
1. Have one jar basically as spawn for g2g transfers. This would just be a normal rye mixture without the coffee.
2. Mix up the coffee/rye as the procedure calls for, but only fill the quart jars about 20% and pressure cook as normal.
3. Use g2g transfers for innoculation, again, making sure you don't fill the jars over 25% full with the grains.
If this method is feasible, you would give plenty of room invitiro for the fruit to develop in a normal fashion (i.e. actually look like a shroom). G2G transfers lead to extremely fast colonization of new jars, as you can increase the amount of area that is innoculated. The coffee would help both the colonization and cause the invitiro as it has been shown to do. You would be able to use a bit of the remaining spawn to innoculate another jar of normal rye to be used for the same future spawning purpose, and timewise, as it was done colonizing, your other jars should have fruited. I have not tried this method yet, but its just an idea I'm throwing out there...
Congrats on all successful grows using the coffee methods...
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NNY
Z?
Registered: 07/17/04
Posts: 120
Loc: USA
Last seen: 6 years, 9 months
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Quote:
In regards to the casings, has anyone tried putting the substrate into their container, lightly misting the actual substrate, then putting the regular casing mix on top? Seems that might eliminate some of the concerns regarding soaking the whole casing layer in the solution while possibly still helping the formation of pins... just an idea
read back two posts.
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Ped
Circumspect
Registered: 08/30/99
Posts: 2,113
Loc: Canada
Last seen: 2 months, 5 days
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Re: The Coffee Project [Re: NNY]
#3050150 - 08/25/04 06:36 PM (7 years, 9 months ago) |
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I haven't read the whole thread (way too many words), but I'm going to jump in anyway..
I don't think it makes any sense to attribute enhanced fungus growth to the presence of caffeine in the substrate. Caffeine's "speedy" effect only occurs when it is present within the central nervous system of an organism. Even the "accelerated" feeling is completely arbitrary. The early workings of a mycelial network are extremely rudamentary when compared to the biology of a living creature. What would a caffeine molecule have to offer a fungus besides a few extra hydrogen atoms, a few oxygen atoms, and a few nitrogen atoms?
I think it makes much more sense to consider the organic compounds found in brewed coffee, remembering that brewed coffee comes from a crushed, highly fertile bean. pH is also something to consider. A normal cup of coffee has a pH of about 4.5, which is slightly acidic: this could also explain accelerated growth. Lemon juice's pH is 2.1: if left standing, you'll find that it grows mold within a day.
It might be interesting to try growing fungus using a range of different roasts from light to dark. Light roasts tend to me more acidic, while dark roasts more alkaline. If the results were compared against a control jar with no coffee additive, it could be determined if coffee's pH is what's impacting the growth of fungus. The same experiment could be tried by raising or lowering the pH of water through inorganic means. This would be a way of discovering whether or not it's the nutrients in coffee beans which aid fungal spread.
I think it's safe to say that crushing caffeine pills and adding them to your substrate will not be of any benefit.
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