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MultiSync's lazy bastard print/syringe guide

A guide for minimizing contamination



Materials Needed:

  • Syringe
  • Fresh Shroom Cap
  • Rubbing Alcohol
  • Water
  • Ziploc bag
  • Paper Towel
  • Scissors
  • Desiccant (only required for long term storage)

*Begin here if you have a syringe/water that needs to be sterilized.

  1. Sterilize your water. Fill a standard pot up half way, turn the heat all the way up and bring it to a boil. Turn the heat down to the minimum level required to keep the water boiling. Boil for 10 minutes.
  2. Take your empty syringe and fill it with boiling water from beneath the surface, let sit for 2 minutes. Eject the water and repeat this process 2 more times.
  3. Flame sterilize the the syringe's needle (glowing red).
  4. Cap the needle, and allow water to cool in syringe for a few hours.

*Begin here if you have a syringe/water that is already sterilized.

  1. Get a new, unopened ziploc bag.
  2. Clean your scissors with alcohol.
  3. Take the bag in one hand, your scissors in the other and walk over to your fruiting chamber and get the bag as close as you can to your specimen.
  4. Open the bag with the same hand that is holding your scissors. Manipulate the bag so it opens and place over the mushroom cap. Slightly grip the cap from the outside of the bag (close to the seal) and use your scissors to snip the stem, as close as you can to the cap.
  5. Put the scissors down and use your free hand to seal the bag. Allow the cap to come to rest on the side of the bag, close to the bottom . Lay the bag down on a flat surface and wait 24 hours. 24 hours later.....
  6. Take the bag, while holding the cap in place with the newly formed print, turn it upside down and open the bottom of the bag.
  7. Release the cap with your free hand, allowing it to fall out of the bag. Seal the bag.
  8. If you are using the print for long term storage, open the bag and place a few desiccant pellets into the bag, away from the print. Seal the bag.

*Begin here if you have a bag that already has a print and want to make a syringe.

  1. Take a paper towel, and clean the outside of the bag with rubbing alcohol.  Inject the syringe in to the opposite side of the bag (away from the print) and release the water into the bag. Make sure to hold the bag at an angle that makes the water go to the print and doesn't allow it to escape from the puncture or the sealed top.
  2. Take your free hand and manipulate the print, lightly pinching the outside of the bag, rubbing it together, creating friction...freeing the spores. Softly shake the bag.
  3. With the spores still shaken (suspended), take a paper towel and clean the outside of the bag with rubbing alcohol (the part where the water/print is), give it one last shake and take your sterile syringe and stab the bag, plunging it into the water. Suck up the water into the syringe.

*** Updated by andymc 20/01/11 ***

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