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The Big Oyster
Righteous Reishi



Registered: 12/20/08
Posts: 83
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TBO's Blender-N-Grow Liquid Culture Container 1
#13992472 - 02/19/11 09:34 PM (12 years, 11 months ago) |
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Time to give a little back to the Shroomery. I've taken everything I've learned on the forums about LCs. Originally, I wanted to just blend up agar plates to do instant LCs. But, after experimenting with certain mushrooms, I found that after blending and inoculating grain, the recovery was very slow. The solution was to let mushrooms that need more recovery time stay in the LC container for a while before using to noc up grain jars. Then I thought, it would be nice to just keep some LCs going. Well, this brought up the problem of gas exchange, and I didn't want to get into injecting sterile air all the time. So, with a little creativity, I came up with an LC container that could blend for instant LC as well as keep an LC going over time with good gas exchange. Obviously, the filter system on an LC container that is also a blender would need a pretty good system to protect the air filter. A valve of some sort was the ultimate solution. One doesn't necessarily need to make these containers of mine as blenders. The air filter protection valve is excellent for plain old LC containers used on stir plates or with glass shards, etc... However, with the blender incorporated, I like being able to have all solutions in one container. That way you can make instant LC from agar plates or grow out an LC. The other nice thing about the blender attachment is compared to a stir plate or glass shards, you can blend the hell out of the mycelium when you need to. I'm going to experiment with growing a nice thick LC and then blending just prior to using - should result in massive amounts of inoculation points. The protected air filter valve also makes aspirating that much simpler as there are no vacuum issues to hassle with. Essentially, this little LC set-up will do it all! Here we go:
First off, here's a completed Blender-N-Grow LC Container:



Here's how you make one:
Items you need to build one:
8oz Polypropylene jar Get it here...
70/400 Polypropylene cap Get it here...
Oster blender blade assembly (item #4961)
3 Blue syringe ports
70mm thin red gasket (one that comes with the oster blade is to thick)
Synthetic filter disk
RTV high temperature silicone
Polypropylene miniature stopcock, 8mm bore Get it here...
Starting with the Oster blade and the thin red gasket, you want to adhere the gasket to the blade assembly. This is done because the gasket is so thin that it falls down into your liquid when you open the jar after sterilizing. Not a good thing when trying to be sterile. Put a healthy amount of the RTV silicone on the blade assembly and stick the gasket on, nice and even. Press in down flush all around. It's good if some silicone presses out. Excess can be wiped off. You just want the face of the gasket to remain clean when doing this. Set that aside to dry. Should look like this:

Next, you can fabricate the jar and cap. The cap needs a nice sized hole in it to allow the blender to engage the blades. Using a 1 1/2" Fostner bit, drill a hole right in the middle of the cap. Like this:

The jar will need two 7/16" holes drilled on opposite sides. You can rest the blade assembly with the gasket on the jar to tell where the holes can be drilled such that the blades won't hit the injection ports inside. Right between the upper and lower blades is best. Drill the holes on opposite sides of the jar. In this picture you can see the approximate location that works:

One of the holes in the jar gets an as-is injection port. The other hole will receive an injection port housing the stopcock. The stopcock will also have a modified injection port on the end with a filter disk attached. So, let's work on the two modified injection ports. They will each need a 1/4" hole drilled in the center. Put the injection port down on a piece of wood for drill support. Again, you'll need a Fostner bit, 1/4". Sit it up to drill like this:

After drilling you should have this--make two of them:

For one of the drilled injection ports you'll need to cut out a small round filter disk the same diameter as the injection port. To do this, just lay the injection port on your filter disk and trace the outline. Then just cut it out. This piece of filter disk gets siliconed on the injection port over the hole you drilled, like this:

For the stopcock modifications you want to cut part of the long stem off. Starting with this:

Cut the stem inline with the the lever handle as shown here:

Okay, that's all the drilling and cutting you need to do. Let the silicone dry really well. Now you can assemble the jar. First put the plain injection port in one of the 7/16" jar holes. It's a tight fit, so a little soap helps insertion. In the other jar's 7/16" hole, insert the remaining drilled injection port. Now take the stopcock and firmly force the bulbed end of the stopcock through the hole in the injection port. You have to do it in this sequence. Putting the injection port on the stopcock and then trying to attach it to the jar is very difficult.
Lastly, place the filter injection port on the cut stem of the stopcock. You're done!

Now when you shake or blend you simply close the stopcock, thereby keeping your filter nice and dry. During mycelial growth or to aspirate, just open the stopcock.
Another nice thing about making multiple jars is they don't take up any additional space by having the stopcock protruding. See:


I know to some this is total unnecessary overkill. I agree. However, I enjoy taking things to the limit for a challenge. It's also nice to have all the options in one LC container.
There you have it, TBO's Blender-N-Grow LC Container, for those wanting an all-in-one solution, including a nice dry functional filter!
Edited by The Big Oyster (02/19/11 10:20 PM)
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dmonkey1
Monkey Say...




Registered: 06/29/10
Posts: 1,326
Loc: 39°50′39″N 75°42′...
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Re: TBO's Blender-N-Grow Liquid Culture Container [Re: The Big Oyster]
#13992606 - 02/19/11 09:53 PM (12 years, 11 months ago) |
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you need to place it on a stir plate, you can't just let it sit around.
There's a much easier way.
Blend using a mason jar with sterilized water. add sterilized stir bar swap blend blade with LC lid
stir for 24-48 hours at <100 rpm
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The Big Oyster
Righteous Reishi



Registered: 12/20/08
Posts: 83
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Re: TBO's Blender-N-Grow Liquid Culture Container [Re: dmonkey1]
#13992794 - 02/19/11 10:25 PM (12 years, 11 months ago) |
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No need to "swap" with this container. If you still want to stir you just put a magnet in this container to begin with. The stir magnet can be held away from the blades with a magnet from the outside.
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dmonkey1
Monkey Say...




Registered: 06/29/10
Posts: 1,326
Loc: 39°50′39″N 75°42′...
Last seen: 10 years, 11 months
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Re: TBO's Blender-N-Grow Liquid Culture Container [Re: The Big Oyster]
#13992814 - 02/19/11 10:28 PM (12 years, 11 months ago) |
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Quote:
The Big Oyster said: No need to "swap" with this container. If you still want to stir you just put a magnet in this container to begin with. The stir magnet can be held away from the blades with a magnet from the outside.
The magnet will sometimes get knocked off from large pieces of agar from the initial blender spins, the blades will make a mess of your stir bar/magnet. its no fun, especially if you are using magnetic-sensitive needles
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The Big Oyster
Righteous Reishi



Registered: 12/20/08
Posts: 83
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Re: TBO's Blender-N-Grow Liquid Culture Container [Re: dmonkey1]
#13994701 - 02/20/11 09:32 AM (12 years, 11 months ago) |
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There are very strong magnets out there, neodymium types. You could hold the magnet in the center and I'm positive the spin magnet would not move. Neodymium magnets are astounding in strength.
This container wasn't intended for a magnet, but you could use one. I don't think it will be necessary myself.
The beauty of this set-up is it gets opened once to blend an agar wedge, or not at all if you want to inject mycelium or spores. You can blend at anytime. Especially prior to aspirating, it's equivalent to shaking your grain jar before going to bulk substrate.
Again, the container has all the options in one. I think it's awesome. The filter protector alone should be of use to someone that wants a solution to preventing wet filters.
Thanks for your feedback dmonkey1 about magnets, but I think one could use them if they really wanted to. Neodymium magnets would be necessary to prevent a rogue magnet while blending.
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dmonkey1
Monkey Say...




Registered: 06/29/10
Posts: 1,326
Loc: 39°50′39″N 75°42′...
Last seen: 10 years, 11 months
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Re: TBO's Blender-N-Grow Liquid Culture Container [Re: The Big Oyster]
#13995012 - 02/20/11 10:58 AM (12 years, 11 months ago) |
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but otherwise good work
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The Big Oyster
Righteous Reishi



Registered: 12/20/08
Posts: 83
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Re: TBO's Blender-N-Grow Liquid Culture Container [Re: dmonkey1]
#13995483 - 02/20/11 12:38 PM (12 years, 11 months ago) |
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Thanks man...gonna get blending here shortly. Doing up some reishi, maitake, blazeii, shiitake, and turkey tails.
I'm going to be using agar broth in these puppies
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The Big Oyster
Righteous Reishi



Registered: 12/20/08
Posts: 83
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Re: TBO's Blender-N-Grow Liquid Culture Container [Re: The Big Oyster]
#14002735 - 02/21/11 05:12 PM (12 years, 11 months ago) |
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Here we go, sterilized, inoculated with wedge, blended up, set aside to grow with air exchange. Liquid looks funky because it's broth. Gonna let it grow out real good and give it a good blend before using.
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virus1824
Mr Mushroom



Registered: 09/25/05
Posts: 1,751
Loc: Europe
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Re: TBO's Blender-N-Grow Liquid Culture Container [Re: The Big Oyster]
#14002746 - 02/21/11 05:14 PM (12 years, 11 months ago) |
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Must say looks cool man
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