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Chad1
Stranger

Registered: 12/02/10
Posts: 279
Loc: USA
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Did you try calling local farmers? If they don't have it they could probably tell you where to get it.
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MonkeyKnifeFight
Stranger


Registered: 06/08/10
Posts: 772
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Re: Substrate Woes - No Straw [Re: Chad1]
#14051273 - 03/01/11 09:25 PM (13 years, 3 days ago) |
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I'm doing a similar approach right now as you BlueLightRain. Coffee with some straw mixed in. I'm not even re-pasteurizing the grounds. And for fruiting containers I'm using burlap sacks that I get for free from coffee shops that roast their own beans (they get the beans delivered in big burlap bags). Some of the bags just started fruiting so I'll post some pics when I can.
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BlueLightRain
WhoaUnbrokenChain



Registered: 01/14/11
Posts: 354
Last seen: 9 years, 1 month
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Yeah burlap sacks were definitely in my plan, but we have only a few roasters in the general area and they already give their burlap sacks to charity! Burlap sacks definitely fit the whole concept. Plastic bags work great for now because they don't breath or leak (versus burlap bags with a million holes). I punch holes in the top of the bags and allow them to sit in a low humidity environment.
Where do you store your incubating burlap sacks? And how much straw are you doing by volume? I've found 50/50 is a great substrate, very bouncy and loose, but still heavy.
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Terry M
Stranger in a Strange Land



Registered: 06/18/10
Posts: 1,502
Loc: Rhode Island
Last seen: 9 years, 1 month
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Re: Substrate Woes - No Straw [Re: teknix]
#14053036 - 03/02/11 06:52 AM (13 years, 3 days ago) |
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Quote:
teknix said: It'll work with straight wood chips.
You can also use newspaper, cardboard and coffee grounds.
I think it would be cool to figure out a way to make carboard/newspaper dust 
Doing an experiment with yellow oysters in a few days. I have 4 quart grain jars now at 80-90% colonization, which I'll use to inoculate 4 bags. I am going to use as substrates (all enriched with wheat bran and gypsum):
1. 100% coffee grounds 2. 50% coffee grounds, 50% coir 3. 50% coffee grounds, 50% sawdust 4. 50% coffee grounds, 50% shredded brown paper grocery bags.
BTW, Yesterday I started fruiting a pearl oyster bag with 100% shredded brown paper grocery bags. We'll see how it goes!
-------------------- Liberté, égalité, humidité.
Edited by Terry M (03/02/11 07:52 AM)
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BlueLightRain
WhoaUnbrokenChain



Registered: 01/14/11
Posts: 354
Last seen: 9 years, 1 month
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Re: Substrate Woes - No Straw [Re: Terry M]
#14053532 - 03/02/11 09:33 AM (13 years, 3 days ago) |
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Quote:
Terry M said: Doing an experiment with yellow oysters in a few days. I have 4 quart grain jars now at 80-90% colonization, which I'll use to inoculate 4 bags. I am going to use as substrates (all enriched with wheat bran and gypsum):
1. 100% coffee grounds 2. 50% coffee grounds, 50% coir 3. 50% coffee grounds, 50% sawdust 4. 50% coffee grounds, 50% shredded brown paper grocery bags.
BTW, Yesterday I started fruiting a pearl oyster bag with 100% shredded brown paper grocery bags. We'll see how it goes!
Awesome! Please show pictures if and when fruits develop (my guess is they will) - I'm curious to see what happens. I just slit some bags in my Pl. pulmonarius 100% coffee bag today and hope to see some fruits in the coming days.
I had a brainstorm yesterday and you're helping with it...I'm thinking about stuffing the bottom of each of my coffee bags with a couple layers of dry crinkled paper, or some dry cardboard to soak up the water and give the fungus some food...or even paper grocery bags. This might be a solution to the issue of over-wet coffee.
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MonkeyKnifeFight
Stranger


Registered: 06/08/10
Posts: 772
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Quote:
BlueLightRain said: Yeah burlap sacks were definitely in my plan, but we have only a few roasters in the general area and they already give their burlap sacks to charity! Burlap sacks definitely fit the whole concept. Plastic bags work great for now because they don't breath or leak (versus burlap bags with a million holes). I punch holes in the top of the bags and allow them to sit in a low humidity environment.
Where do you store your incubating burlap sacks? And how much straw are you doing by volume? I've found 50/50 is a great substrate, very bouncy and loose, but still heavy.
I'm working with a community farm in my area that is all about urban sustainable food production. So I'm looking for the lowest energy/effort methods for growing a fair amount of oysters. My method right now is to pasteurize 1 or 2 burlap sacks the night before I go to the farm along with 1 5 gallon bucket of straw per bag. Then at the farm I layer/mix straw, grounds, and spawn and all the bags live outside for their entire lives. I'm still figuring out my spawn rate but I would say I'm doing about 1:3 straw to coffee grounds which seems like a decent mix (I bet 1:1 would be better). I'm also starting to collect coffee chaff from a roaster which is the roasted shell of coffee beans and is very lofty. I have high hopes for that.
Right now I have the burlap sacks lined up next to a row of fava beans which provide nice shade. The bags just sit in the dirt and when you look underneath they are encouraging awesome conditions in the soil. They choke the weeds out and attract lots of earth worms. The biggest trouble I've had is that the burlap sacks dry out fairly quickly when it's not raining so I think we'll need to build some kind of outdoor shelves with some shade cloth and misters once summer gets here. But the mushrooms fruit right through the bags and when it's all done the whole thing gets composted. Obviously this isn't the way to get maximum BE but with almost 0 material cost for substrate and low energy needs it fits in well with what we're trying to do at the farm.
The first bags we did were 100% coffee grounds and they just started to fruit after ~1 month. I think the straw/grounds bags will be faster since pure grounds compact in a big way. And a big burlap bag full of grounds is HEAVY. Well over 100 lbs. Also in case anyone is wondering king oysters (eryngii) don't seem to like grounds at all.
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arago
Mr. Wind Up Bird



Registered: 02/07/06
Posts: 828
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This is my first attempt on 100% coffee grounds. Took forever to colonize, then stalled. I brought them inside to warm up last night - and made them even worse.

monkeyknifefight, thanks! The Kings aren't growing on coffee grounds for me, either. At least I now know that it wasn't my inadequacy.
Edited by arago (03/02/11 10:48 AM)
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Terry M
Stranger in a Strange Land



Registered: 06/18/10
Posts: 1,502
Loc: Rhode Island
Last seen: 9 years, 1 month
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Re: Substrate Woes - No Straw [Re: arago]
#14054199 - 03/02/11 11:49 AM (13 years, 3 days ago) |
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Turns out I already had the yellow oyster grain spawn purposed for bulk culture, so I'm using blue oyster instead. And since I just noc'd the grain for that today, I was able to make a 5th quart jar of grain (in addition to my 2 half gallon jar).
This will allow me to compare one more substrate that I am really curious about, which MonkeyKnifeFight reminded me of:
5. 50% coffee grounds, 50% straw
I just bought a bale of straw last weekend. A bale is huge, at least for my purposes. My PC holds 4 bags for sterilization and I need 5 now, so one of the substrate tests will be a day behind the rest.
-------------------- Liberté, égalité, humidité.
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BlueLightRain
WhoaUnbrokenChain



Registered: 01/14/11
Posts: 354
Last seen: 9 years, 1 month
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Re: Substrate Woes - No Straw [Re: arago]
#14054235 - 03/02/11 12:00 PM (13 years, 3 days ago) |
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Quote:
arago said:
This is my first attempt on 100% coffee grounds. Took forever to colonize, then stalled. I brought them inside to warm up last night - and made them even worse.

monkeyknifefight, thanks! The Kings aren't growing on coffee grounds for me, either. At least I now know that it wasn't my inadequacy.
Wowzer! Is that P. eryngii?
monkeyknifefight - Yeah that's awesome with the nearly 100% free side of it. I love how the whole substrate, including the burlap sack becomes compost. I wonder - setting up a hoop and putting tarp or canvas over the hoop (you can even use the free canvas you get from the roasters) will probably create a nice little environment that is shaded and higher in humidity than just being exposed to the open air. I currently leave my oyster bags outside in a 100% shaded, but exposed, spot on the side of the house. The hygrometer reads around 75%-85% which is dandy.
I did 25% straw/75% coffee (1:3) the other day (by volume) and just that addition of straw alone made the substrate more bouncy and less soggy. Straw is great for this application...but I'm still trying to eliminate costs and necessarily carrying straw. But you can't beat the addition of different nutrients! I just snagged some cardboard boxes from my local grocery store, I'm going to layer the bottom of my bags with it, mix it in, stagger it, etc to see if it helps absorb the excess coffee water. I'll get back to you.
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BlueLightRain
WhoaUnbrokenChain



Registered: 01/14/11
Posts: 354
Last seen: 9 years, 1 month
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Update: Today's bags made with 2 to 4 layers of dry cardboard on the bottom and dry cardboard staggered every inch or so. It seems to already be soaking up the excess coffee water. Time will tell!
 The new batch - 8 more bags! Now with upgraded cardboard sponge.

monkeyknifefight - I realize it's completely unnecessary for you to re-pasteurize your coffee grounds because they will be exposed to the elements immediately. My attempts are to grow them in bags (as grow bags) consistently so keeping everything clean is necessary. Wish I didn't have to process them
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pepper
SawDust Block Junkie



Registered: 10/31/10
Posts: 646
Loc: British Columbia
Last seen: 2 years, 5 months
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Well I like to see how thing go. Great test you have going on.
--------------------
Trade list OR <-------
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MonkeyKnifeFight
Stranger


Registered: 06/08/10
Posts: 772
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Quote:
BlueLightRain said: monkeyknifefight - I realize it's completely unnecessary for you to re-pasteurize your coffee grounds because they will be exposed to the elements immediately. My attempts are to grow them in bags (as grow bags) consistently so keeping everything clean is necessary. Wish I didn't have to process them 
Yep that's the trade-off for plastic bags. I actually get my grounds from the shop in the plastic bags from the trash can lining so I've been wondering if I could use those as containers since they otherwise just go to waste. We'll see.
Out of curiosity how the hell do you grow enough spawn out to process so much coffee? Do you grow 100% oysters? I've been growing a lot of spawn out and can just keep up with doing 1 or 2 big coffee sacks a week. I guess if I stopped growing a variety and focused on oysters more I would have a bunch in no time.
As for the conditions the bags right now are happy because its been raining a lot and days have been short. When summer gets here it completely stops raining and gets HOT so I don't think fava bean shade is gonna cut it. I'm gonna do some kind of hoop house or DIY shelves with shade cloth. I will probably have to use some different species too as the columbinus I'm using right now probably won't like the heat.
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BlueLightRain
WhoaUnbrokenChain



Registered: 01/14/11
Posts: 354
Last seen: 9 years, 1 month
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One word: labor. I have a cycle that develops 14 jars every two weeks. A jar can inoculate one to two 5-gallon buckets at a time. When I want to increase production I'll sterilize more jars. It's simply about managing the time and doing it consistently.
I have other strains I'm developing, growing, etc, but I've found one that colonizes quickly and fruits early. Find something that works then explore that endlessly. Try not to spread yourself thin. Once you can do oysters on a steady basis, add another species to the mix. Until then master a strain until you understand how to work with it completely. I have about 10-15 cultures of species that I'm running in dishes, expanding, playing around with, and about 3 to 4 that I'm expanding for personal grows and myco experimentation. A few months ago I multispored Pl. pulm and have one that is a monster. So I'm going to get as much out of it as I can.
As far as your setup goes when summer comes...please update me when you develop systems to keep it cool and humid. It would be nice to do the entire thing without having to install misters. I'm sure there are hundreds of other things you can do before bringing in plumbing.
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RogerRabbit
Bans for Pleasure



Registered: 03/26/03
Posts: 42,214
Loc: Seattle
Last seen: 1 year, 12 days
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Quote:
As far as your setup goes when summer comes...please update me when you develop systems to keep it cool and humid.
A swamp cooler comes to mind. RR
-------------------- Download Let's Grow Mushrooms semper in excretia sumus solim profundum variat "I've never had a failed experiment. I've only discovered 10,000 methods which do not work." Thomas Edison
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pepper
SawDust Block Junkie



Registered: 10/31/10
Posts: 646
Loc: British Columbia
Last seen: 2 years, 5 months
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Re: Substrate Woes - No Straw [Re: RogerRabbit]
#14056993 - 03/02/11 08:49 PM (13 years, 2 days ago) |
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Quote:
RogerRabbit said:
Quote:
As far as your setup goes when summer comes...please update me when you develop systems to keep it cool and humid.
A swamp cooler comes to mind. RR
Do they still make those? I rememer when I was a boy 30 years ago that we had one of those, I was 10...heheheh
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Oysterhead

Registered: 05/01/10
Posts: 42
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Re: Substrate Woes - No Straw [Re: pepper]
#14058646 - 03/03/11 07:42 AM (13 years, 2 days ago) |
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Quote:
pepper said:
Quote:
RogerRabbit said:
Quote:
As far as your setup goes when summer comes...please update me when you develop systems to keep it cool and humid.
A swamp cooler comes to mind. RR
Do they still make those? I rememer when I was a boy 30 years ago that we had one of those, I was 10...heheheh
Yes they do. However, they tend not to be effective if you live in a humid environment to begin with.
-------------------- Never kick a fresh terd on a hot day.
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Oysterhead

Registered: 05/01/10
Posts: 42
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Re: Substrate Woes - No Straw [Re: Oysterhead]
#14058652 - 03/03/11 07:44 AM (13 years, 2 days ago) |
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Got another question: Could I replace the sawdust portion of my mix with wheat bran or some other bran(instead of using the kitty litter)? Just a reminder, I'll be working with hardwood mulch as the bulk percentage of my substrate.
-------------------- Never kick a fresh terd on a hot day.
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MonkeyKnifeFight
Stranger


Registered: 06/08/10
Posts: 772
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Quote:
BlueLightRain said: As far as your setup goes when summer comes...please update me when you develop systems to keep it cool and humid. It would be nice to do the entire thing without having to install misters. I'm sure there are hundreds of other things you can do before bringing in plumbing.
Like I said I'm setting this up on a small farm so getting a water line to the mushrooms probably won't be a big deal. There is already a ton of irrigation. I suspect I will go with misters for simplicity. I doubt I'm going to bother trying to actually cool things down beyond passive means. I'll just try to adjust the species we're growing as seasons change.
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RogerRabbit
Bans for Pleasure



Registered: 03/26/03
Posts: 42,214
Loc: Seattle
Last seen: 1 year, 12 days
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Re: Substrate Woes - No Straw [Re: Oysterhead]
#14059259 - 03/03/11 10:51 AM (13 years, 2 days ago) |
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Quote:
Oysterhead said: Got another question: Could I replace the sawdust portion of my mix with wheat bran or some other bran(instead of using the kitty litter)? Just a reminder, I'll be working with hardwood mulch as the bulk percentage of my substrate.
Supplement with bran, but hardwood mulch and sawdust are essentially the same thing as far as the mycelium is concerned. I trim Alder, Birch, Aspen, and Douglas fir from my property, chip it, and then feed the chips into my mulcher. They work as well if not better than sawdust. Avoid large chips as they can poke holes in your filter patch bags. Also, large chips are more prone to trichoderma once you strip the bags off. RR
-------------------- Download Let's Grow Mushrooms semper in excretia sumus solim profundum variat "I've never had a failed experiment. I've only discovered 10,000 methods which do not work." Thomas Edison
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FernandoCastro
Deus Impeditio Esuritori Nullus


Registered: 10/15/09
Posts: 261
Loc: Portugal
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Re: Substrate Woes - No Straw *DELETED* [Re: BlueLightRain]
#14061271 - 03/03/11 04:38 PM (13 years, 1 day ago) |
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Post deleted by FernandoCastroReason for deletion: .
-------------------- www.cogusbox.com
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