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InvisibleMonkeyKnifeFight
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Re: Substrate Woes - No Straw [Re: NSF]
    #14202976 - 03/29/11 10:13 AM (12 years, 11 months ago)

I would probably just leave them next time until you start seeing signs of pins forming and then make your slits.  Like you said coffee grounds are very dense so in my experience pure coffee substrates can be kind of slow.  Once you mess with them a bit you will figure out the timing that works best for your environment.

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Invisiblehelloworld
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Re: Substrate Woes - No Straw [Re: NSF]
    #14203032 - 03/29/11 10:34 AM (12 years, 11 months ago)

NSF - I should have mentioned that although I experimented with layering the spawn I stuck with just chucking it all in together and mixing it up, it reduces the time greatly. That said, I have also read up on methods of leaving a column down the centre and I will give your technique a try tonight. I am trying to keep the whole production process as simple as possible so If it works out that a column is the most effective way then I will have to commit to designing a tool or system that allows for that.

MonkeyKnifeFight - Wont it take much longer for the pins to show without the environmental changes? What sort of time difference are we talking here?

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InvisibleFernandoCastro
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Re: Substrate Woes - No Straw [Re: helloworld]
    #14210629 - 03/30/11 04:55 PM (12 years, 10 months ago)

Looking forward to see those fruits



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Offlinejmesar
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Re: Substrate Woes - No Straw [Re: BlueLightRain]
    #14211442 - 03/30/11 07:18 PM (12 years, 10 months ago)

I suggest to read a in http://cenicafe.org

Cultivo de hongos medicinales en residuos agrícolas de la zona cafetera.

http://cenicafe.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=Publications2&file=index&p_op=showcontent&secid=2D&pnid=31647&menuid=3&lite=

and

Cultivo de hongos comestibles del género Pleurotus sobre residuos agrícolas de la zona cafetera.


http://cenicafe.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=Publications2&file=index&p_op=showcontent&secid=2D&pnid=30587&menuid=3&lite=

Registration to access document is free

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OfflineNSF
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Re: Substrate Woes - No Straw [Re: BlueLightRain]
    #14211480 - 03/30/11 07:24 PM (12 years, 10 months ago)

Ahhh you pasteurise the coffee!  I was just about to ask about whether anyone uses the coffee straight from the store.  I experimented and it's an epic fail.  Well no, it's a lush multi mould playground.  So the substrate is clearly great for growing, but i will have to steam sterilise in a bag in the old microwave.


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OfflineBlueLightRain
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Re: Substrate Woes - No Straw [Re: arago]
    #14213139 - 03/31/11 02:38 AM (12 years, 10 months ago)

Quote:

helloworld said:
What's up fellow growers!

I have been following the thread for a few weeks now and as it has gone a little quiet I thought I would contribute to the discussion with an update from my own project. I have also been experimenting with coffee grounds and oysters so I must pass on my thanks to FernandoCastro and BlueLightRain for the shared knowledge - I have been sharing the same troubles you have discussed here so your updates have been helpful. (p.s. BlueLightRain - the rigour displayed in your approach is commendable, hats off to you sir!)




Welcome! Thanks for reinvigorating this thread. Not much posting has occurred but certainly a lot has happened behind the scenes. Alas, I have many conclusions during this lull in discussion. Helloworld - I'm glad you're tackling this venture. It gets me excited to see people who are interested in recycling waste and turning it into food!

So after seeing seeing this post awhile back...

Quote:

arago said:
:boo: 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.





...I was worried my oysters may face the same fate, and alas it is true!


I have a few thoughts on this matter. First, the mushrooms are clearly malformed! They are growing in open air in my house which has been more than adequate for growing oysters on straw. So no problem with fresh air exchange. I'm drawing the conclusion that coffee grounds alone lack the necessary amount of nutrients to produce proper fruits. There are ways around this with supplementation, but I also have some projects to do in the future. What type of projects? Strain isolation. It involves oyster spore syringes and coffee cakes, very similar in method to the PF TEK and BRF cake. By injecting the coffee cake with spores I can isolate those mushrooms that grow happily on coffee only. Until then the best bet is supplementing coffee with other materials.

This brings me to the next thought. Through all this work over the last month I realize the largest disadvantage to working with coffee is the surface area of the coffee grinds. A quart of coffee grounds has many times the surface area of a quart of wheat berries. This makes colonization extremely slow. The picture above of my malformed oysters was taken a month and a half after I inoculated the coffee grounds. Compare this to straw, which allows the oysters to fruit in under two weeks.

Now, all is not a waste though. I could be damn upset over this news but I'm glad I went hardcore into it because I came out with a lot of experience and knowledge. What to do, what not to do. What moisture levels are right, how to work with grain in a packed environment, etc. And if you are interested in more details I'd be happy to explain in a future reply.

I still have a daily supply of 5 gallons of coffee grounds. I was thinking how much of a shame it would be if I couldn't utilize it. And I now realize it's best potential (now entering new research and development stages) is as liquid supplement. I don't want any of the grounds to be in my substrate because the grinds are too tiny, with too much surface area, so instead I've been placing the grinds in a pillow case, pouring hot water onto the grounds and squeezing out the coffee juice, combining it with an equal part regular water and soaking my substrate in this 1/2 coffee water. Clearly RogerRabbit has discussed this in the past with preparing grain spawn, but now I'm testing the coffee juice as a supplement to straw and very soon here other materials. As an upgrade I add cardboard to the water and bring it to a high heat to extract cardboard juice. Yum!

I think utilizing coffee as a substrate combined with other materials has its potential as Terry M is illustrating in his grow logs. Very valuable information :smile:

I learned, too, that with coffee it's very important to add a spawn ratio closer to 5:1 or 4:1 especially if the coffee isn't repasteurized or sterilized. This is a blitzkrieg method which establishes the mycelium before contaminants can act. In fact in light of all this work I'm convinced that it's worth putting in the time and labor to develop much more grain spawn. Doing all this work with coffee has taught me how to whip out a ton of grain spawn - I just bought a new Presto pressure cooker which holds 7 quart jars. And I just purchased 7 dozen more quart jars. On a day when I start early I can sterilize 28 jars. Simultaneously I'm preparing grain for the subsequent day. I now prepare an excess of grain to be frozen for backup :smile:.

Here are about 4 gallons of prepared grain letting off moisture. Woohoo!


As far as turning waste into food, I have my sights on an All-American sterilizer and brewery waste (mashed barley). My area is considered hop-country and we have some of the best American breweries in the county. I'm not too sure how much nutrients barley will have after they make wort out of it. But in a way you can consider it bran because the fiber is still left behind...and isn't wheat bran an essential myco supplement? Anyways, like I said much research and development to do :smile:.

Here is a picture of Panellus stipticus (the Luminescent Panellus) growing on barley a brewer friend gave me. The barley is mashed and it has more surface area than whole berries, but is clearly larger than coffee grounds.


Time will tell!


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Edited by BlueLightRain (03/31/11 04:16 PM)

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InvisibleFernandoCastro
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Re: Substrate Woes - No Straw *DELETED* [Re: NSF]
    #14213311 - 03/31/11 04:12 AM (12 years, 10 months ago)

Post deleted by FernandoCastro

Reason for deletion: .



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OfflineTerry M
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Re: Substrate Woes - No Straw [Re: jmesar]
    #14213415 - 03/31/11 05:25 AM (12 years, 10 months ago)

Quote:

jmesar said:
I suggest to read a in http://cenicafe.org

Cultivo de hongos medicinales en residuos agrícolas de la zona cafetera.

http://cenicafe.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=Publications2&file=index&p_op=showcontent&secid=2D&pnid=31647&menuid=3&lite=

and

Cultivo de hongos comestibles del género Pleurotus sobre residuos agrícolas de la zona cafetera.


http://cenicafe.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=Publications2&file=index&p_op=showcontent&secid=2D&pnid=30587&menuid=3&lite=

Registration to access document is free



I tried to register, but had as much trouble with this Spanish language site as I often do with an English language site! :uhoh:  It remembered my IP address after I screwed up trying to register (with the aid of Google Translate and my wife, who is reasonably fluent is Spanish) and wouldn't let me restart the registration process.


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OfflineNSF
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Re: Substrate Woes - No Straw [Re: FernandoCastro]
    #14213456 - 03/31/11 05:55 AM (12 years, 10 months ago)

Quote:

FernandoCastro said:
Quote:

NSF said:
Ahhh you pasteurise the coffee!  I was just about to ask about whether anyone uses the coffee straight from the store.  I experimented and it's an epic fail.




Whom are you referring to? The  contributor's majority said that their (including mine) sub was unpasteurized.

Quote:

So the substrate is clearly great for growing, but i will have to steam sterilise in a bag in the old microwave.



Done: http://www.shroomery.org/forums/showflat.php/Number/14148387#14148387

I've had some drawbacks too; nevertheless, one got to perfect formulas:
  • a higher (1:5) spawn ratio (I'm using sawdust spawn for the moment).
  • 30% cardboard, in which 60/70% of it is dry.
  • adding a 2% aprox. of gypsum per block
.
The spawn run is slower than straw indeed but it´s worth to wait a couple of more weeks if you're whiling to get cheap.

Quote:

Well no, it's a lush multi mould playground.



If you're referring to the posted photo, I don´t see anything wrong there.






I was referring to BlR's post on page one, he pasteurises it seems.

And with reference to the posted photo i have 3 different molds there.  The trich is a little hard to make out i guess.  Still it's not good.

I appreciate the substrate recipe though and hints on spawn ratios.


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OfflineBlueLightRain
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Re: Substrate Woes - No Straw [Re: FernandoCastro]
    #14214172 - 03/31/11 10:38 AM (12 years, 10 months ago)

Quote:

NSF said:
I was referring to BlR's post on page one, he pasteurises it seems.





Initially I was repasteurizing it. But this has proven to be too much effort when compared to developing more grain spawn. Instead of repasteurizing the coffee grounds I blitzkrieg it with a high grain spawn ratio as Fernando just mentioned.

I was filling up a cauldron with water, bringing it to about 180 degrees F then pouring it into a bucket full of grounds. This same process is part of what it takes to produce spawn, which can be expanded many times over to inoculate a bulk substrate. I believe this is a more efficient use of time and energy.

Quote:

FernandoCastro said:
@BLR: Those oysters sure seem bad. What happened to your previous projects? Any photos?





So far the substrates are still colonizing and should be fruiting soon but my assumption is that they all will produce malformed oysters. Granted, I made some cardboard supplemented blocks and hope to see what those produce. Time will tell, but my conclusion for 100% coffee grounds using this exact strain of Pleurotus pulmonarius produces malformed oysters. Adjustments will likely produce a healthy fruit, as you've shown in tons of your pictures.

I think developing a grow-bag product to sell utilizing coffee grounds as a substrate will take some more adjustments - A) sterilization for a guaranteed product B) supplementation with bran, brewer's waste, paper, cardboard, cottonseed hulls, and/or straw, and C) dedicated lab work to produce a strain which thrives on coffee grounds. I'm looking forward to getting an All-American sterilizer. I'm dreaming this will be a reassuring and final step to the process. I'm also especially excited to see what Terry M produces. He has a wonderful experiment going right now. As I mentioned last night - coffee grounds might be even more efficient as a liquid supplementation.


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InvisibleMonkeyKnifeFight
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Re: Substrate Woes - No Straw [Re: NSF]
    #14214196 - 03/31/11 10:46 AM (12 years, 10 months ago)

@BlueLightRain: My experiences with coffee grounds have been much different from yours.  I have grown on 100% coffee grounds many times and never seen malformed fruits.  I wouldn't jump to the conclusion that the coffee is the cause.  I've posted this several times before but here I simply filled a trunk with coffee grounds over a period of a coupld weeks, mixed in spawn and clsoed the lid, leaving it on my back porch.  It took awhile but I ended up harvesting 15-20 lbs of mushrooms off it:



This stuff isn't ground breaking research people have been growing oysters off 100% coffee grounds for decades.  Right this moment I have 10-15 enormous burlap sacks filled with various mixtures from 100% coffee grounds to ~80/20 mix of coffee and straw.  Some of the 100% cofee ones must have been 150lbs when they were wet.  I didn't treat any of the coffee at all and spawned at a rate of 1:10 tops, probably much less.  Last weekend I harvested 5-10 lbs off the bags as they are all fruiting like mad.  I have pictures I keep forgetting to post. They aren't even in any sort of enclosure just sitting among some cover crops.

My point is that coffee grounds work fine without going mad scientist and isolating strains or anything.  They definitely won't behave exactly like straw but that's to be expected since the materials are completely different.  Straw will almost certainly be more reliable but you can't beat grounds for low energy/low cost/low effort bulk growing.

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OfflineBlueLightRain
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Re: Substrate Woes - No Straw [Re: MonkeyKnifeFight]
    #14214501 - 03/31/11 12:05 PM (12 years, 10 months ago)

Wow! Yeah I have a spore print of local Pleurotus ostreatus which reportedly grows well on coffee grounds. It might simply be my strain of Pl. pulmonarius. Also the other poster with malformed oysters mentioned his were Pl. eryngii. Could be species specific. I would really love to get it to work. I'm certainly a little put off by this development, though. Clearly you aren't having issues with it so something isn't working right in this setup I have going. Hmmmm...


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Invisiblesolarity
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Re: Substrate Woes - No Straw [Re: MonkeyKnifeFight]
    #14214910 - 03/31/11 01:38 PM (12 years, 10 months ago)

Sorry to butt in guys but I was wondering when reading this if you are both talking about the same type of "coffee grounds"?
Filter coffee grounds (ie a drip filter) will have had brief exposure to very hot water, possibly enough to pasteurize, possibly not. Expresso type coffee grounds will have been sterilized by the superheated water under pressure forced through them. Also the two types are ground to different sizes.
Just a thought to perhaps explain the difference in results?


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OfflineNSF
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Re: Substrate Woes - No Straw [Re: solarity]
    #14215266 - 03/31/11 02:49 PM (12 years, 10 months ago)

@Solarity: that right there is a great input from a fresh set of eyes. Clever thinking. There are so many variables at the cafe. How long it takes them to fill a bag or bucket is a big one.

@MKF: mate, this sounds very impressive. I'm curious to know more though. Do you wet your coffee or just use as is? Does mould start growing but you let the shrroms beat it? Do you not even check up on it to know if any moulds get in?

@BLR: i'm with the others, don't change everything in your approach to try for different results.  Change one thing at a time to find out what the problem was.


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OfflineBlueLightRain
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Re: Substrate Woes - No Straw [Re: solarity]
    #14215331 - 03/31/11 03:00 PM (12 years, 10 months ago)

Quote:

NSF said:
@BLR: i'm with the others, don't change everything in your approach to try for different results.  Change one thing at a time to find out what the problem was.




I agree...I'm definitely from that school of thought, too, I simply meant that my current setup isn't producing what I'm looking for so something has to be adjusted and it will take some work to find out what exactly needs to be adjusted.

Quote:

solarity said:
Also the two types are ground to different sizes.
Just a thought to perhaps explain the difference in results?




Yeah you're right. Espresso is a smaller grind, drip coffee is more coarse. Separating the two is impossible when receiving coffee from a coffee shop. Producing enough on your own to do bulk substrates will cost a pretty penny too. From my experience working at a coffee shop, I know that what goes into those wasted coffee grounds buckets are touched by hands, too. Hands that have touched money and a million other bacteria-infested things.


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Invisiblehelloworld
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Re: Substrate Woes - No Straw [Re: NSF]
    #14215585 - 03/31/11 03:49 PM (12 years, 10 months ago)

Solarity - For the record, currently I am using Starbucks coffee grounds that I assume only come from the espresso machines, I have to 'filter' the occasional bits of paper/muffin, but from my experience within my area (I had over 20 individual coffee shops on board at one point - too much inconsistency) they provide the most grounds for the least effort. The moisture content is a factor I have been thinking about, from most sources I read up on it would appear that they are fine to use straight from the machine, there is never any excess or dripping coffee so I was beginning to wonder if they were too dry and thus inhibiting the mycelium colonization but they get there in the end.

BLR - It is definitely a worthwhile venture in my opinion, I am also looking at the commercial viability of such a model, if done right it could lead to a closed-loop, zero-waste business model and that is the only way I wish to work in the future. Don't give up on the grounds, there are many successful examples as MKF mentions, I would however experiment wit different strains if you have the time, at present I am using a commercially produced P.Ostreatus strain but my intentions are to develop/source a strain that is better suited for coffee grounds, and given your setup/routine you are far better positioned to achieve this than I am (given that I lack the equipment to start producing my own cultures). £30 per 15kg of spawn is a cost I am willing to pay to reduce the work load of spawn production at such an early stage - I will start mixing new bags with colonized blocks in the next few days as well, if that can be worked into consistent routine then there may not even be a need to invest in the equipment required for culture production..

FernandoCastro - Your formula is what I have just started working on, but I have been adding a dash of lime juice which I figured may supplement the need for gypsum? I am probably wrong though. I have definitely exposed a few of the blocks too early, but that's just my eagerness to see some fruits, they appear to be coming along nicely though, building up a thick layer of mycelium around the edges where I assume they will begin to fruit from when ready?

NSF - The mycelium will overcome the mould just give it a bit of time, I threw out a lot of my early batches (pure coffee grounds with only 2% spawn!) but I left a few packs from each batch, and they have nearly all colonized over a month later. In some cases there were clearly multiple bacteria's battling it out in the packs, it was certainly interesting to watch them over time.

By the way, is anyone here based within the UK?

Edited by helloworld (03/31/11 03:52 PM)

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OfflineNSF
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Re: Substrate Woes - No Straw [Re: helloworld]
    #14215662 - 03/31/11 04:05 PM (12 years, 10 months ago)

Thanks for the reassurance and injection of patience.

30 quid for 15kgs of spawn is a fantastic price!  It comes as grain spawn i presume?

Sorry but i'm posting from a mobile device but seek out another recent thread that's been posted about an article/interview with BTTR (better) about their coffee waste reduction via commercial shroom production. Positive small/medium business sounding stuff.

Edit: thread link : http://www.shroomery.org/forums/showflat.php/Number/14209731/page/1/gonew/1#UNREAD

And not UK here, Australia


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Edited by NSF (03/31/11 04:24 PM)

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OfflineBlueLightRain
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Re: Substrate Woes - No Straw [Re: helloworld]
    #14215708 - 03/31/11 04:15 PM (12 years, 10 months ago)

Quote:

helloworld said:
BLR - It is definitely a worthwhile venture in my opinion, I am also looking at the commercial viability of such a model, if done right it could lead to a closed-loop, zero-waste business model and that is the only way I wish to work in the future.



Yeah this is what draws me in to the whole concept as well. Mushrooms as a recycler and a means of producing low-cost food. Genius! The only thing I dead-end with is the idea of using plastic filter patch bags as a container for grow-bags. This is a throw away product and puts a frown on my face. If and when I were to be a farmer there are a million ways of reusing containers without creating any waste. If I were to use my services and spawn as mycoremediation/gardening I would take a similar approach to monkeyknifefight - use burlap sacks, old clothing, or cardboard boxes.

Quote:

helloworld said:
I would however experiment wit different strains if you have the time, at present I am using a commercially produced P.Ostreatus strain but my intentions are to develop/source a strain that is better suited for coffee grounds, and given your setup/routine you are far better positioned to achieve this than I am (given that I lack the equipment to start producing my own cultures). £30 per 15kg of spawn is a cost I am willing to pay to reduce the work load of spawn production at such an early stage.





This is exactly what I'm thinking. Thanks for the encouragement. There are so many people in my city's club who are interested in this approach. If I can develop a coffee-loving strain then I can sell the spawn as part of my business plan. I looked at the conversion rate of your spawn and it looks like you are paying around $1.50 to $2.00 per pound of spawn. Can anyone else check this? How much spawn are you getting and in what containers?


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OfflineNSF
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Re: Substrate Woes - No Straw [Re: BlueLightRain]
    #14215753 - 03/31/11 04:27 PM (12 years, 10 months ago)

Yeah, your maths is pretty good, $1.45us per pound.  So funny converting metric weight with imperial money (uk) to imperial weight with metric money (us).


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InvisibleMonkeyKnifeFight
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Re: Substrate Woes - No Straw [Re: NSF]
    #14216738 - 03/31/11 07:25 PM (12 years, 10 months ago)

I grow my own spawn so can't really speak to the cost factoring in time and everything.  I have extensively grown ostreatus (from the FP coffee ground kit) and some columbinus culture that I got and both perform very well on grounds (and anything else really). 

My method right now is extremely low effort.  I collect grounds during the week from starbucks and generally just compost the first few days and keep Tuesday or Wednesday on.  I don't use any grounds that already have visible mold.  Then on Saturday I fill my burlap sacks with coffee/straw/spawn.  My spawn rate is likely quite a bit below 1:10.  Then I add the bag to the rest of them.  I've had to move them many times as factors change but right now they are sitting in a patch of cover crops (fava and some other stuff) that help keep things a little more humid.  It's been raining here but as they dry out the bags will hopefully get some incidental sprinkling from the normal farm sprinklers.  Then I don't check on them again till the next Saturday. 

I've run into plenty of little issues but with my current mix of ~80/20 coffee/straw things are going really well.  Like I said they're fruiting like mad.  I have no commercial ambitions.  I am working with a community farm so it's all non-profit.  But of course I like the idea of using almost all free recycled materials and using them to feed people.  The bags I make are pretty huge so I'm hoping they keep fruiting for awhile.

There is definitely mold and whatever else growing in there with the mushrooms.  It's all outside in a burlap sack so no fighting that.  But obviously my goal isn't to fight it but to find a balance. 

Lastly there is definitely a difference between grounds from drip places and espresso places like Starbucks.  For my trunk above, all the grounds were from a drip place.  They were ground coarser and there were a shit load of filters but overall the performance was similar.  The filters are kind of nice they keep it from getting too dense.  But overall straw works great for that.

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