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randomengineer
Stranger
Registered: 12/29/13
Posts: 3
Last seen: 10 years, 29 days
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Wanted to share my shroom failure
#19342572 - 12/29/13 05:10 PM (10 years, 1 month ago) |
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Alright, so this is my first post. Let me first say I've read and learned a ton here! You guys are awesome!
I really just want to share my experience with growing mushrooms so far and how i've basically failed on every front. For a bit of background, I am no dummy. I am studying to be an engineer as my username shows. I have also successfully brewed beer as well as built my own still complete with temperature control and a liebig condenser... basically, I build and make stuff all the time. This project started because I get continuously bored with projects, and I always seek out more edgy and exciting stuff to do. I have never done any drug other than Alcohol, but I have read the benefits of these little mushrooms and want to give em' a try.
So, my adventure into shrooms begins.
I decide on B+ and order a spore syringe from a Shroomery sponsor site. Works great - they send me a free A syringe also! woohoo! I also have spore print of Hawaiian from friend. I work out my own simple tek based on a combination of instructions from "The Clandestine Chemist's Notebook" as well as several different shroomery teks. Basically, I prepered my jars with the standard BRF mixture, inoculated wtih B+, and waited. Goal was to make a medium sized monotub with BRF+Verm or Coir.
My jar mixture as I stated was standard, but I did add a bit of honey and make my own BRF. For BRF, I bought a big bag of brown rice and used my electric coffee burr grinder to make flower. It was set on a fine drip coffee setting. Seemed to work well except for almost overheating the grinder.
Here's a pic after about two weeks:

Seems to be growing fine. All jars have this much growth were inoculated (2 spots in each jar)... but then it stopped.
I waited TWO MONTHS after this pic. NO GROWTH. NO FURTHER GROWTH IN 11 OUT OF 12 JARS!
The only jar that grew looked like this:

So I did a bunch of reading. Seems other people have this problem. Could be a million variables... no one knows. Maybe not enough water, heat, light, wrong ingredients, bacteria, etc...
I can't see any contamination. Each jar has a beautiful little white spot. My best guess was not enough water.
I say this because I read deep down on Erowid's manual that if you make your own BRF with a coffee grinder you will need to add more water initially. I did the calculation and found that, based on their recommendation, I needed to add two whole extra syringe full's of water to each jar! I didn't know this at the time. So now I formulate a plan. I have a bit of B+ (maybe 2 CC's ) left in syringe. I fill 2 1/2 pint jars with water and a couple drops of honey. I boil to sterilize and then inoculate the two water jars with the remainder of the B+. After two days I can see the spores starting to grow a bit. I guess this is like a mini ghetto liquid inoculation that I have performed.
After another two weeks of injecting the water and new spores into each jar, they still have not grown any further. They must all have bacteria or something...I have no idea. I was very sterile when I inoculated... bleached everything (I did it in the shower).


I have now given up on all jars except maybe the one that stopped at 75%. Something was definately wrong but so far I haven't been able to figure it out. My goal now turns to making enough shrooms that I can make one sporeprint of B+ so I can try again without having to order another syringe.
I buy a little plastic box in an attempt to make a mini monobox with 75% of a half pint. I make a verm and coir mixture based on other teks but scaled down to fit this little box. I set it up inside my origional planned box but I add a fish tank heater thinking maybe temperature was too low. I know... I've read that this doesn't matter... but nothing has worked so far, so why not throw it in there (I know the bacteria and heat argument as well... I'll probably ditch the heater in the future).
Anyway, I check this box two days later only to realize that the sub in the mini monotub is soaking wet! Somehow the water in the large box with the fish tank heater got into the minimonotub and completely saturated it. I'm positive it's ruined.
Basically I've made A HUGE MESS



So for no good reason that I can come up with besides a series of unfortunate events, this has been a huge failure.
I'm not giving up on this because that's not what I do. I may try a BRF based tek again with the hawaiian print, or I may just order another B+ syringe. I really wanted B+. I could even try a grain tek as a friend has a pressure cooker.... maybe I'll just buy one. I'm definately starting from scratch though. Probably gonna throw the jars outsite and see if anything grows from there.
This is basically a big rant. I wanted to vent about my failure. Maybe someone will benefit from it. Feel free to give me any advice on where I could have gone wrong as well.
Thanks!
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cronicr



Registered: 08/07/11
Posts: 61,436
Loc: Van Isle
Last seen: 2 years, 8 days
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well follow the tek to a t and don't stray away from it, those are the wrong sized jars and often stall due to your sub getting compacted at the bottom and throwing off your water content making it near impossible for your myc to colonize. use widemouth half pints, no honey
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  It doesn't matter what i think of you...all that matters is clean spawn I'm tired do me a favor
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HypnotoadCroaked
Retired, but will check MSGs

Registered: 01/05/13
Posts: 1,168
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Re: Wanted to share my shroom failure [Re: cronicr]
#19342626 - 12/29/13 05:23 PM (10 years, 1 month ago) |
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Quote:
cronicr said: well follow the tek to a t and don't stray away from it, those are the wrong sized jars and often stall due to your sub getting compacted at the bottom and throwing off your water content making it near impossible for your myc to colonize. use widemouth half pints, no honey
I tried the PF when I started, and could only find the same jars you have. They simply do not work as consistently as the half pint wide mouths.
You could try to turn it upside down, BUT ONCE IT IS TURNED, it should NEVER be turned back. ONLY do this as a last resort for the tall jars.
Also, it looks like you have covered your inoculation ports wit black electrical tape. Proper gas exchange is required. IF there is a dry vermiculite layer ontop of your cakes, that is your contamination barrier.
This also could be part of the issue. I can't say if there is any salvation of any of that.
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kepty
Meowwww


Registered: 06/27/13
Posts: 88
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Re: Wanted to share my shroom failure [Re: cronicr]
#19342632 - 12/29/13 05:24 PM (10 years, 1 month ago) |
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just follow the teks brother. I know sometimes you wanna make things better & start doing stuff to help the mycelium to colonize. But sometimes you gotta just leave it and let it do its tang. Its exciting to start out but you gotta trust the teks. Good luck!
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cronicr



Registered: 08/07/11
Posts: 61,436
Loc: Van Isle
Last seen: 2 years, 8 days
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Re: Wanted to share my shroom failure [Re: kepty]
#19342654 - 12/29/13 05:29 PM (10 years, 1 month ago) |
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just save the fucking around for some spare jars
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  It doesn't matter what i think of you...all that matters is clean spawn I'm tired do me a favor
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randomengineer
Stranger
Registered: 12/29/13
Posts: 3
Last seen: 10 years, 29 days
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Interesting comments,
First, I didn't realize the jar issue was that big of a deal. I also didn't realize I had the wrong jars. I've read about certain jars not working well, but I thought these were the correct ones. I will definately hunt down the true wide mouth jars for my next go.
There is black electrical tape covering the ports on the jars. I didn't think there needed to be any air exchange at all during colonization????? I used no top verm layer. I can easly fix this next time around as well.
I did try turning over only a couple of the jars. Gave em' about a week or two that way. No change from the beginning. Maybe it was the tape again?
Next time i'll ditch the honey. I simply did that because I read somewhere that it would significantly increase the yield of any BRF tek. I made my own BRF because I couldn't find it locally. Maybe I'll order it online now.
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cronicr



Registered: 08/07/11
Posts: 61,436
Loc: Van Isle
Last seen: 2 years, 8 days
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the tape was a bad thing, stopped your ge from happening, just use micrpore or even none at all grinding your own is perfectly fine to do as well
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  It doesn't matter what i think of you...all that matters is clean spawn I'm tired do me a favor
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HypnotoadCroaked
Retired, but will check MSGs

Registered: 01/05/13
Posts: 1,168
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Re: Wanted to share my shroom failure [Re: cronicr]
#19342832 - 12/29/13 06:03 PM (10 years, 1 month ago) |
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Quote:
cronicr said: the tape was a bad thing, stopped your ge from happening, just use micrpore or even none at all grinding your own is perfectly fine to do as well
http://www.fungifun.org/English/Pftek
Follow that tek.
Mix 2 parts of verm with one part water till fully absorbed. Than mix 1 part brf. (Please correct me if I am wrong/I am working from memory)
Skip the foil lid, and use a lid with 4 holes. Upside down lids come of better, and would work just fine with a dry verm layer.
Don't disturb the jars. Look but touch as little as possible.
This is everything I know about cakes. Cakes pushed me to bulk fast.
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kepty
Meowwww


Registered: 06/27/13
Posts: 88
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I did cake once and then did bulk the next month.
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blackglass6219
Stranger

Registered: 07/20/13
Posts: 239
Last seen: 8 years, 11 months
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Re: Wanted to share my shroom failure [Re: kepty]
#19342953 - 12/29/13 06:26 PM (10 years, 1 month ago) |
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I definitely think the problem is from the electrical tape restricting GE. As far as the jars go, I used regular half pints and they worked fine. A few of mine stalled at the very bottom of the jar, so I flipped them over and had no problems.
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randomengineer
Stranger
Registered: 12/29/13
Posts: 3
Last seen: 10 years, 29 days
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Alright. Yeah I had no idea they needed air during colonization.
I still have all the stalled jars. I just took all the electrical tape off them. Any chance they will start up again now that I'm not suffocating them?
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cronicr



Registered: 08/07/11
Posts: 61,436
Loc: Van Isle
Last seen: 2 years, 8 days
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hopefully!
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  It doesn't matter what i think of you...all that matters is clean spawn I'm tired do me a favor
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HypnotoadCroaked
Retired, but will check MSGs

Registered: 01/05/13
Posts: 1,168
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Quote:
randomengineer said: I used no top verm layer.
Quote:
randomengineer said: I just took all the electrical tape off them.
Don't expect miracles, but nothing surprises me. Having no layer of verm will allow for contams to directly contact the colonizing cake.
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crackacola
Big Daddy


Registered: 12/14/13
Posts: 234
Last seen: 8 years, 9 months
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The only problem was that you taped the GE holes with electrical tape. Everything else was fine. I used to use those jars all the time. Next time, either put micropore tape over the holes instead or put a dry verm barrier and use no tape.
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FOR TRADE <---- Check out my spores for trade!
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blckmynnse8
Stranger

Registered: 04/19/11
Posts: 206
Last seen: 5 months, 26 days
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Re: Wanted to share my shroom failure [Re: crackacola]
#19344992 - 12/30/13 04:44 AM (10 years, 1 month ago) |
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I consider this to be the ultimate beginner's tek: Damion5050's Coir Tek
I see that you have devised your tek using your own ingenium, but I would suggest using rye grain or wild bird seed in quart jars for a substrate because it's much easier. There will be fewer jars and less prep time. You can replace the lid with a piece of doubled over tyvek (still using the band) and a dab of rtv silicone on the top for a self healing injection port.
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blindingleaf
blue collar underworld



Registered: 07/19/13
Posts: 22,008
Loc: sub-surface unseen
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Re: Wanted to share my shroom failure [Re: blckmynnse8]
#19345169 - 12/30/13 06:23 AM (10 years, 1 month ago) |
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when i first started in may this year (2013) i had 6 brf short wide mouth 1/2 pints pre sterilized and ordered from a non shroomery vendor. they stalled at 50%, and then i realized after reading many posts, GE may be the issue. for some reason, this vendor had taped the innoc holes with clear packing tape, and the jars stalled at 50%. i took the tape off (they had dry verm layer) and colonization began again. doing cakes ended up like this:

but when i spawned to coir/verm, ended up like this (even from non vendor, and with delayed, taking off tape colonization time)

so things can go from wrong to right. especially if u do not see or smell contam.
be careful though, because u have no dry verm layer, maybe get some micropore from CVS (called "gentle paper tape" in the bandaid aisle from NEXCARE, looks like a roll of scotch tape) and take off electric tape and put on micropore in a home made SAB and see if that helps..?
-------------------- A few thoughts on cultivation MICROBIAL HUSBANDRY!!!! The whole is greater than the sum of its parts
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