De-vilifying an extremely useful and easy tool: by GhiaJake Whether you are new or old to the debate between agar and LC (liquid culture), everyone can agree that LC has a bad rep here. Opponents of LC always state that it just isn't worth it and you would be spending your time better just using agar instead. I don't see how so many people can just blatantly dismiss such a valuable tool in mycology, other than people giving up after too many failed attempts.
Anyone that has ever bought a culture syringe from a sponsor is using LC. If agar was SO much better than LC, then why don't the sponsors all sell wedges instead? There is no better way to grow, and store, mass amounts of usable culture in such a small area as with LC. Period. Yes, agar is great for germinating spores and isolating genetics. But how many dishes would it take to inoculate over 200 jars of grain. One quart jar with only 600mL of LC can do it easily. Also, when storing agar dishes in the fridge the moisture will separate from the agar, leaving pools of water lying on your culture. The LC culture is always hydrated, never get opened to the air (sterile or otherwise), and just continues to grow while being stored.
I went through a patch of not wanting to mess with agar, since I got reports of contaminated wedges I had traded. Again, to anyone that received a contaminated wedge, I'm sorry. To be honest, I still haven't done any new agar work since, even since I built my flow hood. I decided instead to spend my time mastering the "dreaded" LC. I have to give credit to Claybuddy for showing me that LC is viable and should be looked into more (How else are you going to grow non-sporulating Purple Mystics, right?

). I can't remember the link he gave me to where he learned his LC recipe, and I by no means claim it to be mine, but below I will describe how I now do my LC jars. To start off, here's a few pics of some of the LCs I've made using my method. The first is Shiitake (S75) inoculated with sterile dowel spawn. The second is King Oyster inoculated with a few colonized milo grains. The third is Pearl Oyster (or pseudo Hyp Ulm) noc'd with dowel spawn. The forth is Ps galindoi, noc'd with 5cc of GLC. The fifth is Pan cyan noc'd the same as the ATL#7.





Now, enough bragging, let's get down to business making some LC! Keep in mind, LC is meant for
live culture transfers only!!! Trying to germinate spores in an LC solution will end in failure most of the time.
There are many ways people attempt to do the whole LC thing. I can say I've tried most of them by now and this is the easiest method, with the best results. There are a few things you are going to need to pick up to do this right. Keep in mind that if you half-ass things you will only ever get half-ass results. Spending the extra time to do things right will be well worth it in the end.
Here's what you will need to make your "no-tilt" jar lids:

Plastic jar lids
Self-healing inoculation ports
"Whatman-style" syringe filters (PVDF or PTFE, 0.2 micron)
Rubber grommets (tattoo gun grommets work fine, but I like the thicker ones)
1/4" stainless tubing
1/2" drill bit
1/4" drill bit (3/8" if you use the thicker grommets)
High-temp silicone (optional, not really needed as the tubing seals the noc port)
Step 1:
Step 2:
Start off by drilling two holes (carefully) in each lid with your two drill bit sizes. Clean the edges of the holes with a knife, or whatever.
Step 3:

Insert the noc port into the 1/2" hole, it should snap into the retention slot on the noc port. The grommet fits in the 1/4" hole. You can see the difference between the two grommets in the above picture.
Step 4:
Carefully insert the filter syringe through the grommet. If you use the tattoo gun grommets, you will want to watch that you don't push the grommet through the hole. Make sure the filter and grommet are properly seated to the lid.
You can use your high-temp silicone for added protection at this time, but it isn't really needed when making your lids this way.
Step 5: 

It is important to get stainless steal tubing for your "downspout". You don't want rust in your LC! For quart sized jars cut your length to 6" from base to tip, 4" for pint jars. Cut one end square, and the other at a drastic angle. This allows for a much larger area of myc to be drawn into the tubing. I also sharpen the edges of the tips to help with cutting up the mycelium when swirling (see section on swirling) Smooth the edge on the other end, and slip it into the bottom of noc port. It will fit quite snugly, and will keep the noc port from pulling back out of the lid (see above pic)
Make sure to turn the tip of your downspout into the direction of your swirl. You want the sharpened tip to cut the oncoming mycelium when it is spinning in the jar
Step 6:

Now that you have your lids made, you're almost ready to start on the LC itself. If you don't have a magnetic stirrer, just toss in a couple clean stones into each of your jars.
Step 7: 
BTW, from here on I'll have to update later with photos. I have a batch to make in the next couple of days, so I'll update the OP once I get all that done. For now, we continue on...
Step 8: Now that all your jars are ready, it's time to mix up your liquid. This is one of those widely debated subjects, which nutrient base to use in your LC. I have tried many different ways: honey and/or karo, potato water, grain soak water, etc. The best results I've found are from just extra light malt extract. It's cheap, has great results, and you barely need any for it to work. I use 0.6g of ME(got it by mistake) for every 100mL of DISTILLED water. Don't use tap water folks! Miss a beer and go buy a gallon of distilled water for Jebus' sake! Or use water collected in a house dehumidifier like I do.

What I usually do is pour all the water into a big pot and bring it to a boil. Shut off the stove, then stir in your malt extract. Make sure it all dissolves. I then pour the brew through a double-layered clean t-shirt to filter out the particulates. Do this until your liquid is clear. Now fill up your jars and get the PC ready. Double check that you did both Step 5 and Step 6 before closing your lids, since Step 7 sometimes makes you forget things.
Step 9: Pressure cook your LC jars at 15-18 PSI for 30 minutes. There is no need for aluminum foil over the lids. Make sure you don't quickly release the pressure at any point or your jars will expel your LC liquid due to the pressure equalization. Just let them cool down in the PC until the next morning. Your jar temps need to be below 80F before inoculating anyways. If you correctly filtered the liquid before pressure cooking, you shouldn't have any particulates in your jars after PC'ing. If you have some, don't worry. The mycelium should eat it. You may notice a color change if you use ME instead of ELME, but again don't worry. It's fine.
Step 10: Now we're onto the meat of the issue. Inoculation. The whole agar thing and I can't see eye-to-eye most of the time (fucking agar), so I do my LC a little different than most. If you have no problems with agar then just noc up your LC with it if you like. But this way you aren't "touching" the culture in any way, so you are eliminating that chance of contamination
All inoculation methods should be done in a SAB, or in front of a laminar hood, and all sterile procedures should be followed!!! 1. LC or GLC transfer: If you already have an LC syringe, or just made some GLC from a clean jar of colonized grain, all it takes is 2-3cc of solution to get your jars going. Make sure you have clean culture first!
2. Grain transfer: The simplest way to inoculate your LC is to sprinkle in a couple colonized grains from a clean, fully colonized master grain jar.
3. Dowel spawn: I had made up a bunch of dowels of various species. Having never opened the sterile jars, I decided to inoculate a couple LC jars with colonized dowel plugs. The mycelium grew in a dense cluster off of the dowels and required vigorous swirling to break up the mass. This is only a viable option if you have sterilized dowels colonized, do not attempt with pasteurized dowels.
Step 11: Sit back and watch you mycelium grow! Let it get a good foot-hold in the jar before you start swirling. When you swirl try to direct the mycelium across the tip of your downspout to slice it on the sharpened edges. Do this every couple of days until the myc has grow out enough to store the jars in the fridge.
Keep an eye out for cloudiness of the liquid, or discolored spots growing on the sides of the jar or surface of the liquid. These are all signs of contaminated culture. Even without these signs, you should run a few test jars every now-and-then to make sure your culture is still clean. I usually G2G those clean test jars for a run of spawnings.
Well folks, that's about it! Hope this helps to dispel the bad rep LC has gotten. Please try for yourselves and post your results here.