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InvisibleSpitballJedi
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Registered: 10/13/12
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How Spitball Prepares CVG * 16
    #20469910 - 08/24/14 12:55 PM (9 years, 5 months ago)

This tek is pretty much overkill if you are using CVG. However, it can also be used for bulk pasteurization.

This is part of my series "The Basics"

Now that my grain spawn is ready, I'm going to mix it with a bulk substrate. In this tek, I'll be preparing bulk substrate made of coco coir, vermiculite, gypsum, and water (CVG). I will be using a monotub for colonizing and fruiting.

Let's get this out of the way first. CVG does not require proper pasteurization or sterilization. Questions and comments on the subject can be found on Bucket Tek vs Pasteurization Thread . That is the end of the discussion on this thread, period.


The CVG recipe is:

1 Brick (650grams) coco coir
2 quarts fine-medium vermiculite
1 cup(2 big handfuls) garden or horticulture gypsum
4-4.5 quarts water

The average brick of coir weighs about 650g, but I've seen them anywhere from 550-750. If you are using one of those big bales, knowing this may be useful. Although this is not an exact science, a wide variation on the amount of coir you use may result in too wet or too dry substrate.

Following my measurements exactly will give you an understanding of field capacity. This is because CVG has been used so much and the weights and measures are so uniform.

If you use the above recipe, 4qts of water would be considered on the dry side of field capacity and 5 quarts would be on the wet side of field capacity. But, they are both in the range of what most people consider "field capacity".


There are many ways to prepare CVG and this is just another one.

Here we go:

I will keeping the CVG hot with a water bath. Basically, I'm using one pot to prep the CVG, and the other pot will have hot water in it to keep the CVG hot.



This is the two pots, one inside the other. I have two identical 21qt canning pots. One for the CVG and one for the bath.


Use one pot to boil 4 quarts of water. Use the other pot to heat water for a water bath. You'll have to figure out how much water the bath will need ahead of time. It will vary depending on pot size.

Boiling 4 qts water

Once the 4qts of water gets boiling, turn off the stove and put in the coir and vermiculite and put on lid. At this point, you can go ahead and stick the CVG pot in the water bath which should be hot by now.



After about 10 mins, it has soaked up a lot of water. Sprinkle the gypsum in on top.



Mix it up. It will still be very hot. I use a wooden spoon to mix. It doesn't have to be mixed all that well at this point because we can mix it again when it's cooled.



Put the lid back on and set a timer for at least 1 hour. This part is not critical and I only do it because of the water bath. The timer reminds me to turn of the stove being used by the water bath. It also insures that my CVG has stayed at a high temperature for at least an hour. The timer has nothing to do with making sure I'm killing bacteria.

This bath easily keeps the CVG at or above 200F.



Once the timer sounds, turn off the water bath. To cool the CVG faster, remove it from the bath as well. Once cool enough to touch, you can go ahead and mix real well by hand. I like to wear a glove because I don't like digging CVG out from under my nails.



Alternately, you can also just dump the hot CVG in to your monotub if you want. It will cool faster because it's more spread out.


Further discussion

The point of the extra step of the water bath has nothing to do with pasteurizing, sterilizing, killing bacteria or any of that. The point is cooking it to break it down so mycelium will colonize it faster.

There is growing evidence that cooked coir is great for mycelium and may be the only reason for heating the water at all; it seems heat breaks it down so it's easy to digest. People are having great success even with sterilizing CVG. CVG is the only substrate I'm aware of that can be sterilized and then spawned in open air.

To be honest, you may find easier ways to prepare CVG than this tek. Mainly, you'll find many teks and posts of people just throwing all the dry ingredients in a bucket and pouring boiling water over it. This works fine and is basically what I'm doing here. I'm just adding an extra step to keep the substrate hotter longer so it cooks a little more. The water bath is not a requirement, but it's what I do. Feel free to omit the water bath.

I also prefer the pots over the bucket because the pots are wider and not as deep. It makes mixing easier for me.

Now it's time for Spawning.


--------------------
The Basics
A little civility goes a long way

The Noob Forum
The Hammock Hangers' Forum


Edited by SpitballJedi (12/12/17 03:32 PM)


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