Quite excited to be branching out and trying my first sclerotia grow!
March 20th
I prepared 3 mycobags and 2 qrt jars of rye grain (each bag contained 3.5L of hydrated grain). The grain was soaked overnight with 2% by weight/volume of gypsum. The soak water also contained coffee. I did this by adding 150g of spent coffee to the soak water (3% wt./vol of the dry volume of the grain being soaked), boiling it for 10 minutes and then decanting off the water onto the grain.
This may actually be significantly too much coffee. I didn't have access to a means of preparing fresh coffee, but what I did have was about 10kg of spent coffee grounds. The mass of coffee I used was a rough estimate based on the volume of soak water and the average mass of coffee used (per unit volume of water) to prepare a standard coffee. I then doubled the calculated mass based on the fact that I was actually using pre-used coffee. This was a very rough guess at how much I should use.
The following morning the grain was brought to the boil for 5 minutes, drained and then spread out to air dry for 30 minutes to remove all surface moisture.
The bags and jars were PC'd at 15 PSI for 3 hours.
March 21st
The bags and jars were inoculated in front of my flow box.
I did this by filling them with a plume of sterile air and adding 5mL of P. Galindoi LC. The bags were then impulse sealed and shaken up to evenly distribute the dryer grains.
The jars were shaken and then inoc'd with roughly 5mL of LC.
March 24th
Another 4 mycobags were prepared in the same manner as before. The same coffee content was once again used.
March 25th
Yesterday's mycobags were inoculated in the same manner as the first set.
At this point I was concerned at the low level of colonisation that the first set of bags were showing (4 days after being inoc'd with LC). I decided that I would inoc these bags with a further 5mL of LC. This time, the bags would not be shaken after inoculation, allowing for a more concentrated delivery of mycelium.
I performed the second inoculation by sanitising an area on the bag, placing a piece of micropore tap on this area, and inoculating through the tape. The LC was focused on the edges of the bag, so as to drain down the side. The second set of bags were also inoculated a second time in this manner.
The reason I chose to do this, is because I wanted the mycelium growth to be as uniform throughout the bags from as early as possible in their colonisation. I have read from several sources, that the mycelium of stone producing strains is not nearly as robust as that of other cubes, and that breaking up the mycelium in order to disperse it more evenly (as you do when you shake jars/bags), has been known to prevent or hinder the production of stones.
The two jars were shaken today. If not, it appeared that at the current rate of colonisation they would take a very long time to completely colonise. Also, this way I could observe the effect on the jars before deciding whether or not to shake the bags.
March 30th
Shaking the jars definitely helped to improve the rate of colonisation, and had no obvious negative influence. The mycelium does appear much finer and weaker than I observe in my shroom grows, however I think this is to be expected.
I decided to shake and re-distribute each of the bags. Upon breaking up the material I was suprised at both how much colonised material there was, and at how easily the colonised portions broke apart. The mycelium appeared quite wispy and weak.
April 2nd
A third set of 4 mycobags were prepared. This time a 2% wt./vol. of spent coffee (per unit of volume of dry grain) was used in the soak water (i.e. 120g of spent coffee for 6L of dry grain). The difference this time is that the coffee was left in the soak water, rather than being removed before adding the grain. Doing this was actually a mistake on my part. I expect that leaving the coffee in will cause problems in two possible ways; either their will be simply too much coffee (which is known to retard colonisation and stone production), and/or I will experience a significantly higher likelihood of contamination (since moulds love coffee).
Besides the coffee, no other aspect of the preparation procedure was altered.
The two quart jars were examined and seem to be progressing relatively well. It appears that the majority of the mycelium is very light and wispy, with sporadic stronger spots dispersed throughout. Will all the mycelium eventually look like this, or are these stronger points the beginnings of stone formation??.... The jars were inoc'd 12 days ago.
April 3rd
The third set of mycobags were inoculated using the same two step inoculation as used on all the previous bags (i.e. 5mL of LC, twice. Once before and once after mixing the grain).
April 4th
The first two sets of grain (7 mycobags and 2 quart jars in total), were closely examined today.
One of the mycobags had been almost consumed by trichoderma (obviously there was a small contaminated region that had been spread throughout the bag upon mixing several days ago), and was discarded. A second mycobag may also have a tiny spot of trich contamination (each of the two were inoc'd on different days). It was isolated and will be discarded in the coming days if necessary. This is a significantly higher rate of contamination that I experience with my shroom mycobags - perhaps the presence of the coffee has caused this (or simply a coincidence).
The two quart jars appear to be progressing in the same manner. Quite a bit of myc piss is now visible. They were inoc'd 14 days ago. The myc-piss stained large white growth in the upper centre of this jar is an example of the type of growth that I assume (hope!) will become a stone in the coming weeks. Can anyone with more experience comment on this?...
The first set of 3 mycobags are now almost fully colonised. They appear slightly different to the jars, as there is less variance in the appearance of all the mycelium - it appears generally thicker and stronger than the jars. Maybe this was influenced by shaking the bags after a few more days of growth than the jars? There are still however clumps of denser mycelial growth.
There is a LOT of myc piss in these bags. It isn't very noticeable in the photos, because after I had handled them it was more or less dispersed around the surface.
  
I'm hoping that within another week I will be confident that stones are in fact forming, at which point I'll put them aside and forget about them for a couple of months.
NOTE:
I have prepared an agar culture of P. Tampanensis. Tomorrow I will prepare an LC from this. Next week I plan to prepare a further 16 quart jars and 4 mycobags (the majority of which will be P. Tampanensis).
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Taking a psychedelic is analogous to life, if you dwell on reaching the end you'll never enjoy the trip!
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