DISCLAIMER: Credit is due to all members of the Shroomery. Especially all the Trusted Cultivators. I couldn't have created this without you all. If anybody has an issue with me using their material the way that I did, or if I left something out, please let me know. This is intended to help, not offend. Everything I list in here, you should not limit yourself to. You should research all the different methods and teks developed by others until you find the ones that work for you. Love you all!! Happy Cultivating!!
Do you want to grow tons of mushrooms? Do you think that BRF is the safest bet for beginners? Instead of wasting all your effort on cakes, why not start the best possible route right off the bet. My first grow was done with B+, agar, CVG (coir, vermiculite, and Gypsum) inside a mono tub. Because I could do it, I know you can too. The only thing you will need to make sure you don't fuck up is your sterile technique. So here it is, "From Beginner to Bulk". I will discuss in detail what you will need for your jars, agar work, bulk substrate, Still Air Box (SAB), and your monotub. After I discuss what you will need for each key part of a grow, I will discuss what you need to do with each of those key parts. Hope that is easy to understand. I will also include the links to the teks so you can follow the tek to the T. Also, of course, I will give credit where credit is due 
What Will You Need to get started (JARS):
1: 1 quart wide mouthed mason jars (I recommend getting around 30 right off the bat so you can have constant rotations of colonizing jars) 2: Plastic Lids (the same ones that you find in the canning aisle, they are PC safe) 3: Synthetic Filter Disks (SFD for short). Some people use tyvex, micropore tape, polyfil, etc. I personally like SFD's 4: Drill with 1/4 inch bit 5: Sand Paper 6: Grains (you can choose from rye grains, whole oats, wild bird seed (WBS), etc. Each have their own pro's and cons) 7: Tin foil 8. Silicone (high temp) 9: PRESSURE COOKER!! (Yes, you have to have one. Before you post the question that thousands have asked before you, there is NOTHING to use in liue of. You NEED a PC that is able to reach 15psi).
What Will You Need To Get Started (AGAR):
1: AGAR AGAR (This is easiest found online, however you might luck out and find some in an asian market near you. You can either use whole agar sticks, or buy powdered agar) 2: Honey or karo 3: potato flakes 4: Small sauce pan (to cook the agar in) 5: Glad mini rounds (I highly recommend you get as many as you can possibly afford. This way, you can always have agar going between grows and can continuosly make transfers) 6: Micropore Tape 7: Paper Towel 8: Scalpal (for future agar work) 9: Alcohol lamp/blow torch (also for future agar work) 10: Iso alcohol 70% or above (also for future agar work 11: Latex Gloves (used throughout the entire growing process basically. If your allergic to latex then obviously find non-latex gloves) 12: Stove 13: Food coloring (optional) 14: tin foil
What Will You Need To Get Started (Still Air Box): 1: The largest see-through rubber-maid container that you can possibly find. (the bigger it is, the easier it is to work inside of) 2: cutting tool (this will be for the holes. If you have a large metal can, something like a folgers coffee can, this will work. I will explain later when we get to that portion) 3: Paper towel 4: spray bottle filled with hot soapy water
What Will You Need To Get Started (Monotub):
1: 66 quart clear rubber-maid tub (lid doesn't necessarily need to be see through, but helps) 2: Drill 3: 1.5 inch drill bit 4: clear trash bag (this will be the liner we put our bulk substrate in when we spawn our colonized jars to the substrate) 5: Polyfill (pillow stuffing in other words) 6: Tape to help hold the liner in place while spawning (also optional)
What Will You Need To Get Started (Bulk substrate): 1: Coir (this is found at petsmart/petco. It is a compacted brick of coconut fibers used for reptile bedding) 2: Vermiculite 3: Garden Gypsum 4: Large pot (I just use my pressure cooker but don't lock the lid) 5: wooden spoon or something similar to mix it up
What Will You Need To Get Started (Spores): 1: spore syringe (some people prefer prints, personally I didn't like working with them. So I will be talking through using a spore syringe for this. I use B+ which is of the Cubensis variety. This is said to be the easiest psilocybin mushroom to grow for beginners. Please don't get scammed. ORDER FROM A TRUSTED VENDOR. There is a list here on the Shroomery.
Out of all of these products, I spent about $300 to get started and easily quadrupled that value from my first flush I grew.
Now, LETS GET STARTED!!!!!
SAB First thing is first, all work needs to be done inside of a Still Air Box (SAB), so we need to make that first. We need to cut out 2 large holes for our arms to be able to reach through. The holes should be big enough for you to work around in without pushing air around, and small enough as to not let outside air in. This is where that Folgers coffee can comes into play. Find an area on the large rubber-maid tub that you can put the holes to where you can put yours arms through and is shoulder width apart. Once you find those spots, put the Folgers coffee can on the stove to heat up. Once it is hot, you can press it against the plastic and melt right through(use oven mitts obviously). Whether you want the lid on top, or lid on the bottom, that's up to you. Easy enough right? Now we have something to work in once we are done making our agar. End product should look something similar to this:

AGAR Now, we need to begin to prep our agar. get those glad mini rounds that you purchased, and drill a 1/4 inch hole in all the lids. Once that is done, take your micropore tape and put 2 layers of tape over the holes in every lid. Next, we will prep the actual agar. Take your sauce pan and put 1/2 cup of water in it. Next, measure our 2.5 grams of the agar (If you are using sticks of agar, cut them up as small as possible or use a coffee grinder), throw it in the pan. Then you will want to add a teaspoon of potato flakes to the pan. Heat on medium until everything has dissolved (it might not dissolve all the way, that's cool). Once it is heated up, add 1.8 grams of honey to the pan. For this, I place one of my mini rounds on my scale and add the appropriate honey into the mini rounds. Once I have the desired weight, I scoop up some of the how water, swish it around in the mini round, and dump the mixture. I continue this until all the honey is out of the round. Mix that up really good, and then add a couple drops of food coloring to the agar. This isn't necessary, but makes it easier to spot contaminations. Mix it up one more time, line up your mini rounds, and start pouring. This mixture makes about 8 mini rounds at about 1/8 thickness. Once all rounds have some agar mixture into it, put the lid on, cover the lid with a folded up piece of paper towel, and then wrap it in foil. Throw it in your pressure cooker and cook at 15psi for 45 minutes. Let it cool over night, and then we will begin inoculating the next day. I didn't have pics of the cooking process, so click the link below. However, you should end up with plates similar to this:



Credit given to PastyWhite, one of the greats here on the shroomery. For more in depth details refer to https://www.shroomery.org/forums/showflat.php/Number/19208976
INOCULATING OUR AGAR Now that our agar is cooled, we need to move all those dishes into our SAB, but before we do, we need to prep our SAB. For this, we lay down paper towel on the bottom of our SAB. Grab your spray bottle and place hot water in it. Once the hot water is in it, we need to pour some dish soap in it. Now, take your soapy mixture spray bottle, and spray the shit out of the paper towels at the bottom. Then begin spraying the shit out of the entire SAB. The intent behind this is to make any and all contamns either stick to the sides, or get trapped in water drops and fall to the bottom. Now, our SAB is prepped. So, grab your gloves, some paper towel, and your alcohol. Squirt a bunch of alcohol on the paper towel and rub your arms and your gloves with the alcohol. Then, we will start placing our agar dishes in the SAB. Take off the foil and wipe each dish down with the alcohol paper towel and stick it in the box. Once all of our agar dishes are in, we can FINALLY begin inoculating our agar. Take your spore syringe that you had ordered from a trusted vendor, and shake it up GOOD! Take the lids of your agar dishes and gently set them on the top. This is so we can easily lift it off, place a drop from the syringe, place the lid back on, and move on to the next. Now that your syringe is shaken up, take either your alcohol lamp or torch, light it (outside of the SAB) and flame the syringe until it has become RED HOT! Move it inside of your SAB, let 1-2 drops out to cool the syringe. The gently lift your agar dish lid and place ONE DROP onto the agar, put the lid on, then DON'T TOUCH IT. If we move it around while before the drop has absorbs, it is going to roll all around and then any growth that we get will be unorganized. Then, wipe yourself down again, and repeat the process. Always have your lid loose, and always, ALWAYS, flame sterilize between every drop onto our agar. Don't forget to let our those cooling drops out first though. Now we wait.
JAR LID PREP Now, While we wait for our agar to colonize, we can prep our jar lids. Take those big circled SFD's you bought, take a quarter, and trace a bunch of quarter sized circles onto it. Then, cut them out. You should get around 8 per SFD. Take your plastic lids, and drill a 1/4 inch hole right in the center. Now, rough the area up around the hole with a piece of sand paper. This will allow our SFD's to stay on better. Take those quarter sized SFD's you had cut out and silicone them to the lid. You will want RVT or high temperature silicone. Run a circle of silicone around the hole of your lid, then gently place the quarter sized SFD on top of it. Push in from the middle so that silicon doesn't get trapped in the hole we drilled and defeats the purpose. Now wait for 24 hours. Now our lids are ready for use and able to provide some GE (gas exchange) End product should look like this:

*It appears that there has been some improvements to this lid tek. Props go out to Dilated for his contribution. For more detail, reference https://www.shroomery.org/forums/showflat.php/Number/20406855
10-14 DAYS LATER Hopefully, our mycelium has grown over the entire agar surface. So we need to prep our grains. Take whatever grains you used, find a tek for the prep of those grains, and FOLLOW IT!! This will most likely consist of rinsing the grains, soaking the grains for 18-24 hours, simmering the grains for about 20 minutes, dumping into a strainer, letting the steam evaporate the outside moisture, waiting for it to cool, and then loading your jars, covering the jars with tin foil, and then pressure cooking for 90 minutes at 15psi. Each grain prep should give you the amount you would need to fill each jar to 1/2 to 3/4 full. For this, lets say that we grew out 8 agar plates from the recipe above, and we made enough grains to make 8 jars of grains. We let that pressure cooker sit for 24 hours, then we are ready to inoculate our jars with our petri dishes. Couldn't get good pics of the fully covered agar with mycelium, but you should start to see growth like this:

There are so many grain prep teks out there, but the one that I started with was made by none other than Roger Rabbit. Props to him! For more details check out his "lets grow mushrooms" DVD. Go here to purchase and download the full series. Best thing $10 can buy: http://www.mushroomvideos.com/
INOCULATING OUR JARS. The same way we prepped our SAB above, is the same way we prep it again. The same way we moved the agar dishes into the SAB, we do the same for our grain jars. The same way that we put our gloves on, wiped ourselves down with alcohol, wiped down our agar dishes, is the same way we will do it for the grain jars. Everything sterile inside of your SAB yet? Good, lets move on! We want to wipe down our agar dishes and our grain jars with alcohol. Then we want to loosen the lids on the agar AND our grain jars so we can easily lift of the lid and inoculate. Take your colonized agar dish, squeeze the bottom of it to break that chuck of colonized agar free. Now that it isn't sticking to the mini round anymore, simultaneously lift the lid to the agar and lid to the grain jar, and drop that whole agar piece right into the grain jar. Immediately put the lid back on the grain jar. Repeat this process while putting an emphasis on wiping yourself down every time. Now we wait for the jars to colonize. Make sure your shake at 30% colonized and then let it recover. Once you believe it is 100% colonized, wait 10 days for the mycelium to reconsolidate. At 30% colonized, your jars should look similar to this:
 Like previously stated, wait until it reaches 100%, then give it another 5-7 days to be sure. 100% colonized WBS (wild bird seed)

Once again, credit is due. Props to elasticaltiger for his "tiger drop method" and to pastywhite for creating the plate that allows it to happen. refer to https://www.shroomery.org/forums/showflat.php/Number/20111637 for more in-depth details.
While we wait, lets make our monotub.
PREPPING THE MONOTUB: Take that 66quart rubber-maid container you bought, and transform it into the monotub. Grab your drill with your 1.5 inch drill bit. Now, measure 3 inches up from the bottom on both of the long sides of the tub. Position your drill so that the bottom of your hole you make will be right at the 3-3.5 inch mark that we made. When we spawn to our bulk substrate, we want our substrate to be around 3 inches in depth with our holes practically right at the substrate level. Drill 2 holes on each long side towards the bottom. On the short sides, place one 1.5 inch hole at the top, somewhere near the handles. The bottom holes will allow for FAE (fresh air exchange) and the top holes will allow for GE (gas exchange). Now, take that polyfill you bought, and begin stuffing the holes. You want the bottom holes to be very tight, and your top holes to be stuffed very loose. VIOALA, monotub complete! Your monotub should look like this:
For more information on monotubs, check out SpitballJedi's tek at https://www.shroomery.org/forums/showflat.php/Number/20356759
After we let our grains consolidate, there are no contams visible, and we are certain it's 100% colonized, we can begin to spawn to our bulk sub. FINALLY!! But first, we must prep our bulk substrate. We take our large pot and put it on the stove and put the heat on high. Then, we add in 4 quarts of water. Once that begins boiling, we add in one 650 gram brick of coir into the water, and 2 quarts of vermiculite to the water. Now we let it boil for 10 minutes. After that 10 minutes, the coir and verm should've absorbed all the water. Now we add in 1/2 cup of garden gypsum, mix it up as good as we can. Once it is all mixed up, we cut the heat off, put the lid on, and let it sit for 1 hour. The goal is to keep the temp around 170 degrees for an hour. Once that's done, we let it cool.
SPAWNING TO OUR CVG While your CVG is cooling, I highly suggest soaking your grains to rehydrate them. Take all your jars, and break up the colonized grains. You can use a phone book, a bike tire, roll of duct tape, etc. Just pound until its all broken up. Next, take the lid off and give it a little sniff. You will have a good idea if it smells right, even if this is your first time. If they smell okay, fill the jar with water and let them soak for 10-15 minutes. When the soak is done, dump out all the water (I use a strainers so I know all the water gets out). Once it is drained, I grab my monotub and tape a trash bag to the sides for a liner. This greatly helps with side pinning. Then, I dump 6-7 quarts of the grain jars into the liner. Then, I started adding in the CVG we just prepared. Then mix it, and I mean really good. Make sure there is even dispersion of grains in the middle, sides, etc. Then, the remaining CVG you have, sprinkle a top layer on so there are no grains showing. Cut off the extra liner to where the top of the substrate is, throw the lid on it, and then leave it alone. In 10 days, your substrate will be colonized, and soon after, your pins will start. Colonizing monotub:  Soon, you should start seeing pins appear:
 Then they will start to mature into teens (a few more matured than others):
 Then, they will mature even more. This is crucial. You want to pick them before the spores drop all over your substrate. Some cultivators pick them right when the veil breaks. A lot of these could've been picked now:

But, for shits and giggles, I pushed the limits....but surprisingly enough, didn't barely have a spore dropping issue (rare):


More credit to be given to SpitballJedi for his "how spitball prepares CVG" For more in-depth detail, refer to https://www.shroomery.org/forums/showflat.php/Number/20469910
OPTIMAL CONDITIONS FOR FRUITING: It is suggested that you want your temperatures to maintain between 72-78 degrees Fahrenheit. You want to achieve maximum humidity, try to keep above 97-98 percent. That isn't the humidity in your grow room. That's the humidity within the monotub and at surface level. Now, pretty much the majority of the community will tell you to use lighting with 6500K bulbs. Now, with all this being said, I haven't had to get "fancy" with my set up in my room. Everything you seen in the pictures above is what I use. I don't use humidifiers, heaters, lighting, etc. If you maintain your monotub at room temperature (probably 75 degrees), you should be okay. If you properly dial in your monotub, it should maintain it's humidity. And for lighting, I simply place by a window that gets good sunlight. As you can see, I didn't have to run any electronics or purchase anything. This may prove tricky to some in the winter, I haven't had an issue yet. One more thing while talking about dialing in your monotub. Remember the 4 holes we cut at substrate level that you stuffed decently tight? That is what is going to provide your FAE (Fresh Air Exchange). And those 2 holes at the top that you stuffed loosely? That is for your GE (gas exchange). If properly dialed in, you really shouldn't have to do a whole-lotta-nothing except wait. You should get all the proper FAE, GE, and Humidity if all goes right.
For more information about dialing in a monotub, please reference FRANKHORRIGAN advice here:https://www.shroomery.org/forums/showflat.php/Number/17332777
HARVESTING!!!! At this point, find an area that you want to start, and begin picking. Grab the mushroom at the base of the stem. Then, simply twist and pull. Most likely, you are going to cause craters. IT'S OKAY!! Some cultivators cut at the base of the stem. Personally, I haven't done it so I can't speak about it.
DUNKING: If you yielded a large first flush, you can dunk. If you want to wait until after the second flush, that's okay too. You need to pick off all of the aborts, (mushrooms that didn't develop), make sure you don't have any pieces of mushrooms attached also. Once the substrate is picked clean, you can pour water directly into your monotub. Place something on your substrate to prevent it from floating. Soak for ONE hour. Anything after that, you're asking for your substrate to turn soggy. After ONE hour, hold your substrate in place, and slowly pour off any excess water. Repeat the fruiting process. If you don't dunk, you will have to mist heavily and then watch it closely to make sure it's still maintaining moisture, but also has a chance to evaporate. Evaporation and optimal climates is what triggers pinning.
I hope this was a helpful start to you new growers. Assuming that you read all the way through. I know a lot of people get discouraged when it comes to working with agar, but it really has the best benefits. A fellow cultivator emailed me and asked me to touch on a few more subjects.
1:Cloning: Find the best fruit from your first flush (typically the one that grew the biggest and fastest. It is best to grab this up while it is still a pin or teen). You will prep your SAB, rip the stem in half long ways, flame sterilize your scalpel, cool it in your receiving agar, cut out a piece of live tissue from WITHIN the stem (preferably towards the base), and drop it onto your agar. Make a couple of these. By doing this, you can keep producing the same crops for the most part.
2: transfers: This is simply cutting a small section out of one of your currently colonizing plates, and adding it to a new plate of agar. This is used for multiple reasons such as expanding your culture to more dishes, transferring healthy mycelium out of a contaminated plate, or to attempt to isolate a strain. It is best to do these transfers when the mycelium is still young.
3: isolating: Through repeated transfers of the healthiest looking mycelium on a dish, you can "isolate" a strain or create a "monoculture". Find the fastest, healtiest, most vigorous rhizomorphic(ropey/strand looking)growth, cut out that section and place on a new agar dish, wait for it to grow out, and repeat the process. The idea behind this is to get mycelium growth that is completely uniform, same in appearance, grows at the same rate, and is basically a perfect circle with no mycelium reaching out faster than another section of mycelium. 4: spore printing: Your going to have to look this one up yourself. Haven't made a spore print yet lol (sorry shroomery, I know, shame on me! lol)
5: syringe making: same thing as above.
6: Grain to Grain transfers (G2G): This really is great. You will take one of your colonized grain jars, break up the grains, and dump some of the fully colonized grains into a new grain jar. 1 jar could make 10 jars, 10 jars could make 100 jars, 100 jars could make 1000 jars. Then I would stop. You don't want to do too many G2G transfers or senescence could set in. Just simply open your donor jar, and your receiving jar, and dump the donor jar grains into the receiving jar, then put the lid back on them. Needs to be done in a SAB assuming you don't have a flow hood.
7: Liquid inoculant: sterilize water in a mason jar with shards of glass. Take a FULLY COLONIZED agar dish, drop the whole wedge into the jar, and shake the holy shit out of it. You want to shred up the mycelium as much as possible. Now, use this immediately to inoculate your grain jars for faster growth then the agar wedge listed above. probably like 15-20cc of LI per jar. Credit goes to munchauzen for his blenderless LI tek https://www.shroomery.org/forums/showflat.php/Number/22833314
If everything goes right, you should only need to buy 1 print or 1 spore syringe. I bought one syringe as a newb and I only used 3cc's of that 10cc syringe.
Just a heads up, you may run into contams. When looking at your colonizing agar, look for anything that isn't white and doesn't look like mycelium. Some examples:




I don't have any pics of easy to identify contaminated jars. There are plenty around here on the shroomery. Check the contamination forum for some examples: https://www.shroomery.org/forums/postlist.php/Board/22
Then, you need to look out for contams in your monotub during colonization:
bottom right corner:

Upper right corner: 
There's a difference between contaminated and bruising:
Edited by just_curious (11/07/16 03:48 PM)
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