SirPsycho said:

Rusty2096 said:

Nef said:

yes what bigfoot there said, I have tried almost every colour of dye that is natural because the all natural shit is the one that is in all the supermarkets here... NONE held up to PCing, basically all completely useless, especially the red and blue. Just my simple man observations here

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That's not because of the color you chose. You need to use gel coloring instead of liquid coloring in order for it tu survive the PC

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No, it's the natural or vegan or organic coloring that breaks down in the pc. Regular ol liquid coloring does just fine.

The myc will destroy it though, through digestion.

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Rusty2096 said:

Maybe. I do like the sugar theory. I make my agar with well tap water (GW) so it comes out with a tint to it (from grain and tap water). The myc even destroys that golden color.

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rumfor69 said:

Rusty2096 said:

Maybe. I do like the sugar theory. I make my agar with well tap water (GW) so it comes out with a tint to it (from grain and tap water). The myc even destroys that golden color.

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Agar is the only thing I don't use my well water in. Although I have no real reason why.

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rumfor69 said:

Hmm maybe I'll do a few that way and see if there's any difference. I buy distilled water for my netti pot so I just use it in my agar. I need to install new water system equipment. My pressure tank bladder doesn't hold air and I need an iron filter. Whoever did the copper sweating and soldering in my house was terrible at it and they used tons of unnecessary elbow pieces.

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Rusty2096 said:

rumfor69 said:

Hmm maybe I'll do a few that way and see if there's any difference. I buy distilled water for my netti pot so I just use it in my agar. I need to install new water system equipment. My pressure tank bladder doesn't hold air and I need an iron filter. Whoever did the copper sweating and soldering in my house was terrible at it and they used tons of unnecessary elbow pieces.

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Sucks to hear that.

On my end, I have a bladder and an extra bubble beside it, which has a charcoal filter I change every 3 months or so.

Water taste very good, kinda soft and super clean.

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Skydoggy said:

Hi everyone, I’m new to agar. Is the non rhizoidal area contamination or is this a different type of mycelium growth?

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p9hu7 said:

ruawakeyet said:

I tried skipping the simmer and stir one time, I botched that entire batch. The agar settled out and didn't set correctly. I'm not saying it can't be done, I'm sure someone knows how to do it and make it work. I definitely do not skip that step anymore.

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The reason for losing gelling strength of agar is due to mixing the recipe in a larger vessel and then decanting to smaller vessels intended for sterilization amd pouring, the agar isn't completely dissolved and will fall out of solution;

The key is to mix your agar and nutrients together in the same bottle you intend to pour from this way all of the agar remains and you won't have gelling issues...as shown in my video posted above.

Pre boiling is 100% unnecessary, it can actually cause problems, the agar will boil in the pc, the high boiling temp of the liquid will thoroughly dissolve the agar and LME.

Boiling your agar at a lower temperature first is like bringing sand to the beach.

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I have only made 3 small batches of agar since learning this, the first 2 batches worked exactly how P9 said. I didn't boil the solution first, I stirred constantly while distributing the solution to jars (they do suck, I know) to keep the agar powder from settling, and they all set up just fine.

I did the last batch the same way, with the exception of correcting the agar agar amount. (The past 2 batches used a little too much agar agar and it set a little harder than it should have been.) While all the jars did gel, the uniformity of the set agar is not what it should be. I can see a darker top layer, suggesting that the agar powder was never fully dissolved, and settled near the bottom, leaving a higher concentration of grain water at the top.

I just swabbed spores and made some transfers yesterday to the new batch, so it may work great, but I would love it if someone can educate me as to what went wrong. Why didn't the agar solution get fully mixed in jar? They were PCed for 20 minutes at 15 psi. They had a slow warm up, 15 minutes to vent, and cooled as slowly as possible in the PCer. I waited overnight to open the PCer, everything was at room temperature before opening the lid. (Also covered the weight with a jar, and a cardboard box over the PCer to help insulate it and slow the cool down.)

My understanding was that agar solution boils at a higher temperature than plain water. Wouldn't the boiling point continue to be higher than plain water even when subjected to 15 psi? In other words, if the water/steam can reach 250 degrees F at 15 psi, is that hot enough to boil the agar solution when it's ALSO subjected to the same 15 psi?

This batch also had a lot more condensation than the previous 2 batches did. (The other lids and jar are just stacked up to bring this agar jar to the same height as my camera on it's stand.)


Thank you in advance anyone and everyone. Edit: Nevermind, I'm making a new batch of agar, the way I know works for me, and will be continuing to do it that way from now on. I'm not going to skip the boiling of the agar solution before distributing it to my plates ever again.