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PF Tek jar contents boiling out during sterilization
    #25832219 -

I was just trying to do the PF tek for the first time (well... actually there was another time before this, but in my hubris I skipped the sterilization step and... well, I don't think I need to tell you how that turned out) and decided to follow Shea25's Pf tek done right TEK.

I sterilized the jars for an hour in my presto pressure cooker with a 15 psi regulator and took them out. Eager to see if my first sterilization attempt was successful, I pulled out the jars and ripped off the still-hot aluminum foil. That's when I noticed that a brown mush had seeped up around the inside wall of all but two of the jars and out of the air holes.





These jars are obviously no longer fit to use, as a potential contaminant could easily follow the trail of (what I assume is) BRF/water into the substrate, but I'm curious as to what caused this, and how I could possibly prevent it from happening in the future.

The only two jars that this didn't happen in also happened to be the only two that I'd wrapped entirely in aluminum foil instead of only wrapping the lids like Shea25 did in their tek, so I'm wondering if that might have been part of the issue. (although, like I said, Shea25 didn't seem to have any problems with only wrapping the lids, and even my least securely wrapped jar seemed to be much more securely wrapped than he wrapped his)

Another possibility is that I overfilled the pressure cooker. I filled it with water to the halfway mark, and then added the jars, despite the fact that its user manual warns against filling past the halfway mark with anything that's primarily water. Although the tops of the jars were still above the water line, and as you can see from the pictures I didn't have any issues with water getting into the jars, so the only issue I can see this causing is temporarily raising the pressure above 15 psi until the water boils back below the halfway mark, due to steam being generated faster than it can vent.

It's also worth noting that as the PC got to pressure, the overpressure plug almost instantly popped up. When I pressed the overpressure plug back in, steam started venting through the plug. I could find no mention of this in the user manual or online, but upon closer examination of the overpressure plug, I think this is how it's normally supposed to function and that the pressure didn't exceed what the manufacturer considered "safe" levels.

Ultimately, though, it seems unlikely to me that a few extra psi in the PC during the first few minutes of sterilization would make a huge difference in whether or not this boiling over of substrate occurs.

The last thing that I think could have caused this is the fact that I substituted crayola sidewalk chalk (specifically the "macaroni and cheese" color) for gypsum. Although colored chalk is primarily gypsum, it's possible that the dye or some chemical that Crayola added to make the chalk more "washable" made my substrate more volatile.

I searched on the forums and online in general, and I couldn't find anyone who had the same problem as me. Also, no PF Tek tutorial I've found mentioned anything about this, so I'm kind of at a loss. What do you guys think? Have you seen this before? Am I a complete moron for using sidewalk chalk instead of mycological-grade gypsum?

I think I'm going to try again with all the jars completely wrapped in aluminum foil, and I'll update accordingly.


--------------------
"We cannot command nature except by obeying her."

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Re: PF Tek jar contents boiling out during sterilization [Re: turbulentflow] * 2
    #25832238 -

Too wet and coarse vermiculite. Looks like you basicaly had flour water boil out. or the depressurizing from the plug fail sucked it out.

Switch to fine vermiculite and follow the directions of the current tek, not a 10yr old one. That's old enough to reccomend a terrarium or PMP(both outdated and not used anymore).
https://www.shroomery.org/forums/showflat.php/Number/24179086

e/ You don't need gypsum or any other extra additives. Verm, Water, BRF. Done.

Get a replacement plug, or use a regular pot to steam sterilize until it's replaced.


--------------------
Space Ape Project
Links For Getting Started
Current PF Tek
Shoebox Assembly
All The Agar Info You Could Want
How It Should & Shouldn't Look


Edited by LtLurker (02/23/19 12:42 PM)

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Re: PF Tek jar contents boiling out during sterilization [Re: LtLurker]
    #25832262 -

Ah, thanks, that tek is very detailed. I completely forgot about draining excess water, I even bought a strainer specifically for that purpose :tongue:. Is there any way I could make the coarse vermiculite work? I bought a giant bag of the stuff, and I'd rather not have to go out and buy a different grade if possible.

Edit: Also, the regulator continued rocking throughout the entire process, so the plug definitely didn't cause the pressure to drop below 15 psi. Me fucking around with it may have caused the pressure to drop a little, sucking out the BRF though...

Edit 2: From what I can tell, the plug "popping up" wasn't the plug releasing pressure, but the plug forming a seal due to pressure. The plug "popped up" before the regulator even started rocking, so I don't think the plug was triggered. I've included a picture of the plug in the "up" and "down" positions:




Edited by turbulentflow (02/23/19 01:00 PM)

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Re: PF Tek jar contents boiling out during sterilization [Re: turbulentflow] * 1
    #25832291 -

Maybe if you can figure a way to break it down into something more like sand. I've seen a lot of people try coarse verm, but not many successes. It should all mix together evenly. Verm that's too coarse winds up like rocks coated in wet flour.

It's also going to really work against you in the dry verm layer(filter). Coarser grade has more gaps & airflow, it's not going to filter out contams properly.


--------------------
Space Ape Project
Links For Getting Started
Current PF Tek
Shoebox Assembly
All The Agar Info You Could Want
How It Should & Shouldn't Look


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Re: PF Tek jar contents boiling out during sterilization [Re: LtLurker]
    #25832317 -

Thanks for the help! I'm going to try breaking down the vermiculite and see if that works. It's only 5 jars anyway, so I'd have 5 mL of spore solution left over anyway if it's a bust.

I'll update with my progress.


--------------------
"We cannot command nature except by obeying her."

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Re: PF Tek jar contents boiling out during sterilization [Re: turbulentflow]
    #25863361 -

Alright, well it's been two weeks so I decided to write a quick update. I decided to go ahead with the breaking down the coarse vermiculite plan, and so far so good! I haven't seen any visible signs of colonization yet, but I also haven't seen any contamination (and I injected a little bit away from the glass), so I'm not too worried.





This is what the vermiculite looked like out of the bag. As you can see,  very coarse, and as LtLurker pointed out, probably won't be a very effective air filter or mix well with the BRF or any other additives.





This is the vermiculite after some manual grinding. This was only like 20 minutes of work. Thanks to the fact that the vermiculite was both being compressed and flying out as dust particles as I tried to grind it, it took hours to grind up enough vermiculite to fill four jars (and even then, I was just a little bit short).

Also, as you can see, it isn't very evenly ground. Keep in mind that the larger pieces are on top, and there are plenty of more finely ground pieces, but this is obviously not the best vermiculite to use.

If anyone else wants to grind up vermiculite for some reason, I highly recommend using a blender or weed grinder or something, as this just wasn't an economical way to do it.





This is what the vermiculite looks like after being mixed to what I believe is field capacity. The keen-eyed among you might notice some small yellow clumps in the mixture. I decided to go ahead with the plan I alluded to in my previous posts to use colored chalk as a substitute for gypsum.

I know LtLurker insists it isn't necessary, but this is already going to be a pretty unconventional pf tek attempt, so I decided to just throw it in and see what happens.

The only issue I can think of is if the chalk manufacturer included some sort of fungicide, which is possible, but in my opinion unlikely. If this grow goes well, I'll consider doing a more detailed and large-scale experiment comparing the effects of pure gypsum, colored chalk, and no gypsum.





And, finally, no first-grow update would be complete without some nice jar porn.

Due to the aforementioned lack of vermiculite, I wasn't able to completely fill the jars, which caused me some concerns during inoculation (as I was unsure if I was able to penetrate the dry verm layer to reach the substrate), but I'm fairly confident that every jar had at least one successful inoculation, and that no dry verm layer was completely compromised by the water from the syringe.

This is by no means a mistake I'd like to repeat, but considering I've gone two weeks with no contamination, it seems like the worst thing to come of it will likely be an increased colonization time, which isn't the end of the world.




Well, that's all for now! I'll update later if/when I get results!


--------------------
"We cannot command nature except by obeying her."

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Re: PF Tek jar contents boiling out during sterilization [Re: turbulentflow] * 1
    #25863760 -

No offense but this is one of the strangest grow attempts Ive ever seen. Did u say u used colored chalk? Ummm....wat.

The last pic of the "jar porn", is that 2 weeks after injection? Cause i see zero growth. The substrate is waaaay too wet and chunky. Should look like damp sand not chunky cookie dough.

A PC is unneeded for the PF tek. Just a boiling pot with a lid is needed.

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Re: PF Tek jar contents boiling out during sterilization [Re: LogicaL Chaos]
    #25863904 -

Nah that pic was from before inoculation. However, I still haven't seen any signs of colonization, so maybe this one was a bust.

The chunkiness is likely due to the fact that I started with coarse vermiculite and tried to grind it down. Granted, I'm very new at this, but I'm fairly certain that I got the moisture level right. As for the granularity... well, there's not much I can do about that other than buying better vermiculite (which I intend to do, don't worry).

Colored chalk is almost entirely gypsum, and since it's designed for kids I assumed it wouldn't have any nasty chemicals added to it that might slow or kill the mushrooms.

And yeah, I'm very well aware that this is an... unconventional approach. Maybe it's incredibly arrogant of me to try something this outlandish before I've had even a single successful grow, but what can I say? I had all the materials lying around, and wanted to see what would happen.


--------------------
"We cannot command nature except by obeying her."

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Re: PF Tek jar contents boiling out during sterilization [Re: turbulentflow] * 1
    #25864032 -

I would argue u should try experimenting after you become a "pro" at growing.

Also, looks like u used too much water during the mixing process.

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