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Re: Noob Grow - BRF Cakes, Grain Bags, & Agar! [Re: KapnDank]
    #26056560 -

You can use unmodified tubs or shoeboxes with even less effort: once dialed in for field capacity and FAE, literally set and forget


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Re: Noob Grow - BRF Cakes, Grain Bags, & Agar! [Re: Caps McGee]
    #26056582 -

Sounds awesome. I feel like I learned a lot from these cakes, and if I can roll them into a shoebox monotub to conclude them I'll give it a shot. Would definitely like some additional yields since the 3.5g dried so far isn't much.

Looks like 4 cakes = 2 pints, which is exactly what Shaperdreaming's Shoebox TEK calls for for one 6qt. Shoebox.

I can leave my best performing 2 cakes in the SGFC, and go from there. Should be able to start it next week.

I made some agar plates yesterday using MS Syringes and Spore Prints. Had condensation issues, but hopefully the mycelium grow alright under the plate lids. Then I can try some oat grains out :smile:

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Re: Noob Grow - BRF Cakes, Grain Bags, & Agar! [Re: MushroomGrub]
    #26056590 -

Yeah man... I'm not sure how Brf got placed at the beginners level: perhaps the ease of setup/not having to have a pressure cooker... bulk is MUCH easier IMO/E...
:goodluck:


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Re: Noob Grow - BRF Cakes, Grain Bags, & Agar! [Re: Caps McGee]
    #26056599 -

Also, you can use anywhere from 1.5-4 pints, at 1:1 for 1.5-2qts (3-4 pints) and 1:2 for 1.5-2.5 pints (0.75-1.25qts) and different varieties  (and even different cultures of the same variety) can perform better at different ratios, and slightly different conditions...  It's all an experiment to see what works best for you, for your culture


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Re: Noob Grow - BRF Cakes, Grain Bags, & Agar! *DELETED* [Re: Caps McGee]
    #26056624 -

Post deleted by MushroomGrub

Reason for deletion: answer to question found via search feature

Edited by MushroomGrub (06/17/19 05:18 PM)

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Re: Noob Grow - BRF Cakes, Grain Bags, & Agar! [Re: MushroomGrub]
    #26057970 -

Updating for the sake of any felow noobs...

My perlite was really dry. Decided to take the cakes out (hardly any pins atm, just finished 2 dunks) and re-wet the perlite in the shower as Bodhistta does. Found that thread cuz I was considering bleaching the perlite, but he recommends against it.

Excited to move onto some shoeboxes once I have everything in-hand.

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Re: Noob Grow - BRF Cakes, Grain Bags, & Agar! [Re: Caps McGee]
    #26059778 -

First, congrat! Also, I was just catching up and was like "These are both too dry and over-misted" so the dry perlite makes sense to me.

I can't wait to see your next set of grows. I hope you got prints too? I didn't see that mentioned :wink:
KapnDank said:
I agree with caps. When I finally switched to grains I was actually pretty upset with myself for not doing it earlier (this is after years of making cakes). so much wasted effort and time into minimal results.


I switched to grains pretty quickly. It took me a while to get to the point where I was succeeding at cakes though, so overall probably like 4 months before switching to grains.

But! The thing that I kicked myself in the ass for not doing sooner was AGAR. Jesus did that fix like 75% of my problems.
Caps McGee said:
Yeah man... I'm not sure how Brf got placed at the beginners level: perhaps the ease of setup/not having to have a pressure cooker...


Seriously, it's the pressure canner. It's way too intimidating of a purchase to get started. Also, grains do have a significantly higher contam rate for noobs.


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My Shoebox Factory Beginner's Tek | Shoebox Assembly Tek | Methodology/teks I use | How I Store Bulk Items

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Re: Noob Grow - BRF Cakes, Grain Bags, & Agar! [Re: ShaperDreaming]
    #26060408 -

ShaperDreaming said:
First, congrat! Also, I was just catching up and was like "These are both too dry and over-misted" so the dry perlite makes sense to me.

I can't wait to see your next set of grows. I hope you got prints too? I didn't see that mentioned :wink:
KapnDank said:
I agree with caps. When I finally switched to grains I was actually pretty upset with myself for not doing it earlier (this is after years of making cakes). so much wasted effort and time into minimal results.


I switched to grains pretty quickly. It took me a while to get to the point where I was succeeding at cakes though, so overall probably like 4 months before switching to grains.

But! The thing that I kicked myself in the ass for not doing sooner was AGAR. Jesus did that fix like 75% of my problems.
Caps McGee said:
Yeah man... I'm not sure how Brf got placed at the beginners level: perhaps the ease of setup/not having to have a pressure cooker...


Seriously, it's the pressure canner. It's way too intimidating of a purchase to get started. Also, grains do have a significantly higher contam rate for noobs.


Hey Shaper! Saw you were working on some detailed oat prep TEKs!

On my end, I managed to get a print from that dehydrated mushie we were talking about before. I also grabbed another 6 prints from a recent harvest, but I'm afraid that the mushrooms were not healthy enough. The caps looked like they may be bacterial (the over-misted ones I'm afraid to eat). Either way, I got some good dark prints off them.

I've got some 2-day old Agar plates going:
  • 10 from Syringe A (very bacterial already)
  • 10 from Syringe B (no signs)
  • 6 from dehydrated mushroom spores (no signs)


Moving forward, I've got all the supplies needed to start my shoeboxes set up... just waiting on my agar to germinate so I have something to inoculate my oats with. Could I potentially inoculate some BRF w/ MS syringes, and then use those cakes straight from the jar to inoculate grain jars? A bit roundabout, but I'm low on good genetic mats! :laugh:

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Re: Noob Grow - BRF Cakes, Grain Bags, & Agar! [Re: MushroomGrub]
    #26060432 -

It's day 2? likely any growth would NOT be cubensis... a little bacteria won't kill you, MAKE TEA!
:thumbsup:

Mushrooms not healthy enough for prints, but gave dark prints?
:justno:
Prints are inherently filthy, as the fruit they come from are grown in open air... I suggest taking an initial print for 1 hour and discarding it, as most contaminants will fall within this period... (for most varieties) 3 additional 8 hour prints can be taken from each cap before dehydrating like normal


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Re: Noob Grow - BRF Cakes, Grain Bags, & Agar! [Re: Caps McGee] * 1
    #26060463 -

Caps McGee said:
It's day 2? likely any growth would NOT be cubensis...
:thumbsup:



Agreed. I figure the plates showing growth will likely be bust. Still cautiously optimistic on the remaining 16 jars.

Caps McGee said:
a little bacteria won't kill you, MAKE TEA!



See now this is what I was hoping to hear, but without asking to hear it :smile: I dehydrated the mushies and put them in a separate bag for potential "tea making"! Sounds like I may go down that alley after all ^^

Caps McGee said:
Mushrooms not healthy enough for prints, but gave dark prints?
:justno:
Prints are inherently filthy, as the fruit they come from are grown in open air... I suggest taking an initial print for 1 hour and discarding it, as most contaminants will fall within this period... (for most varieties) 3 additional 8 hour prints can be taken from each cap before dehydrating like normal


Perfect! Although I didn't do EXACTLY this... I took three sporulating mushroom caps to print. The first set for ~8 hours, and the second set for ~24 hours.

SEEMS LIKE WE'RE ON TRACK FAM!  :nyan:

Now if I can just get some clean mycelium to seed my grains with...


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Re: Noob Grow - BRF Cakes, Grain Bags, & Agar! [Re: MushroomGrub]
    #26060501 -

Get into agar... easy peasy... If your dehydrator is heated,  and you don't have a particularly timid stomach, you might be fine... bacteria don't do well in hot, "cracker dry " conditions for very long


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Re: Noob Grow - BRF Cakes, Grain Bags, & Agar! [Re: MushroomGrub]
    #26061319 -

Yeah, what caps said about the prints is solid info. With those prints you could grow for years and years if you wanted. (though you'll likely want to trade with others to do some work with different things because variety is the spice of life!)

MushroomGrub said:
Now if I can just get some clean mycelium to seed my grains with...


You'll get there with all of that work you've put on agar. You'll get some good experience, and I'm sure the fruits you have now will last you until you get to the next phase. Also, grains colonize a bit quicker than brf, so you'll make up a little time after you do have that clean myc to work with, and you'll produce way more fruits per volume of spawn.


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My Shoebox Factory Beginner's Tek | Shoebox Assembly Tek | Methodology/teks I use | How I Store Bulk Items

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Re: Noob Grow - BRF Cakes, Grain Bags, & Agar! [Re: ShaperDreaming]
    #26061839 -

I see a lot of experienced growers advising going for grains here. After doing some reading on the forum my plan was to start my journey with a few grows using BRF cakes to get used to working cleanly and getting a sense of how things should look like.

To the most experienced growers: how much of the stuff I'll learn doing cakes will be useful for future growth using more advanced methods?

I really want to learn how to do things properly and I am not really in a hurry :tongue:

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Re: Noob Grow - BRF Cakes, Grain Bags, & Agar! [Re: grodzilluz]
    #26062393 -

I'm not an experienced grower, but going through BRF cakes now. I love that I have 5 separate cakes that each teach me unique things.

One cake taught me about over-watering developed shrooms:



Another is teaching me the basics of side-pinning, b/c it's growing shrooms under the cake where the micro-climate is better:



Since I was looking for a good yield, I do wish I had a shoebox also going, but who's gonna complain about finding success? It's been awesome having 5 different cakes each showing 5 different behaviors from day-to-day. So far, two cakes have each yielded ~4 grams dry. And I've got a few other lookers.



Also, UPDATE!

I am seeing growth on my Agar from the dehydrated spores Shaper urged me to take :rockon: Photos below. Should I expect to be able to transfer these to new dishes tomorrow? Do I need to wait since I need several (5-10) dishes?

Woot!


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Re: Noob Grow - BRF Cakes, Grain Bags, & Agar! [Re: MushroomGrub]
    #26063495 -

grodzilluz said:
To the most experienced growers: how much of the stuff I'll learn doing cakes will be useful for future growth using more advanced methods?

I really want to learn how to do things properly and I am not really in a hurry :tongue:


You'll totally learn shit. I'm going to be teaching some friends how to grow mushrooms soon, and I'll be teaching them using BRF cakes. I always start that way because you can do it w/o a pressure canner. Buying a large piece of equipment that costs at least $70 isn't always what beginners want to do when you still have to wait a couple of months for results.

Most of us started with BRF cakes because of this. I had a fuck of a time using a SGFC and hated it, so I shredded to bulk with most of my early cakes. If you do BRF cakes and shred to bulk you're going to learn most of the procedures you'll need in the future, and you'll also practice good sterile technique (while it's most forgiving) and you'll practice patience.

What you'll likely need to learn after moving from brf cakes is:

  • Sterilizing grains
  • AGAR

The BRF cake is a grain mixed with the substrate already. It's much harder for contamination to get hold in brf cakes than grain, so you can get away with a lot more errors and still produce mushrooms. The act of inoculating the cake directly with the syringe will eventually be replaced by inoculating agar. So you're mostly adding on to what you learn with cakes, and I now find myself going back to what I learned early on using cakes to try to grow non-cubes. There's always good take-away.

Now if you asked me about using a Kit I'd say you won't really learn anywhere near as much and you'll still have to learn about 96% of the process when you're done. With cakes it's less than half the process you'll need to add to your knowledge that you get to go grains and bulk.

MushroomGrub said:
I am seeing growth on my Agar from the dehydrated spores Shaper urged me to take :rockon: Photos below. Should I expect to be able to transfer these to new dishes tomorrow? Do I need to wait since I need several (5-10) dishes?

Woot!


You'll want to wait until they're about the size of a nickle to transfer them at least. Aim for a grain of rice or smaller sized transfer from the leading edge. I'm really lazy (lol) and let mine grow out to about half a plate usually before I transfer because... well, it's challenging to pour 20 plates of agar all the time? :shrug: Anyways, looking good!


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Re: Noob Grow - BRF Cakes, Grain Bags, & Agar! [Re: ShaperDreaming]
    #26063580 -

Quote:
ShaperDreaming said: I'm really lazy (lol) and let mine grow out to about half a plate usually before I transfer because... well, it's challenging to pour 20 plates of agar all the time? :shrug: Anyways, looking good!


:rofl: glad I'm not the only one


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Re: Noob Grow - BRF Cakes, Grain Bags, & Agar! [Re: KapnDank]
    #26063631 -

Like I said, I only grab quick transfers on the first few, until I know the culture is clean... Then I usually end up having to pry the lid from them bc the cultures have overgrown and "glued" them on :lol:


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Re: Noob Grow - BRF Cakes, Grain Bags, & Agar! [Re: KapnDank]
    #26063634 -

And I agree with shaper. Cakes are good to learn even if they're inefficient and require a lot of maintenance. I'm also about to bust my SGFC out for a few exotic species The cakes keep your eggs out of one basket so you won't likely lose them all while you work on sterile technique. losing that much work/material in the beginning can be very discouraging. And the maintenance of a SGFC helps you develope an eye/feel for proper fruiting conditions. Shredding cakes to shoeboxes is a good next step. Itll give you experience spawning without losing as much as you would in a monotub should it contam. After you figure out you can do it though I HIGHLY recommend getting a PC and tackling grains.  when you go to grains filter patch spawn bags will be your best friend. Maybe start off with jars for the same "eggs in one basket" reason but, after you get your moisture content down on your grains, look into getting some spawn bags. They even make clamps for them so you can reuse them 2-3 times. In my PC I can sterilize 7 qt jars at a time. However when it's in bags I can fit roughly 4X's that per run. 6-7qts per bag and 4 bags at a time. All that glass and the empty space needed in the jars takes up a lot of precious room lol and agar is pretty awesome. Kinda fun isolating genetics and they usually kick ass if you know what your looking for


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Re: Noob Grow - BRF Cakes, Grain Bags, & Agar! [Re: KapnDank]
    #26063790 -

KapnDank said:
I'm also about to bust my SGFC out for a few exotic species The cakes keep your eggs out of one basket so you won't likely lose them all while you work on sterile technique. losing that much work/material in the beginning can be very discouraging.


Check out my pan grow in my sig to see just how discouraging that can be... just lost a whole batch of pan. aussies :frown: It was heart breaking. I've never worked with a substrate that needed so much baby-ing.

KapnDank said:
when you go to grains filter patch spawn bags will be your best friend. Maybe start off with jars for the same "eggs in one basket" reason but, after you get your moisture content down on your grains, look into getting some spawn bags.


I'm going to just say not to jump on bags right off the bat because likely you'll be using a SAB. It's not impossible, but using bags in SABs seems like a recipe for contamination. Maybe it's just because I'm only using a 66qt one, but I have been way too afraid to use bags in it. I'll have my flowhood done soon, and I finally bought my first bags. Jars are super efficient, and the 23qt prestos will hold 10 quart jars. Hell, I don't even use quart jars because I can't G2G from one quart into another in my SAB. :shrug:  Also, same thing with eggs in a basket idea for jars vs bags.

What are these clamps you speak of? I'm curious!


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Re: Noob Grow - BRF Cakes, Grain Bags, & Agar! [Re: ShaperDreaming]
    #26063999 -

Bag clamps. And don't forget the tubing it snaps inside the clamp keeping the bag sealed. Tubing. You know I wasn't even thinking about that. I hadn't been using bags long when I built my flowhood and the couple g2g I did with them in my SAB actually turned out well but it was a nightmare moving around in it and it was 100 or 120qt SAB. For the most part I stuck to injecting bags with LC's at first but getting LC'S down is a little bit advanced for a new grower and can be disastrous if not done right.
Edit:the g2g I did with bags in the SAB were quart JARS dumped into bags. Had to turn the bag on it's side then stick the rim of the jar inside the bag a little to keep from spilling my spawn. After the spawn was in the top part of the bag I removed the jar and stood the bag up and clamped it then mixed the spawn and grains. It's not impossible but it is a pain. Then again after building a flowhood all SAB work in retrospect is a pain lol

Edited by KapnDank (06/20/19 04:30 PM)

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