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athos56
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Hi all, new cultivator here!
#26754830 - 06/18/20 04:06 PM (3 years, 7 months ago) |
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Hello everybody, I'm an experienced autodidact and my new project is Mushrooms! I have to say that this forum has a wealth of information, which I have spent a lot of time reading. Thanks for sharing all of your experience. I have 3 strains going in PF Tek jars, only one of them have fully colonized and the other two look like they have stalled about half way through the process. I've marked them with sharpy and have seen minimal change after 3 days, roughly 4 weeks after inoculation. I have gathered the materials to do BRF agar in jelly jars, mainly for the purpose of perpetuating my grows. I also have materials to make a bulk substrate Coir/Gypsum/Vermiculite. I also have some bags and whole rye. Finally I have much of the stuff I think I need, bins, pressure cooker, STAB, etc... My plan is to use my one group of fully colonized jars to inoculate my bulk substrate for my first attempt at fruiting. I understand that "jars stall for a reason" and the common wisdom is to toss them. But I hate waste and this project is not 100% necessary so if I take risks and fail the cost in time and money are basically meaningless since I'll still be learning something and everything is for strictly personal use. So for my stalled jars I was hoping to do two things salvage what colonized and see if I can get something out of them, and maybe try and sample a piece of tissue to make an agar plates to inoculate bags of grain. Well there you have it, I'll likely post pictures if I get a chance, but I thought I'd get my first post out of the way and get feedback on the rationality of my plan. Thanks for your time.
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normalperson
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Re: Hi all, new cultivator here! [Re: athos56]
#26759064 - 06/20/20 03:14 AM (3 years, 7 months ago) |
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Buy real agar and some LMD before you start taking "tissue samples ". And don't take samples from possible contaminated, stalled jars when you have healthy jars available. Also, gypsum is not needed anywhere in the cultivation of cubes. On a positive note, I've dumped stalled jars in flower pots, covered them with old potting soil and gotten flushes.
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athos56
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Re: Hi all, new cultivator here! [Re: normalperson]
#26759982 - 06/20/20 02:17 PM (3 years, 7 months ago) |
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Thanks for the info. I have Telephone brand agar, I was thinking of using BRF as the nutrients. I saw gypsum mentioned in most of the threads I read, so it's in there now, couldn't take it out if I tried . My plan with the samples is to try and fruit what can and take samples from the fruits. If I get a high contamination rate I'll just try and do better the next time and so on and so on. If you only knew how many loaves of sourdough I tossed learning how to make bread, or how many plants I tossed learning to grow weed, or how much magic smoke I let out learning how to make vacuum tube amps... Good thing I got my kids right the first time (JK, JK, I would have kept them anyway)
Anyhow, I made my coir substrate, put it in a 25qt bin lined up to 4 inches with black plastic. I put some 2 inch holes touching the 4" level and some at the top and used micro-pore tape to cover them. I filled in and crumbled 5 of my colonized jars and mixed well. They were indeed fully colonized and smelled strongly of fresh mushrooms and nothing else. They smelled really good. So now its a waiting game.
For my stalled jars I'm thinking of doing more of a traditional fruiting of PF Tek jars. I read a couple of post about how people washed off the uncolonized sections of the cake and fruited what was left. I know it'll likely end badly but I'm not doing anything else during quarantine. All I need are a couple clean fruits to try and do some cloning. Again I'll take picks of any positive results.
Edited by athos56 (06/20/20 02:19 PM)
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Pastywhyte
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Registered: 09/15/12
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Loc: Canada
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Re: Hi all, new cultivator here! [Re: athos56]
#26760017 - 06/20/20 02:30 PM (3 years, 7 months ago) |
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Brf can be used but is a bit limited in its application IMO. Might as well just get the telephone agar and do no pour. As for stalling for your cakes etc, pics would help diagnose what’s going on. In this hobby clear pics are worth 1000 words. Show as much of what’s going on as possible.
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athos56
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Re: Hi all, new cultivator here! [Re: athos56]
#26760142 - 06/20/20 03:36 PM (3 years, 7 months ago) |
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Pictures!







My fully colonized jars, my crumbled cakes were solid white all the way through and took quite a bit of force to rip in half.
 And some of my supplies, the loops for streak plates is hard to see, fine vermiculite not pictured.

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Pastywhyte
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Re: Hi all, new cultivator here! [Re: athos56]
#26760166 - 06/20/20 03:52 PM (3 years, 7 months ago) |
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How did you sterilize those? They look a bit bacterial.
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athos56
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Re: Hi all, new cultivator here! [Re: Pastywhyte]
#26760199 - 06/20/20 04:10 PM (3 years, 7 months ago) |
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90 mins at 15psi. There is a layer of foil under the lid so that the canning jar edge sticks to the foil ensuring that there are only 4 small inoculation holes between the cake and the outside world. They only stalled when in a moment of stoniness I taped all the holes shut. I later replaced the tape with micro-pore. I think I might have starved them for air. The other possibility is that I didn't use enough BRF in my initial jars. My cakes that colonized well I added a lot more BRF. When I crack them open I'll do the smell test and examine one closely. I should also say that as the cake contracted the top vermiculite later started to fall down the sides and that There is condensation around the sides but it is clear and runs like water, ie not gooey, and they all still smell great.
Edited by athos56 (06/20/20 04:14 PM)
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Roger Clemency
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Re: Hi all, new cultivator here! [Re: athos56]
#26760238 - 06/20/20 04:42 PM (3 years, 7 months ago) |
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I'm not sure i understand how tin foil under the lid helps? Those lids are meant to seal in the PC and they do it real well. And solid tape was no good you're right.. i've seen other people using micropore tape and somtiems its working fine and other times they're asking about why cakes stalled so that might be affecting things idk. The dry vermiculite layer works as a filter if you just inoculate and then let the jars sit.
-------------------- Sour grapes, sweet revenge Heaven starts right where hell ends
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Pastywhyte
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Registered: 09/15/12
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Loc: Canada
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Never ever choke off a colonizing substrate completely. That’s just begging for issues.
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athos56
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Re: Hi all, new cultivator here! [Re: athos56]
#26760299 - 06/20/20 05:14 PM (3 years, 7 months ago) |
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Thanks guys, lessons are being learned. IDK about the foil, the thought was that a contaminate would have to make it through 2 little holes rather than one because there another layer under the lid, may help or may not.
I'm trying grain next, so if I can pull that off, this might be the only time I ever do PF Tek.
I read you can use the water from soaking grain in your agar, so I may try that too.
Thanks for all the comments! It helps to get feedback.
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athos56
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Re: Hi all, new cultivator here! [Re: athos56]
#26762050 - 06/21/20 01:36 AM (3 years, 7 months ago) |
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Ha! I was rinsing some rye tonight and a what do I find floating at the top? A pot seed. Probably from some sort of industrial hemp strain.
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Mugnath


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Re: Hi all, new cultivator here! [Re: athos56]
#26762126 - 06/21/20 02:44 AM (3 years, 7 months ago) |
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Try to minimize your interactions with colonizing cakes. Shifting the verm barrier at the top can allow contams to make their way down to your substrate.
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athos56
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Re: Hi all, new cultivator here! [Re: Mugnath]
#26762831 - 06/21/20 11:32 AM (3 years, 7 months ago) |
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Yeah I'm guilty of wanting to look at every jar 2 times a day. I'll chill out on that once I've seen it a few times.
So I soaked some rye overnight and I'm currently reading up on either letting it keep soaking all day, skipping the simmer and going straight to the PC, or doing a couple batches into 170+ water for 10 min. I don't want to make mush. Basically this https://www.shroomery.org/forums/showflat.php/Number/12895332/fpart/1/vc/1
Or a no boil tek I was watching on the Tube, Mushroom-Adventures...
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athos56
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Re: Hi all, new cultivator here! [Re: athos56]
#26768234 - 06/21/20 09:54 PM (3 years, 7 months ago) |
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Ok, well... One of my bags burst in the PC and the other opened up a bit. I grabbed the bag that opened up to close it off, got it into my STAB, folded it over and zip tied it closed above the filter patch. The bag that burst only lost a handful of grains and I'm going to try and PC it again to see what happens. I had placed a plate over the bags so idk what was up. I'm hoping I can try and inoculate the bag that opened up. How long would it take to see if it was contaminated? The good news is that the consistency of the grains was great.
Edited by athos56 (06/21/20 10:48 PM)
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athos56
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Re: Hi all, new cultivator here! [Re: athos56]
#26768237 - 06/21/20 09:57 PM (3 years, 7 months ago) |
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RoderRabbit had the answer.
"If it cools too fast, the PC loses pressure before the inside of the bag cools down enough to lose pressure, thus the pressure differential between inside and outside the bag inflates it to the bursting point. I've worked out a system to prevent that from happening, and it involves putting a tyvek sleeve in the bag, extending from the substrate up and to the outside of the bag."
I pulled the weight and let all the steam out...
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Roger Clemency
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Re: Hi all, new cultivator here! [Re: athos56]
#26768247 - 06/21/20 10:20 PM (3 years, 7 months ago) |
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-------------------- Sour grapes, sweet revenge Heaven starts right where hell ends
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athos56
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Update, I got all my cakes birthed and processed. I did a couple of things to look at a few processes. One strain I crumbled in some Coir substrate and put a small layer coir over the top (mycelium is now popping up all over it.) It was my best shot just judging by the way the jars looked.
Now as to the jars that looked liked they stalled. One strain I dunked and rolled and placed in a chamber to see if they'll fruit. When I broke open a sacrificial lamb it had mycelium all through it, it just seemed like patches didn't colonize. Nothing seemed odd about those patches and it had the same consistency of the BRF/Vermiculite blend that went in. We'll see what happens
The last strain I crumbled into Coir like the first kind but I left off the coir top layer. One thing that may have influenced thing is that the vermiculite I got was really fine, Ive noticed that most of the stuff I see in pictures here are way more coarse, maybe the cakes got too packed. IDK, I'm out of vermiculite so I'll try coarser stuff next time.
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Pastywhyte
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Registered: 09/15/12
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Re: Hi all, new cultivator here! [Re: athos56]
#26779407 - 06/24/20 01:20 PM (3 years, 7 months ago) |
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Yes that could definitely cause an issue and explains why the cakes look like they might be battling something. This is why it’s best to follow a tek as exactly as possible. Seemingly insignificant changes or substitutions can cause major issues later on.
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athos56
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Re: Hi all, new cultivator here! [Re: Pastywhyte]
#26779475 - 06/24/20 01:50 PM (3 years, 7 months ago) |
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Thanks for the feedback, it's always great to find a good community.
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athos56
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Re: Hi all, new cultivator here! [Re: athos56]
#26787453 - 06/27/20 01:39 PM (3 years, 7 months ago) |
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Some update pictures, they're not the best pictures. Two tubs with coir cap and growth popping up everywhere, and one without a coir cap all fuzzy and stuff. It all looks good, to my untrained eye. I have some cakes in a humidity chamber but they are boring so far.
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