**I’ll be updating the OP as things progress
INTRODUCTIONSo I’ve done this a couple times successfully now (A 3rd time (PE) is in the qt colonizing stage and the 4th time (Texas orange cock) was done 2 days ago and awaiting germination).. I use an oven bag instead of a flow hood or SAB because you can pc an oven bag and I’m pretty anal about my sterile technique, but the process would be the same for a SAB or flowhood. **the pics of the oven bag construction and procedure will be at the end of this post
The swabs I use are the presterilized kind.. I think I paid $17 for a 100 of them

PROCEDURE AND EXECUTIONOne thing I’ve found is that you want your swabs to sit and dry out (in the little package they come in—after you take the spores) for at least a week.. I believe this helps cut back on bacteria because it dries the bacteria out, killing it (non-Endospore producing bacteria anyway).. any swabs that I used right after swabbing didn’t fare as well as ones that sat.
The 1st time I did it, I made a melmak syringe from 1 swab by taking a jelly jar of water (Used about 20mls of water—just enough for the fiber tip to be submerged.. worked ok but I wished I had used more like 30mls) and mashing the swab tip against the jar wall/bottom while submerged. With the syringe, I made 6, 1/2 pint pf cakes... I was expecting to lose most of the jars due to always hearing that if you make syringes from swabs, they’ll contaminate. I figured at least one would make it long enough that I could take a leading edge if myc from the colonizing cake (birth early) and clone it.
4 of the 6 pf cakes germinated and grew out enough that I took a small piece of leading edge myc from a pf cake (birthed it early and not fully colonized) and cloned it to jelly jars of grain for a GLC. Here’s what those look like.. (I used my
Oven bag cloning method)

This was right at the end of my growing season so I only grew out one tub and it reverted (or whatever weirdness melmak was doing around that time—there were a few members that reported non-melmak phenos from known melmak swabs) so I didn’t get that melmak pheno I was looking for but it did tell me that swabs can be made into spore syringes successfully which is a win in my book. Here’s how that tub turned out (did non-melmak things)

The second time I did it (10/04/20) I made a PE/AA+ swab (swabbed both PE and AA+ to the same swab—I had a mature tub of both varieties and went from one cap to the other. This is in hopes of creating a cross between the two varieties) into 1 syringe. This time, when I made the syringe I used two swabs instead of 1... that way I could rub the 2 swabs tips together while under water, further incorporating the varieties’ spores to get a cross and so I didn’t have to mash the tip against the jar wall.
The other thing that I did differently (
what I think is the most important part to pull this off) the 2nd time and on, was to do a prewash on the swabs before putting the tips into the water I was going to use for the syringe (I may or may not have gotten the idea from reading
Josex’s poke method—can’t remember if I saw his thread before or after I attempted it lol.. either way, josex is a genius and I probably got the idea from him)... so in the oven bag (or SAB or flow hood—which ever you use) I had two jelly jars of sterilized water instead of just the one...
The first one I just dipped the swab tips into and lightly rubbed the tip together to get off any contamination that might have landed on the swab and then went to the other jelly jar that had 30mls of sterilized water and vigorously rubbed the tips together to try and knock the spores off into the water... the second jar is the jar that I pulled from to make my syringes. (for the 3rd time, I put a little piece of rubber that has tiny nubs on it on the bottom of the second jar of water so that I could rake the swab tips across it to knock the spores off into the water easier.. it worked well)

So far this has proven to be very effective.. with the syringes, I made 4 pf cakes and inoculated a jelly jar of grain so that I could make a GLC to knock up a couple qts to do a test run and see if I get any crosses. I didn’t expect too much but all four of cakes finished colonizing and they looked great while doing so.. they were super fast and looked really clean and healthy. They colonized in 14-17 days

With the cakes, I birthed 3 of them into a makeshift FC and left one for experimenting with some invitro ideas

All the cakes fruited (what I believe to be crosses if PE and AA+ at every inoc point) (
except the jar one.. still waiting to see what that does fruiting wise)
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The 3 cakes dried down to 16.1 grams
I actually fruited that last cake and it put out a monster pea+ fruit that I cloned
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The GLC grains colonized great too and I used them to knock up 2 qts which also grew just fine and were made into a mini mono which fruited great (cased half of it to hedge my bets lol)

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I actually put the grains I used for GLC to CV after I let them recolonize after stealing a lot of their myc.. they flushed out already.. dried down to 2.5gm.. the perfect tester dose for me. Update: I tested out 2 grams of pea+ tea and they’re on par with PE.. maybe not
as potent as straight PEs but definitely better than regular cubes.. if PE is a 10, these are a 8.6.. i’d put regular cubes at a 5-6
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The 3rd time is still in colonizing stage, but I made a PE swab into SS and went straight to rye jelly jars.. I made three of them and only put about 1-2 drops of SS to each. The idea with that being that it reduces the amount of competing sub strains of cubes but also, if there is a nasty floating around in the SS, you reduce the chance that it ends up in all 3 of the jelly jars by reducing the amount of SS each jelly jar gets. All 3 jars fully colonized without issue... one was used to knock up 4 qts.. they all looked like this 2 days after a shake

Currently 5 days after shake (don’t mind the condensation.. it was pretty chilly in the room this morning—it goes away by afternoon)

Probably give them another day before I spawn them.
So.. so far, I’m either having extremely good luck or making SS from a swab isn’t as risky as everyone thinks... especially if sterile technique is taken seriously when making the swab and making the SS. If you think about it, it’s more sterile than making a traditional print (cap sitting on foil—Traditional spore prints are exposed to open air for hours).. the swab comes commercially sterilized and if you do it right, the swab is only exposed to open air for about 30 seconds or even less.. that coupled with the prewash, makes this a viable way to store spores and make them into SS, imo/e. Obviously, swab to agar is a safer way to go about getting myc rolling and I’m not here to sway anyone away from going that route, but as long as you’re smart about it with sterility and go into it thinking you might lose some (make multiple substrates and use as little SS as needed), swab to SS is definitely possible and don’t be afraid to give it a whirl... I’ve found it to be just as reliable as making a syringe from print, if not more so.
And I’m not saying that because my subs didn’t mold out, they’re 100% clean.. I’m positive there’s at least some amount of bacteria just like when making a traditional print into SS.. but for my uses, I’m only trying to get to a first flush so that I can clone.. I don’t need it to go past that, so having a slightly bacterial culture because I made swabs into SS, isn’t a problem for me. Again, not trying to sway anyone from using agar.. it comes down to me not trusting SAB’s.. I had a horrible experience many years ago where I lost like 12 monos when I was doing g2g in a SAB.. it was right before they were ready to pin too.. it was the WORST.. that’s why I developed the oven bag methods, GLC and my lid designs and since then, it’s been smooth sailing.. I lose very few jars and even less substrates.
MY OVEN BAG CONSTRUCTION AND PROCEDURE.Let’s get started.. first thing I do is vacuum seal the swab(s).. I ISO the outside of the swab package and the inside of the vacuum pouch and vacuum seal it up... Then I carefully bend the pouch to break the swab sticks about 3” above the swab.. this makes it easier to handle the swabs when I’m dipping them in the water.. better leverage

Then set it aside. On to making the bag..

Now, a lot of you probably know I love oven bags.. fracking looooOoOoove them.. they’re so versatile. They can be pc’d.. attachments can be added to them easily.. they’re cheap.. and they’re malleable so I can work with the items placed inside easily with my hands from outside. I also developed a syringe barrel poly-filled air filter that I hook up to a fish tank bubbler so I can inflate the bag so it’s easier to work with the items inside the bag
The idea is a really simple one... all the items that I need to do either a cloning or spore print to syringe or swab to syringe are secured inside the bag and then pc’d.. once it’s cooled, the swab or print or clone material is transferred to the inside of the bag quickly and carefully (via H2o2 with clone material—and I’m actually working on a method where H2o2 is used to transfer the stem into the bag and once it’s inside the bag, it’s torn open and tissue is taken, so the H2o2 never touches the actual cloned tissue making it 100% clean) through a small opening that was left when the bag was constructed and the bag is sealed back up.. then the process of making the SS is done from outside the bag while the items are secured inside.
I’m not delusional and don’t think everyone is going to run and make this thing but maybe it’ll give some ppl ideas they didn’t have before... this is long and tedious (trust me I’m using a phone lol) but really it takes like 5 mins to set up a bag once you have all the parts and everything but the bag and zip ties are reusable
This is actually a combination of
My oven bag clone tek and the little known
IDCAB 
unlike the IDCAB, I’ve actually used this successfully, as I’ve said, 2 times and plan on using it many more.
ITEMS YOU'LL NEED- turkey sized oven bags

- Two 2”, 3/4” Dia, pc-able tubing stuffed tight with poly fil and an empty syringe barrel also stuffed tight with poly fil.

- 4” small zip ties

- tape (I use blue painters tape)
- empty syringe(s) with plunger (Sometimes I use 1 but you’ll get more SS with 2, obviously)
- small metal scissors
- two jelly jars with lids
- small plate
- tyvek
BAG ASSEMBLY1. Lay your bag out flat and cut just enough off of the sealed corners that the tube of poly will fit through

2. Attach the tubes with 2 zip ties so that the zip tie heads are opposite each other (this is so if there’s a gap at the zip tie head, having two of them closes each other’s gap—all attachments to bags are done this way)

Do that on both sides

I do this so that steam can enter the bag easily when it’s sealed and the bag doesn’t explode in the pc
3. Cut a small hole and Take your syringe barrel stuffed with poly and attach it to the bag in the middle between the tubing vents... make sure you attach it so that that needle port is on the outside (this is where I plug the hosing from the fish tank bubbler to inflate the bag)

4. Take some tyvek and make a little pouch that the 2 empty syringes and scissors go into.. this is just to keep those items from poking the bag and keeps them nice and together

.

5. Take your 2 jelly jars (4oz) and fill them with 30ml of water each... in one of the jars, I use a piece of rubber with nubs on it in one of the jars so that I can rake the swab tips across it to dislodge the spores from the swab.. this is the jar that I’m going to pull the SS from. The other jar is for the prewash.

6. Screw the lids on loosely and put them on the plate with your tyvek pouch on top of the jars (or under one of them like in the pic) and place the plate into the oven bag and push it towards the back

7. Now I seal most of the open bag end by folding the edge over about a 1/2 inch and tape it closed so that all the tape is touching and it’s flat.. I’m making it air tight. But make sure you leave just enough open so that you can slide the vacuum sealed pouch of swab(s) into the bag

8. Take that little section that is untapped and roll it up and fold it over (do that a couple times) and zip tie it somewhat loosely.. this just secured the open part so it doesn’t get exposed to air before we’re ready to use it after pc’ing. Before you do that make sure you push as much air out of the bag as possible

9. Now I just ball it up as small as I can and make a foul ball (big piece on the bottom that it sits in and a big piece over that) similar to this

10. Pc this for 45 mins (You can probably do less if you want but that’s what I do) if you’re just doing swabs or prints @ 15psi and 1.5 hours if you’re doing a clone to grain and need to sterilize the Jelly jar of grain in the bag.
Now the fun part..
SWAB TO SS (spore solution)**some pictures might look different because they were taken during a different swab to SS session and since it was only me, I wasn’t able to get some pics of the whole process.. just gonna have to use your imagination at times
1. Once the pc is cool, take your vacuum sealed swabs and Iso the whole thing.. then take a piece of paper towel and soak it with H2o2.. do the same with another piece and sandwich the vacuum pouch between them.. do this in the area where the transfer into the bag is going to take place. The idea with this is that it will keep the outside of the pouch clean while you’re setting up the rest of the bag for the transfer

2. Take the ball out of the Pc and unball it.. lay the bag out so the part you left opening for the transfer is right by your H2o2 pouch sandwich.
3. Cut the zip tie closing off the transfer opening and unfold and unroll it, keeping the bag as flat as possible... were trying to keep out as much air from inside the bag as possible.
4. Very quickly, slide the pouch into the bag.. again, keeping the opening as flat as possible.
5. After the pouch is in the bag, reroll and fold the opening back up and zip tie it closed. Here’s the bag after the pouch is inside and the zip tie is on

6. Once the pouch is sealed back up, you need to attach the fish tank bubbler hose to the syringe needle port and turn it on to inflate the bag.. takes about 10 minutes to get the bag to a manageable size

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.

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This is so the bag doesn’t collapse on your work.
7. Once the bag is inflated enough, unplug the bubbler.
I don’t have a lot of pics of the next processes because it was only me and I only have two hands lol, but maybe I’ll update later with pics if I have a helper
8. Take the scissors out of the tyvek pouch (carefully... don’t want to cut the bag) and put your fingers through it from outside the bag.. takes a bit of practice because you need to have slack In the bag in between the scissor holes so when you open the scissors, the bag doesn’t stop you from doing so.

9. Carefully cut the vacuum sealed pouch (cut the swab pouch at the same time) off around the swab sticks a little above where the break is.. so about right where I’ve drawn this line

10. Once you’ve cut around the sticks, you can pull that short piece off that has the swab tips in it and the stick ends will be sticking (no pun intended) out. Put the long pice aside, it’s no longer needed
11. Now unscrew and remove the lids on your jelly jars.
12. Pull the swabs out of the cut pouch and take one in each hand (if you have two.. and make sure you hold onto the sticks tightly.. don’t want them to poke through the bag) and dip them in the prewash jar a few times to remove any nasties that might have landed on the surface of the swab.. I rub the swabs together lightly if there’s two.. if only using one, touch the swab tip to the side of the jar wall a couple times
13. Now take the swab tips to the second jar with the rubber pad in it and dip the swabs in the water and vigorously rub the tips together.. after that, rake the tips Across the surface of the rubber pad that has nubs on it... this helps dislodge the spores from the swab tip.. do this until the swab looks like most/all of the spores have been released into the water
14. Put the swabs aside, we’re done with them. Take your syringe out of the tyvek pouch and carefully (don’t want the needle to poke the bag—best to not let it touch anything but the water/jar) suck up your SS from the second jar.. like the scissors, you need to take a lot of bag slack between the hand holding the syringe barrel and the hand pulling the plunger otherwise the bag is going to stop you from pulling the plunger all the way up.
Once the syringe(s) are full, you’re done! Rip the bag open and retrieve the syringe(s). Make sure you cut off the reusable pieces on your bag (tubing, syringe barrel) before you throw the bag away.
You can also do traditional prints to SS with this contraption.. all the set up is the same (clean and vacuum seal a foil print) as with swabs, but instead of dipping swabs, you just use one jar of water and cut the foil print out of the vacuum pouch.. then open the print and scrape the spores into the jar of water, either with the syringe needle or with another metal tool/scraper and suck the SS up into the syringe. Here’s me holding the open print.. you can see the little scraper I pc’d inside the bag (went into the tyvek pouch)

I successfully made AA+ SS from a print this way.. first flush:

Second flush
UPDATE 5/8/21: I’ve used this a lot since I made this thread.. here’s all the grows that I went from swab —> spore solution..
PE/crs:

PE/RW

PE/pesa

PE/apeu

Even if I go straight to small grain jars and the grains didn’t look as healthy as I wanted, I just top fruit the jars and get clone material or a new swab

Hell.. I’ve even taken swabs that were both broken at the swab tips from shipping and directly injected sterile water into the swab pack, massaged around the water to dislodge spores and sucked the water back out (it has to be a really clean swab/swab pack—thanks, filthyknees) and got these grows from them (apeu):

I know that’s a lot and if you read the whole thing.. thanks

minus the pc time, it’s all really fast.. 10 minutes to set up the bag and get it ready for the pc and 15 minutes to do the actual transfer and spore collection and I feel much better about doing it than using a SAB, but that’s just me
Faht