bigfootscreepyuncl said:

$2 a bag at WalFart

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pablokabute said:

san pedro guy said:

I heard bad things about it too but I tried it anyway and got a pack of trich, never made that mistake again

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Are you sure its not from your sterilization cycle?

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sandman420 said:

So really theres no reason to do it.

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coversall said: It's a fine way of throwing spores at rice and crossing your fingers.

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Quote:

sandman420 said:
For 8 ounce. and you can get 48 ounces of brown rice for the same cost.

Or one 78 cent bag of brown rice and 50 cents worth of vermiculite...

You are just a bag of vermiculite from making rice actually good...

You can get verm at homedepot or walmart or amazon next day for a few bucks and it would work out WAY more cost efficient.

So really theres no reason to do it.

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B Traven said:

the mush cult equivalent of prison toilet wine.

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Quote:

polaritymind said:
I mean honestly, agar, a pressure cooker, all that can seem awfully complex as a beginner

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polaritymind said:

I also think its just a simple way for people to start getting into the hobby, I'm sure many go on to doing more proper yet cheaper but also more complicated grows. I mean honestly, agar, a pressure cooker, all that can seem awfully complex as a beginner, I remember myself, building a SAB too, and that stuff is also expensive, a long list of things to buy from different stores and takes up quite a bit of space.

So I think for a beginner uncle bens is already better than growkits, since already cheaper and, since many spawn to coir, with bucket sterilization and all, a way to get familiar with the general idea. Also many people first learn about the importance of working sterile. So for example on the subreddit you do read a lot about wiping the outside of the bag with 70% iso etc.

So for the people for who it didnt work, I suspect injection method could play a part here. I think it is absolutely crucial to limit the size of the hole, just poke the needle, dont cut off a corner or some shit, and immediately cover with tape, time is very important. Also dont move the bag while there is the hole open, which could suck air in. Flaming the needle before is also a good idea.
Also even on the subreddit I hear people talking alot about agar etc, so I really think they are slowly converting.

But honestly, if you're only growing once for yourself and not dealing massively you dont need to be able to buy kilos and kilos of grain for super cheap.

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This 100%.  Here's a pic of my best tub using UB TEK that I harvested this afternoon.  First grow ever, b+ spore syringe from one of the sponsors here.



The best thing about UB TEK is that it allows new growers to easily test sterile technique without a huge time and supply commitment.  I mean, really think about the time commitment and supplies that agar and selecting specific strains requires.  I've already got a full UB grow under my belt, which still took about 1.5 months to achieve.

The appeal of UB to me as a new grower was that the first half of the inoculation process (grain sterilization) was already taken care of.  So if I had a problem, it was going to be much easier to narrow down what the issue was.  With UB bags that's either too much inoculant resulting in too moist rice, or poor sanitization during inoculation, or a contaminated syringe.

I mean, I've got two big dogs that tramp around the back yard every day and from late November through April have to have their feet cleaned every time they come back inside because of all the dirt and mud they pick up.  Before the first UB harvest I didn't even know if my house was clean enough to have a successful grow no matter what I did.

I don't think I would have tried to grow my own mushrooms without the UB TEK. The info here is solid but it's also very dense for a beginning grower.  UB provided a shortcut that allowed me to figure out if growing mushrooms was something I wanted to do long term. After my first grow, I can't wait to get into agar, spore prints, and everything else.  But there are probably a lot of other people who decide growing isn't for them after trying UB because of the level of detail required for a successful grow.

I'll never claim that UB is a super grow method that everyone should use.  It's not, and the data here shows that (it's also not economical on a large scale).  But it is a great way to get a handful of amateur grows under your belt to determine if you want to proceed to more advanced techniques.  UB TEK was what showed me that I want to proceed to more advanced methods.  It also taught me a lot about sanitization, surface conditions, harvesting, everything that goes into growing mushrooms.

I literally fucked up at every stage of my first grow.  Whether that was forgetting to flame sterilize the syringe before inoculating each bag, or over misting because I had too much fae due to lids that were cracked too much, or royally screwing up the harvesting procedure and leaving the stumps to tall, I screwed up at every stage.  But I also learned from those mistakes that I'll apply to future grows.  And that knowledge came quickly because UB allows for relatively quick grows compared to agar.

If I started out with agar and screwed up at every stage I probably would have given up before making it to a first harvest.  But with UB, I was able to skip all that difficult agar work and just try growing to see if it was for me or not

I view UB TEK as kind of like a learning permit for driving.  No, it's not the same as being by yourself driving a car, but it's a great way to learn with some guardrails in place to limit the amount of analysis you have to do in the moment.

I don't think we should be recommending UB TEK for every grow someone does, but it is a good place to start to see if growing mushrooms is something a person wants to do long term.

And for full disclosure, here are the other two tubs I started at the same time as the pic above.  They aren't doing nearly as well but I'm sure I'll learn something from them too.

The pics are a couple days old so the tubs are further along, but there aren't really any more mushrooms than what can be seen here.

Happy grows everyone!

It is my opinion that UB, or any tek that has you use spores directly on grains is not a great place to start. The fail rate is high and that is very discouraging to new growers. PF tek cakes are the way to go with spore syringes, as they are almost ALWAYS contaminated to some extent by their very nature.

Best way to start is PF cakes. Then learn to use agar while your cakes grow out, and clone a fruit. It is so easy, and infinitely more reliable than uncle bens anti-tek. I’m glad it worked for you. A broke clock is right twice a day, but there are so many posts every month with fucked grows all because folks hear it is acceptable to shoot dirty ass spore solution into rice bags or pre made grain bags.

Why set yourself up for failure when making some BRF cakes is so cheap, easy, and most of all, an extremely reliable way to grow mushrooms with bare minimum investment. Uncle bens is not a reliable way to grow. It is my opinion that uncle ben’s tek is the bane of new cultivators. A bad Reddit joke on par with Capri sun LC, box fan flow hoods and “oven teks.” These jokes needs to go away as they are no longer that funny.

Sorry for the rant. To each their own, I suppose. Fucking uncle bens…

Bobbins said:

Haters gon hate.

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And noobs gonna uncle Ben and grow cream cheese.