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SunnySideUp
Dad Joker



Registered: 03/20/24
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Loc: My basement
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Bags vs. Jars?
#28777567 - 05/17/24 02:10 PM (1 month, 8 days ago) |
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I started my cultivation journey with pre-sterilized jars from a reputable online vendor and quickly moved to making my own grain jars. I have had a 100% success rate with the jars I have colonized so far (32 jars in total) and decided that it would make sense to move on to bags because... well, that's what all the cool kids do, right?
Two weeks ago I took my first stab at bags, following all the steps I could to keep everything clean throughout the process. I have a flow hood, followed clean procedures for the syringes, wiped everything twice with alcohol, and then almost two weeks later I get this...


So here I am left with two questions...
First, any chance to salvage this at all?
Secondly, is it worth moving to bags when my jar tek seems to work so well?
Edited by SunnySideUp (05/17/24 02:23 PM)
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AlexandrDughin
Explorer


Registered: 10/30/23
Posts: 147
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Hello black mold, my old friend 
Since it developed so early in the colonizing process, i don't think much can be saved.
Do the other bags also have it ? Or are they ok ?
Edited by AlexandrDughin (05/17/24 03:25 PM)
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SunnySideUp
Dad Joker



Registered: 03/20/24
Posts: 21
Loc: My basement
Last seen: 9 days, 6 hours
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Just get rid of it? Damn.. this was going to be my first shot at Enigma and I am out of LC!
I might try to move it to a petri dish to see if I can salvage any of it.
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AlexandrDughin
Explorer


Registered: 10/30/23
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Loc: Europe
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You can, of course, move back to a petri dish some of the colonized grain, clean it up and restart 
On my side i'm about to start my second batch on gt's, and i already know it's gonna be an uphill fight against black mold and bacteria....
my pressure cooker barely reaches 7-8 psi
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spacebear
bear paws



Registered: 03/10/24
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Did you test your culture on agar?
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SunnySideUp
Dad Joker



Registered: 03/20/24
Posts: 21
Loc: My basement
Last seen: 9 days, 6 hours
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Quote:
spacebear said: Did you test your culture on agar?
I did not - I assumed it was clean since it came from a reputable online vendor. I am going to reach out to them to see if they can send me another syringe.
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SunnySideUp
Dad Joker



Registered: 03/20/24
Posts: 21
Loc: My basement
Last seen: 9 days, 6 hours
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Good luck with your cleaning process! Keep me posted!
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Goatrider
Rhythm Guitarist



Registered: 04/08/20
Posts: 4,633
Loc: Germany
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How long were the bags sterilized?
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SunnySideUp
Dad Joker



Registered: 03/20/24
Posts: 21
Loc: My basement
Last seen: 9 days, 6 hours
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Quote:
Goatrider said: How long were the bags sterilized?
Same as I do my jars... 90 minutes. I have about 4 quarts of grain per bag.
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Herme5
Trismegistus



Registered: 04/27/24
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Quote:
SunnySideUp said:
Quote:
Goatrider said: How long were the bags sterilized?
Same as I do my jars... 90 minutes. I have about 4 quarts of grain per bag.
Do you make sure to steam for 10min before adding the weight/ closing the vent?
-------------------- π
π΄ π° πΌΒ Β π² π» πΈ π½ πΆ π
π
π° πΏ "The lips of wisdom are closed, except to the ears of understanding." - The Kyballion, Three Initiates Advanced Research of the Chronological History of Artifical Intelligence X
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PBJ710
Strangler


Registered: 07/05/19
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Try 3 hours @ 15psi next time. 90 minutes is already on the quick side for quart jars as most do 120 minutes for them.
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TPython
A Fraction of the Whole


Registered: 12/01/12
Posts: 799
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fiddle_head
sporophyte



Registered: 08/05/08
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Quote:
SunnySideUp said:
Quote:
Goatrider said: How long were the bags sterilized?
Same as I do my jars... 90 minutes. I have about 4 quarts of grain per bag.
I usually do my bags for 3h if they are around that volume @17psi. Always test your culture on agar before putting it to grain. There is nothing salvageable here.
-------------------- lagm 2024 || lagm 2023 || 2023 || Things That Are Good ============= If you cannot afford petris you can still do this hobby. πΏ Looking for spores? Look no further. π
XI π
π΄ π° πΌ π² π» πΈ π½ πΆ π
π
π° πΏ XI
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vicepope
The devils best grower



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Bags save space in in pc vs jars but take longer cook times. But contamination in the middle of bags is usually little holes form depression air or heat against metal wall. I'm a big jar person for personal grows,there simple isolation of what contamination vector is better. But commercial growing bags are contacted. You can never save contamination grain.
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SunnySideUp
Dad Joker



Registered: 03/20/24
Posts: 21
Loc: My basement
Last seen: 9 days, 6 hours
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Re: Bags vs. Jars? [Re: Herme5]
#28778466 - 05/18/24 08:46 AM (1 month, 8 days ago) |
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Quote:
Herme5 said:
Quote:
SunnySideUp said:
Quote:
Goatrider said: How long were the bags sterilized?
Same as I do my jars... 90 minutes. I have about 4 quarts of grain per bag.
Do you make sure to steam for 10min before adding the weight/ closing the vent?
No, but I do make sure to get the water to boiling point before closing the lid. Whatβs the purpose of steaming for 10 minutes? I would be concerned with losing too much water, no?
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Goatrider
Rhythm Guitarist



Registered: 04/08/20
Posts: 4,633
Loc: Germany
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It' s called 'venting' and is important. Read me
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SunnySideUp
Dad Joker



Registered: 03/20/24
Posts: 21
Loc: My basement
Last seen: 9 days, 6 hours
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Quote:
Goatrider said: It' s called 'venting' and is important. Read me
Ha! Thank you! Just learned something new!
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MrJong
Autismotronic 3000


Registered: 09/30/23
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The fact you've got mold and not bacteria suggests to me that your inoculant was dirty, more than anything else suggested.
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SunnySideUp
Dad Joker



Registered: 03/20/24
Posts: 21
Loc: My basement
Last seen: 9 days, 6 hours
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Re: Bags vs. Jars? [Re: MrJong]
#28783051 - 05/21/24 07:59 PM (1 month, 4 days ago) |
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Quote:
MrJong said: The fact you've got mold and not bacteria suggests to me that your inoculant was dirty, more than anything else suggested.
Iβll post another picture tomorrow, but the mycelium almost took over all of the grain. I still have a couple of black spots but I feel they are smaller than before. Any chance it is recoverable?
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AmazonianMist
Stranger



Registered: 07/06/21
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Quote:
bodhisatta said: The Importance of Venting a Pressure Cooker or Autoclave
Two test have been conducted so far one with a presto 23q and one with an AA 25x sterilizer.
A nearly new presto 23q pressure cooker was used for this test There was one quarter taped to the weight. The first trial I put the lid on the cooker with 1q of the hottest tap water I have inside. Put the weight on the lid immediately. no venting done. Turned the stove to 10. As soon as the weight started to jiggle I killed the heat.
 244F Β±2F
The second trial I put the lid on the cooker with 1q of the hottest tap water I have inside. I turned the stove to 10. vented for 10m after steam appeared from the vent. put the weight on and as soon as the weight started to jiggle I killed the heat
 258-259F Β±2F
For both test runs I put the trivet in and two empty mason jars upright with no lid to stand the thermometer on. In both tests the needle on the gauge got up in between 17-18psi at 18psi I shouln't have seen such high temperatures on the thermometer but considering the thermometer is calibrated to NIST and the gauge on the presto is from china I'm going to go with the gauge being a hair off on the low side. The gauge is accurate to one scale division so Β±2F
This may seem like a small difference but the difference is huge in terms of sterilization effectiveness. Not only is the temperature lower but the lower heat capacity of air compared to steam means you are not as energetically pumping the heat into the media being sterilized. Steam has a high latent heat.
Steam has more "heat torque" than air
Quote:
Latent heat can be understood as heat energy in hidden form which is supplied or extracted to change the state of a substance without changing its temperature.
steam forces way more energy into the media than air does.
Quote:
Because of a much higher heat capacity, steam and liquids transfer heat more rapidly than air. For example, the hot air inside an oven at 200 Β°C (392 Β°F) will not immediately burn your skin, but the steam from a boiling kettle at 100 Β°C (212 Β°F) will scald skin almost instantly and feel hotter, despite the steam (and water) in the kettle being at a lower temperature than the air inside a hot oven. Thus the internal temperature of material in a pressure cooker will rise to the desired value much more quickly than if it were in an oven.
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It is very important to ensure that all of the trapped air is removed from the autoclave before activation, as trapped air is a very poor medium for achieving sterility. Steam at 134 Β°C can achieve in three minutes the same sterility that hot air at 160 Β°C can take two hours to achieve
Quote:
Effective moist-heat sterilization depends on having saturated steam conditions. When air is present in the system to be sterilized, saturated steam temperature and pressure conditions no longer apply.
The air dilutes the steam and a lower temperature than expected is imposed at a given pressure. Trapped pockets of pure air completely prevent steam contact and provide dry-heat sterilization conditions.
Test 2 with an All American 25x sterilizer with the vent tube removed Using no basket just the trivet rack. Starting with hot ~140F tap water for both runs.
for both runs I'm going to bring it up to 15 psi and toggle the on off switch to keep it at 15psi for 5m. Then kill it.
For the venting run ill vent 10m. Get to 15m and hold it there 5m then kill it. For the non vent run I'm putting the lid on with the toggle closed and skipping the venting entirely
Interesting enough is that with the toggle closed from the beginning (0 venting) I could stand to hold my hand on the lid with pressure registered on the gauge. Because air was getting compressed before the water was even boiling. And once it started to boil it quickly compressed air giving an abnormally high pressure for a low temperature.

Got up to 15.5-16psi kept it there 5m before shutting down. This is what I got off the thermometer. Very interesting.
 212Β±2F
Here's the reading from the vented run. Also hit close to 16 psi during the 5m hold.
 252Β±2F
that's a 40F difference and there was a 5 minute hold just to make extra sure the thermometer registered the temp at 15psi.
The toggle holds in air better than the jiggle weight on the presto. so the presto sort of vents itself during the run, the toggle on the AA really trapped the air in it seems.
Vent your pressure cookers.
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