Hello bucket family. Welcome to... 
The 49th Oyster Bucket Tek
(Hell - it's probably the 50th or 60th bucket tek by now...)
There are a hundred different ways to cultivate oyster mushrooms. I don't claim to have the highest yielding method among them. That said, many people want to expand their mush cult horizons who may not have the means, the indoor space, or the desire to start fruiting bags on a large scale indoors, or who don't have access to/space for/money for a greenhouse. I DO believe that buckets both offer a very high output potential, and allow for a stackable solution for someone who has vertical space on a patio or deck, their garage, or in their yard space (or indoors if they'd like).
Oysters are among the hardiest mushrooms you can cultivate. People overthink the process, and thus often miss out on some of the aspects of cultivating them that - IMHO - make them so fun to grow: the ability to utilize a vast array of what would otherwise be waste materials for substrate, being able to prep the materials quickly and easily, and upcycling containers (we'll focus mostly on buckets here) to make wonderful, reusable, easy,-to-clean cultivation vessels. I live in a place where everything is fairly expensive, and love that - aside from a few petty initial investments - growing oysters costs me nothing more than my time, and enough gas (or electric - as most of you probably use) to prep the materials.
Obviously, people have been growing oysters for ages in buckets. I'm not reinventing the wheel here. What I aim to do is to offer a workable framework and a simple guide for people in the hopes that the way I do things resonates with their situation. Everything on the Shroomery is a springboard. I encourage people to first follow the tek as specified (there's enough wiggle room included already), and then to look for their own means for improvement once they've had some initial success. If you follow this simple guide, you will.
Required Materials: 
It may surprise you to know that a bucket is required. Other containers can be used (and I encourage you to be creative with all future projects), but we're gonna concentrate on buckets here. In the future, you can use anything big and plastic:
Pictured are buckets, water jugs, nail buckets, and an old vertical planter I made from a drum and use for growing lettuce.
Also pictured is a bag of oyster spawn. This much is not necessary for spawning a bucket. Believe it or not, you can spawn a 5gal with as little as a single qt. Takes a little longer, but oyster mycelium moves very fast through the substrate (even in lower temps), and tends to just bulldoze any emergent molds trying to colonize the sub before it does.
Although you see my boiler basket in this photo (the large basket is inside of the pot), you can just toss the substrate materials in a big pot and drain well afterwards. I like these setups because they're cheap, last forever, hold exactly enough sub for a 5gal, and are crazy easy to use when "dirty" pasteurization will do the trick. Also is a great way to prep wood chips for a woodlover bed
FFR, and whatnot...
How to Construct a bucket: 
Buckets are everywhere. You can use buckets with a cracked bottom that people throw out. Sanitize old paint buckets, reclaim that 20 year old bucket from the woods that has faded and warped and has a sapling growing through it, exercise dominance over that bucket your wife keeps a pair of gardening shears and one flipflop in behind the shed... Just get one... or two...
Drill holes (ideally 1/4-3/8", although 1/2" is fine in a pinch) at staggered intervals along the bucket, 3-4" apart. Spacing isn't crucial, but you want room for individual clusters to develop. These clusters can be quite large.
Drill a few in the bottom (center). When it's raining out and my fruits are developing, I keep the bags off (we'll get to that) - and this allows for drainage. This also makes it not so crucial to drain your substrate perfectly after heat-treating
Pat yourself on the back. You made a bucket with holes. I knew you had it in you
Substrate Options: Oysters will colonize nearly anything. You can go and buy wood chips, compost, master's mix, etc, but the reality is that you don't need to (even if you live in a city). I'll give you some examples of what sorts of reclaimed natural materials I use, and you can extrapolate and modify according to what grows or is discarded near you:
Oysters will grow on both softwoods and hardwoods, although they prefer hardwoods (especially) if using fresh chips. Here are two kids of birch I find decomposing on the forest floor that are at the perfect state of decomposition to break up very quickly with my bare hands. Look around for wood that breaks up easily, but is not too discolored. It's fine if it's partly colonized with parasitic mycelium. That will be killed during the heat treatment.
Be creative. You'll slowly start to get an eye for spotting the right kind of stuff. You can also check Craigslist or FB marketplace for chips and sawdust. There are often mounds of it being given away. Fresh, old... doesn't matter. Steer clear of cedar and hemlock, but otherwise... Just find some wood and break it into small bits that are easy to pack tightly. You don't want air gaps from oversized material. What you see pictured is a decent size. 
Pictured are two things I harvest from my yard which make very nice substrate. First picture is just "duff" from the area where my woodcutting area meets the wood-line. I like the mix of the sawdust and the forest soil/decomposing leaf matter. Next you see a wheelbarrow of wild grasses I broke down into small pieces. I prefer to mix grass stalks and straw with something like sawdust, soil, compost, coir, old cube subs, etc so that it packs more tightly and retains water better, but it'll work on its own if you pack it tight when wet and slap that lid on. 
You can also use coir, but it's expensive - so use it as a filler. Use old cube subs instead and get two birds stoned at once. Cardboard is great.
It holds moisture well, resists contamination, and is abundant in urban areas where natural byproducts are in short supply/high demand. Small pieces, and mixed with smaller bits of material is better - but if you pack them tightly... You get the picture. Heat Treatment: 
Any large pot loaded with the material and enough water to cover works fine. You can even use another bucket with holes as a giant strainer if you don't have one. You can prep it in two parts if you'd like. Doesn't matter. I like these boiler pots because I can cycle a lot of material quickly and remove the main basket to drain in my yard while it cools. They are quite heavy when loaded, so keep that in mind if you have a set of glass wrists. You can use three gallon buckets and a smaller pot if this project is beyond your ability in this regard. The yield of one bucket (and the fact that you can get 3-5 flushes) makes it a trivial task, honestly. We haul around stacks of tubs and loaded pressure cookers, so I assume this isn't a huge issue. I myself have horrible arthritis though, so I get it... Adjust as necessary.
Fill pan with materials, place on stove, and cover with water. Allow to soak 20-30min. After soak, turn your burner on, and heat until it starts to almost boil (it's fine if you go over. There's a little wiggle room here. You're just killing competitor fungi so the oyster myc can colonize. These aren't cubes.
Remove from heat and let cool while soaking or remove immediately and drain. Do this in the yard, driveway, or wherever you can be a little messy. When the material is close to room temperature (<90°f), it's time to layer your bucket.
Make a Cake: 
Layer according to how much spawn you have. If it's just a quart, use a little bit with each layer. It goes quick, and a little goes a long way. I use 1-3qts. Depends on the species and circumstances. No need to use more, and I wouldn't advise trying to using less.
Pop a can liner on top for colonization phase/initial pinning. 30gal is perfect. Cheap is fine. Doesn't matter the color.
Pop a lid on, or - if you don't have one - you can either put something flat on top of you're stacking multiples, or just go with the bag if doing a single. I like having the lids though, or something on top.
Now you wait. You'll want to pull the bag up and mist (with a bottle or the hose - doesn't matter) the holes once or twice a day throughout. The wetter you keep the pins, the less aborts. The wetter you keep the mature fruits, the bigger they'll grow. A good mister bottle works great. Only takes a second to mist a bucket. Just mist the holes and replace the liner. In 7-10 days generally, the bucket will be colonized and pinning. Depends on the amount of spawn used. After pins are an inch or so, remove the liner and mist three or four times a day until harvest. If it's raining, you're off the hook. Some varieties are more drought tolerant. Hot weather demands more water. I like to keep them behind the woodpile in the shade, but anywhere out of the sun is ideal.
You want it in an area that retains local moisture. Partly in the sun on a porch or deck is fine. Just don't let it dry out.
Harvest:
Harvest when the cap edges slightly upturn, or are fully splayed. I don't like mine too mature. Though only blues, pearls, poplar oysters,. and local wild oysters are pictured, I've grown golds and pinks both in these as well with equally good results. I have to recover a couple cards worth of files and then I'll post some extra pics.
Tips:
The wetter the better. Keep the holes misted, then the pins, then the fruits. Yes, automation is a miracle. If you can't or don't have (or want) an indoor setup however, this will give you outstanding yields for minimal work (and virtually no investment). Might as well do it right, so you end up with lots of mushrooms. That brings me to...
. You're going to have a LOT of mushrooms. Have a plan before you grow oysters (especially bulk setups,/buckets) to process what you grow. You'll pull poundage with buckets, and you can only eat so many at a time. They don't keep for long, but can be dehydrated, processed into mushroom salt, preserved, or sauteed in butter and frozen. It's free protein bruh
. Don't let it go to waste.
All I do to clean my buckets is scrub them out in the creek and spray with a bleach solution right before layering. They'd be fine without the bleach, but I'm an OCD all star, so there you have it...
For subsequent flushes, treat as if colonizing: mist. If they look really dry I take the bag off and soak the top between flushes and let it leech through a bit, but generally not until second or third flush. Average is three flushes before a mold takes hold. They make fantastic compost after that. I mulch my strawberries with them, and they love it.
slice of even with the bucket any aborted clusters (there generally will be some) to up your chances of getting something from those fruiting sites in subsequent flushes.
I mentioned old cube subs before. I can't impress enough how much they love (both) spent coir and manure subs - either alone or as an amendment/ingredient.
Do a quick health check between flushes. Molds generally start on the surface of the sub, and thus can be spotted easily. A quick peek will tell you how much moisture you lost as well. Wood chips, sawdust, compost, etc hold a fair bit of water typically. By contrast, you can pretty much guarantee your all-straw sub will need some hydration post-flush.
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I love grocery bag fruiting! I remember years ago reading - I want to say in Eatsyoualive's journals a grocery bag Tek for growing small amounts in his kitchen, and it's one of the things that got my wheels spinning about the different possibilities out there.
. What are you running first?
. Thanks for the read!
Wheedhead!
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