cronicr said:

As long as you can simply cut the tape , that tapes a bitch to peel off and gets messy

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ThurmanMurman said:

cronicr said:

As long as you can simply cut the tape , that tapes a bitch to peel off and gets messy

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The opening of the bag was a consideration.

What do you think about using a lighter to melt the opening of the bag closed like a dime bag of brick weed in a cigarette cellophane circa 2001? 🤣

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Radamanto said:

Hey guys, I have a quick question about this shoebox that's knotting and pinning somewhat nicely:



I would've posted it in the nice pinset thread... if it didn't pin on the bottom of the shoebox

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I put a quarter-inch of fine verm (or medium verm if that's all I have) on top as a pseudo casing, that helps make top conditions better.

When I had heavy bottom pins about 3 years ago, it was because I was blowing a heater fan into the my shroom room (a walk in closet) in the winter, as I do.

But I wasn't thinking, and had the heater fan pointed to the shroom shelf, the shelf below the ones that had bottom pinning.

Are you doing that? Even if you're not, bottom pins means that somehow the conditions are better on the bottom than the top.

I had more than bottom pinning, I had bottom shrooms, PE that slid off with the dull side of a knife like pulling the toppings off a pizza.

ThurmanMurman said:

Ive seen it suggested to underhydrate substrate when using bacterial spawn....

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Pin said:

This may be a stupid question...

When spawning grain to coir we're no longer worried about sterility. So... instead of smacking a glass jar around, couldn't we just open the jar and mix it up all nice with a clean for or something? If yes, then to take it a step further... what about mixing the grain spawn with distilled water and blending it up into a slurry before mixing it into the coir?

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Mwj12977 said:

ThurmanMurman said:

cronicr said:

As long as you can simply cut the tape , that tapes a bitch to peel off and gets messy

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The opening of the bag was a consideration.

What do you think about using a lighter to melt the opening of the bag closed like a dime bag of brick weed in a cigarette cellophane circa 2001? 🤣

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You mean circa 1965! lol
Just use tape and cut it open (the bag below the tape) after it’s done. That will avoid the impending sticky mess.

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nektar61 said:

ThurmanMurman said:

Ive seen it suggested to underhydrate substrate when using bacterial spawn....

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Why do people grow out bacterial spawn?

If you have bacterial spawn, throw it out and learn what you're doing wrong. 

PastyWhyte told me the same thing in different words when I was new on here and I was asking how to save a bacterial grow.

Even if you boil the mushrooms to make tea so you aren't eating bacteria, look up microbial toxins, which are toxins produced by microorganisms.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microbial_toxin

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ThurmanMurman said:

nektar61 said:

ThurmanMurman said:

Ive seen it suggested to underhydrate substrate when using bacterial spawn....

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Why do people grow out bacterial spawn?

If you have bacterial spawn, throw it out and learn what you're doing wrong. 

PastyWhyte told me the same thing in different words when I was new on here and I was asking how to save a bacterial grow.

Even if you boil the mushrooms to make tea so you aren't eating bacteria, look up microbial toxins, which are toxins produced by microorganisms.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microbial_toxin

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Honestly, I'm completely lost at sea with even determining if its bacterial. Ive had PEU fail on me 4 shoeboxes in a row, so I'm trying something different instead of tossing the remaining 2 jars. Im always in a spot between "it doesn't look bacterial but I also dont like the way it looks." even though I've been told here that the jar looks alright.

I just had 3 boxes stall before full colonization and I thought they were some of the best looking jars Ive had. Ive also sent what I thought looked weird and they did fine. I have no feel for it at all, and idk what my hang up is, bc I've managed to continue progressing with everything else.

I've never once made a jar of spawn that I felt confident in. Not a single time. It just came down to whether I was going to make an attempt to make an attempt to make mushrooms or obsess over the potential for failure and just stare at grain jars.

If I knew for sure a jar was bacterial, I would 100% toss it. For what that's worth.

Ill post some pics tonight of the jars I have colonized right now and point out what I mean.

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KauaiOrca said:

ThurmanMurman said:

nektar61 said:

ThurmanMurman said:

Ive seen it suggested to underhydrate substrate when using bacterial spawn....

---

Why do people grow out bacterial spawn?

If you have bacterial spawn, throw it out and learn what you're doing wrong. 

PastyWhyte told me the same thing in different words when I was new on here and I was asking how to save a bacterial grow.

Even if you boil the mushrooms to make tea so you aren't eating bacteria, look up microbial toxins, which are toxins produced by microorganisms.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microbial_toxin

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Honestly, I'm completely lost at sea with even determining if its bacterial. Ive had PEU fail on me 4 shoeboxes in a row, so I'm trying something different instead of tossing the remaining 2 jars. Im always in a spot between "it doesn't look bacterial but I also dont like the way it looks." even though I've been told here that the jar looks alright.

I just had 3 boxes stall before full colonization and I thought they were some of the best looking jars Ive had. Ive also sent what I thought looked weird and they did fine. I have no feel for it at all, and idk what my hang up is, bc I've managed to continue progressing with everything else.

I've never once made a jar of spawn that I felt confident in. Not a single time. It just came down to whether I was going to make an attempt to make an attempt to make mushrooms or obsess over the potential for failure and just stare at grain jars.

If I knew for sure a jar was bacterial, I would 100% toss it. For what that's worth.

Ill post some pics tonight of the jars I have colonized right now and point out what I mean.

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If you think you've got a somewhat bacterial grain jar, why not just top fruit it?  The margin for error is so much higher and the success rate is practically guaranteed and effort level very low.

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Idk how to make this make sense and everything about it is frustrating to me. It's 100% a me problem...

I dont think I have bacterial jars any more than I think I have clean jars - I straight up do not know. I feel like a blind person trying to understand color. I can count on one hand how many jars I've had that I KNEW they were bad. Otherwise, the best I can determine is that they don't look bacterial but they dont look right either.

Here's an example - what do you call this? The pic doesn't capture the texture of the myc - it's not creamy, it's just thick myc, which I know can be a response to bacteria as well, but if there was enough bacterial presence to cause the entire jar to thicken up like that, would it not be more obvious? The growth is also very obviously refusing to colonize parts of some of the grains. So what would you call this jar?



Here's a different jar. It seems to have some gray coloring, which SmellyHobbit said could be a product of having properly hydrated grain. Aside from that, I dont like how the myc seems to colonize the grains individually rather than becoming a single sprawling colony (probably a word for it. Idk it.)



There's almost always something that seems off to me, and I've done such an insane amount of reading and asking questions over the last 6mo or so that I've finally just come to the conclusion that unless I can say for fact it's bad spawn, I'm just gonna send it and see what happens bc idk what else to do and I'm tired of stressing over it. Ive grown out some pretty decent tubs and have more fruit than I know what to do with, so fuck it - I'll either figure it out or I wont, but I only do this bc I need something positive and fun in life, and beating my head against a wall is neither, so it is what it is. Im growing some fuckin mushrooms, whether I can identify clean spawn or not. 🤣

ThurmanMurman said:

Idk how to make this make sense and everything about it is frustrating to me. It's 100% a me problem...

I dont think I have bacterial jars any more than I think I have clean jars - I straight up do not know. I feel like a blind person trying to understand color. I can count on one hand how many jars I've had that I KNEW they were bad. Otherwise, the best I can determine is that they don't look bacterial but they dont look right either.

There's almost always something that seems off to me, and I've done such an insane amount of reading and asking questions over the last 6mo or so that I've finally just come to the conclusion that unless I can say for fact it's bad spawn, I'm just gonna send it and see what happens bc idk what else to do and I'm tired of stressing over it. Ive grown out some pretty decent tubs and have more fruit than I know what to do with, so fuck it - I'll either figure it out or I wont, but I only do this bc I need something positive and fun in life, and beating my head against a wall is neither, so it is what it is. Im growing some fuckin mushrooms, whether I can identify clean spawn or not. 🤣

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ThurmanMurman said:

Idk how to make this make sense and everything about it is frustrating to me. It's 100% a me problem...

I dont think I have bacterial jars any more than I think I have clean jars - I straight up do not know. I feel like a blind person trying to understand color. I can count on one hand how many jars I've had that I KNEW they were bad. Otherwise, the best I can determine is that they don't look bacterial but they dont look right either.

Here's an example - what do you call this? The pic doesn't capture the texture of the myc - it's not creamy, it's just thick myc, which I know can be a response to bacteria as well, but if there was enough bacterial presence to cause the entire jar to thicken up like that, would it not be more obvious? The growth is also very obviously refusing to colonize parts of some of the grains. So what would you call this jar?



Here's a different jar. It seems to have some gray coloring, which SmellyHobbit said could be a product of having properly hydrated grain. Aside from that, I dont like how the myc seems to colonize the grains individually rather than becoming a single sprawling colony (probably a word for it. Idk it.)



There's almost always something that seems off to me, and I've done such an insane amount of reading and asking questions over the last 6mo or so that I've finally just come to the conclusion that unless I can say for fact it's bad spawn, I'm just gonna send it and see what happens bc idk what else to do and I'm tired of stressing over it. Ive grown out some pretty decent tubs and have more fruit than I know what to do with, so fuck it - I'll either figure it out or I wont, but I only do this bc I need something positive and fun in life, and beating my head against a wall is neither, so it is what it is. Im growing some fuckin mushrooms, whether I can identify clean spawn or not. 🤣

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Although I feel that even a few years in I'm at the same level as you: I'm pretty sure that you have some clean spawn here. I switched from WBS to Rye or Millet and the individual grains/sizes made it easier for me.

Both jars seem creamy, but like you said they're basically the same. Uniform strong growth is what I look for. Millet kinda always looks like your second picture for me so I feel like that one is normal.

Unless it smells like ass:
I'd send both to their own shoes tbh. But I've sent some doosies and gotten shrooms so .

ThurmanMurman said:

Honestly, I'm completely lost at sea with even determining if its bacterial......Im growing some fuckin mushrooms, whether I can identify clean spawn or not. 🤣

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KauaiOrca said:

ThurmanMurman said:

Idk how to make this make sense and everything about it is frustrating to me. It's 100% a me problem...

I dont think I have bacterial jars any more than I think I have clean jars - I straight up do not know. I feel like a blind person trying to understand color. I can count on one hand how many jars I've had that I KNEW they were bad. Otherwise, the best I can determine is that they don't look bacterial but they dont look right either.

There's almost always something that seems off to me, and I've done such an insane amount of reading and asking questions over the last 6mo or so that I've finally just come to the conclusion that unless I can say for fact it's bad spawn, I'm just gonna send it and see what happens bc idk what else to do and I'm tired of stressing over it. Ive grown out some pretty decent tubs and have more fruit than I know what to do with, so fuck it - I'll either figure it out or I wont, but I only do this bc I need something positive and fun in life, and beating my head against a wall is neither, so it is what it is. Im growing some fuckin mushrooms, whether I can identify clean spawn or not. 🤣

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I'm in the same position you are in terms of being able to evaluate a super clean jar vs. one that got at least some contams happening.

I've posted pics of jars I thought looked great and experienced growers said they were definitely somewhat contaminated and they ended up producing 2-3 good flushes anyway (top fruited) so at some point I just stopped worrying about it. Unless it just looks and smells awful, I just case it and see what happens.

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