Filter Patch bags VS. Canning jars for substrate - Mushroom Cultivation Archive

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Ryche Hawk
A Messenger

Registered: 03/01/01
Posts: 2,112

Filter Patch bags VS. Canning jars for substrate

3
#526765 - 01/20/02 05:19 PM (22 years, 10 months ago)

This subject was started in another thead in the pictures forum.

Basically Ralphster asked Workman why anybody would want to use filter patch bags in a mini micron environment instead of something like cakes in the hydra pod. So I had to set him straight ... je je je .... Actually I"m glad he brought it up because it motivated me to start writing this.

So this is the begginng of a new filter patch bag tek and info I"ll be putting together in the weeks to come. Please read on.

Actually Ralphster the bags are the way to go. Those bags have been being used in the professional mycology world for many years for gourmet mushroom species. Even Stamets has changed over to them. In fact most of his kits he has been sending out as posted on Stamets website, for many years use filter patch bags.

Have you ever ordered one of his kits....???
Most of them come with colonized substrate in filter patch bags.....
They are a micro envrironment all by themself. Some of his kits...such as Oyster mushrooms... he sends an extra bag out and suggest putting it over the colonized bag and misting inside of it to create more humidity....hang it over the sink...its ready to fruit right out of the bag........(bags for dummy tek :smile:

That is pretty much the same concept of the SporeWorks micronenvironment bags.

The big crossover is many of us in the psilocybe school of thought growers have been using jars for so long were all adapt to that. Many books have been written on using jars.......the PF TEK was written on jars..we all followed the jar teks....filter patch bags were not readily available untiil recently.

Most of the books and teks out there on psilocybes are geared for jars, bottom line. Personally I think its time for change.

www.thehawkseye.com have not used jars in over a year in most cases.
We got turned on to these bags some 18 months ago and through trial and error found some very good manufactures of filter patch bags in many sizes and straight up....THEY ARE THE BOMB !!!
We found some companies did not produce a bag that with stood the sterilization processes well at all. Some leaked...:(

Any of you that have been around for a long time...I've had the inspiration of filter patch bags for many many years.
I've had these pics posted on my website for 3+ years....

MY idea ....fueled by Stamets kits...and a few contam outbreaks......was to surround the substrate with these bags
yet if you will notice....jars still inside.

That is old school thought and it worked for many years. I was trained to think psilos need jars to produce good spawn, as are many of you do.

Ok...I've learnd a lot in the past 2 years.... and I think its time to post it and share all I have learned. Jars have been out for a very long time with us...as you can see from the DB kits. There are much easier ways to produce good subtrate and save a lot of money and time.

Of course these filter patch bags are not going to replace jars anytime soon, but they are a much better alternative in my opinion.

As you can see Sporeworks is using them as a mini micro environment, it works. Its basically the same as when mushrooms fruit in the jars, except in a bag now :wink:

. Same concept www.fungi.com Stamets has been using for years.
This is a bold statement but true, any small enough container using colonized substrate really does not need a casing soil or humidity source. It creates enough humidity from the substrate, and if you have a rough enough surface its going to produce some fruits.
I certainly dont think Sporeworks is trying to direct anyone towards any record flushes with those min micro environment bags, just another simple way of getting some mushrooms for little effort on the end user :smile:

Where we have found these filter patch bags to be so effective is for producing spawn for the casing. No more jars !!
These bags are so much easier to work with and much cheaper then canning jars

You can buy them in many sizes with variations of the filter for gas exhanges as well.
Filters can provide gas exchange, but exclude water vapor, so your spawn does not dehydrate.

You can use about any substrate with them, even wood chips if you buy the thicker plastic bags.

So how do you use them ?? Simple.
Prepare your substrate as you normally would. Scoop it into the bags. Seal it, then autoclave it. Store them like you would jars of substrate. When fully colonized, just cut it open and poor out your substrate into your casing container or mix with your bulk substrate.

I would imagine you could use them with a pot of boiling water for steam as you do jars. They can certainly with stand the heat of a pressure canner. For a pot of water to steam them you would just need keep them off the bottom so water does not splash up an into the filter, but even that would not hurt much as not much water is going to get in unless you immerse it in water.

You do need a sealer for sealing the opening. But you dont have to have one of these expensive models like you see in professional mushrooom farms. Simple little $15 Eurosealers work fine for home grower hobbiest. As you can see there are 2 different ones posted in the pics above.
You can find these sealers many places on line, just do search for euro sealer or food sealer. Here are a few.

RE-SEALER $13
Euro-Sealer$18 same website

1800seen on TV This site has a bunch of different sealer models for about $7 to $10.

There was a new version of the EuroSealer I seen on an infocommercial, EuroSealer 2. It was larger and looked like a better unit. I ordered it but it neve came, that was some 3 to 4 months ago. I cant seem to find it online anywhere either. If anyone runs across it please post a link.

So back to the bags, using them instead of jars. We prefer the smaller upright bags, 5 x 4 x 18, or 4 x 3 x 14 for spawn.
They work great in place of jars. And the substrate colonizes faster then in jars. How many times have you all tried to use a jar of spawn larger then a 1/2 pint and it seemed like it took forever to colonize? Or it stalled on the way?
And why is it 1/2 pint regular jars, non wide mouth jars colonize so slow ?? I've always considered that one a huge mystery :smile:

With these bags you can easily use a pint or even a quart of substrate and they will colonize much faster then in jars and they wont stall. You can shake them around a little to help stimulate growth faster, and since they hold in moisture so well the substrate usually does not dry out like as in pint or quart jars.

Ok..this is taking longer then I thought and I have things to do. I'll put an FAQ togther on this subject later this week.
And this subject really belongs in the cultivation forum.

But for now..here are a few pro's and cons of filter patch bags vs canning jars for mushroom subtrate.
Filter Patch Bags Pros:
They are much easier to work with then jars.
Mushroom mycelium colonizes faster in the bags then jars.
Mushrooms can fruit within the bags easier then jars if you want to use such a lazy tek :smile:

They are cheap, can be bought as low as $0.17 to $0.25 cents each. + S&H. Jars cost around $0.58 to $1.00 each
and are very expensive to ship as they are much much heavier.
They provide better gas exchange and help keep in water vapor better then canning jars.
The subtrate cools down faster in a bag then in a glass jar.
You dont have to punch a bunch of holes in a metal lid.
You dont have to worry about rusty metal lids or cutting yourself on the jagged metal from the holes.
You dont need to buy filter discs anymore, the bags come with a filter patch built in.
You dont need the dry vermiculite layer on top of the substrate.
They are much much lighter then glass jars.

Cons:
They are not meant to be reusable.
You wont have that nice symetrical round shape with your substrate as from cakes.
They wont stack as easily as jars. Especially if your using boiling water to steam the subtratee for sterilization.
You do need a sealer to make them work (or use a hot knife or lighther, sloppy though.)

I'll think of some things later.
One thing to note, you can take the bags right out of your pressure cooker and put them in a bowl or dish or whatever to create the shape you want your substrate to grow in. This would be handy for devices such as the HydraPod where the cake formation is important. But in fact, this may work better as you create a larger round formation with a bigger cropping surface. instead of 5 or 6 small cakes, how about 1 big substrate cake?? Same thing with your terraniums.

I'll work on this subject some more later in the week. I need to post this over in the cultivation forum anyway.

Oh..so where do you get them. Well, I noticed several on line vendors have them such as Mycelium Fruits and Fungi Perfecti carries the large bags. You pay a higher price but your paying for the service as well so that should be expected.

If you want to buy them in bulk at a cheaper price get them from www.Unicornbags.com

They are 25 cents each, unless you buy about a 1,000 of them at a time, then he gives a discount down to like 17 cents each. But you can always buy 100 of them at a time and pay just 25 cents each + S&H.
A warning when you order from this company, they are asian and only the guy speaks good english :smile:

He is real nice though and easy to work with. Be sure and specify you want the "B" style type bags for autoclaving. He also likes to file things under a company name, just give him your name for a company name if you dont have one.
I'll start carrying these smaller bags on my website here in a couple of weeks for a cheap price for at least a couple of months so my customers can have easy access to them as well.

Ok..thats all for now. I'll be back later in the week with more detailed info and put together some FAQ for beginners on using these filter patch bags :smile:

--------------------
-Peace-

High Quality MUSHROOM SPORES and CULTURES for microscopy at www.muShrooms.com

muShrooms.com is the new web site of
www.thehawkseye.com

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