gw

First, let me talk about the jar itself. The reason that it needs to be straight or a "wide mouth" is so that you can slide the cake out when its ready to be birthed. If the jar is tapered or gets narrow at the top, it won't work. Want to figure out how a jar (any jar) will work, turn it upside down and picture a thick white cake sliding out of it:-)

I wash my jars out with water, just to get any dirt or dust out. I don't use soap becuase I don't want any residue left in the jar.

Mix your substrate. I think you said you were working with brown rice flour. Here are the amounts that I use and I've had excellent results with it.

To make 6 - 1/2 pint jars:
1 cup of brown rice flour
4 cups of vermiculite
1 cup of distilled water

Lana's one-4-one recipe:-)

Mix up all the contents in a bowl, make sure you use distilled water ($1.00 a gallon in any supermarket) This is so important I think. Tap water has many chemicals and it just doesn't work well, if at all.

Mix them all up well.

Then, grab one of your jars, put in enough substrate to fill it up unitl about 1/2 an inch from the top. Then fill the rest of the jar with 100% straight vermiculite. It supposedly helps to keep the contaminates out.

Now, The lids. I put 4 holes in the lids with the rubber seal facing upwards. I don't cover it up with foil becuase if the foil isn't securely attached on the jars, then you're done. The boiling water will seap into your jars and your substrate is garbage.

I use masking tape (the white kind that you use for packagaes) Cover up the holes with the tape. Get 2 pieces and make a cross on the lid. OH...put the lids on the jars before you put the tape on the lids. It just makes things easier.

The tape on the lid is that last thing I do before cooking my cakes:-)

It's really up to you on how you want to cook them. You don't need a pressure cooker. They're nice but for brown rice flour, they're not essential. I use a canning pot ($12.00) it has a little metal rack that you can set the jars in to keep them off of the bottom of the pot.

Ok, you've got your jars full of substrate. Your pot is boiling with water, now... What I do is loosen the lids on the jars. Not so they're dangling on the jar, but loose enough as if I wanted to, I could spin the lid off with one strong twist.

Put your jars in the pot, very important. You don't want the water to boil or bubble into your jars. I learned this the hard way;-)

I bought a canning pot just for this reason because it comes with a metal rack that attaches to the sides of the pot. It suspends your jars above the water and only the steam hits them.

After that, just put your jars in, and let them cook. Check them every so often to make sure that there's no water seeping into the jars.

Cook for at least one hour. I do it for 70 minutes sometimes just to feel safe.

Let your jars cool down.

Rip off the tape, innoculate with a clean syringe, and recover the holes with new tape.

Give it a shot!!!

Good Luck
Lana

Benzl and kake, first off I am a chick. And also, I am here and posting because I post on Off Topic, Other Drug, Trip Tips etc. I have decided to start growing after talking to other people. You'd be amazed at the people that DON'T grow. So stop being such a fuck, and give help. The only reason there might be 200 posts by the time i'm done is because of assholes like Benzl that give NO help...just talk outta their ass.

But thanks everyone. I'm gonna start tomorrow and after work today I'll go to some cooking store and get me a pressure cooker.

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"Pot also turns people into potheads."
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I can see it now
memories of other days
turn through my brain
but tonight as always
I cannot breathe
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i too started out as a newbie and asked questions on this bb for answers...but...within your quote of:

"Shookster, I printed out the WHOLE MMGG (all 56 pages) and I read through it all and I find it very useless for me. It has no information that helps me. yes it has information but not in depth enough. I didn't know how to prepare my kitchen for making the subtrate jars, and I didn't know I had to tape the jars...damnit this fuckin blows."

i started off with the mmgg and i'm not a deep thinker like you (as you claim), and i still understood it. what you've got to do is stop the panic and read the "grow/find" section of this website. within "grow/find" you'll see various documents from how to prepare your kitchen to perlite humidification methods. just don't post here and act like a total twat...use ur eyes and brain not your mouth (or in this case hands) to bitch!! and really, it's quite simple to tape your jars, there's holes on the lid where you have to just put tape over it...

i hope i don't sound mean by this one, but really anyone can do cultivation. it's not hard at all, and i'm sure you'll be successful at it if u have patience and do a little more research.

cheers

Man I so enjoyed that.

I hope you flip some guy the bird, he cuts you off and you're forced to swerve, in front of a Beatles tour bus, a football team, a FedEx truck, hauling hazardrous biological waste, the light turns red you have no grace and Hardcopy gets it all on tape so you can see the look on your face.

DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE

Man am I in a bad mood or WHAT?

.

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All that is gold does not glitter
Not all those who wander are lost
The old that is strong does not wither
Deep roots are not reached by the frost
From the ashes a fire shall be woken
A light from the shadows shall spring
Renewed shall be the blade that was broken
The crownless again shall be king.

I find that completely sterile jars will frequently smell pretty sour until the mycillia takes over (then it gets that great mushroom smell).

Unless you see nasty shit growing in there, just leave it alone. I never throw out a cake until it is obviously infected.

Delyrium, if 100% of your jars became infected (that is, you can actually see something other than the mycillia growing in all 8 jars), there are only two possabilities. Either your syringe was badly infected, or your substrate was not sterilized. The latter is the most likely.

I'd recommend reviewing your sterilization procedure.

"assholes like Benzl that give NO help...just talk outta their ass."

This is the person who pioneered one of the easiest small bulk-growing teks available - the first stage up from MMGG that allows partially-fruited cakes to run spawn through huge bowls of compost. It produces several more flushes and ounces of 'shrooms from something that fits in a single drawer.

This is the person who pioneered some of the microwave sterilisation techniques.

He has contributed small but significant advancements in home mycology. Something which you have yet to accomplish.

Learn who these people are before you disrespect them.

Link

I recomend you read the pf tek. You can find it at www.fanaticus.com . This tek is virtually fool proof for the first timer.

1.Make your own Brown Rice flour
A coffee grinder works best, just make sure it's sterile.For somereason I always get more shrooms/flushes when I make my own.
2.Sterile Enviroment is key , It probably is the most important influence. Make sure everything has been washed reall well.
3. I would use a Pf Tek syringe as they are a lot more forgiving then some strains.
I know thats not a lot of info but I hope it helps,
Peace
Good Luck

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"I was looking foward to a life of sex, drugs, and rock and roll,and what I got was AIDS, The war on drugs, and MTV."
-Chris Simunek

[This message has been edited by sean123 (edited January 22, 2000).]

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"To all the weed I've smoked......yo this blunts for you"

"To all the people I've offended.....Yea, FUCK YOU TOO!
~Quote from Eminem~

~PanTrop~

Since the only time your sterilized substrate will be exposed to the outside environment is during innoculation, and then only for the few moments it takes to inject solution, the chances of airborn contaminantes infecting your substrate is vanishing small.

If you are making your own prints sterility is certainly more important, as is (I suspect) seasonal and regional variations in the environment. I live in a fairly dry area, which may account for some of my low incidence of contamination with jar teks, even though my sterility practices are fairly lax. In very damp areas I would not be suprised to find a much higher count of viable airborn spores and bacterial contaminants (but then I'm just speculating).

When I started out as a first time grower I read _all_ tek's available. I then put 2 & 2 together (It got to be 9, right?) and made my own tek and put it threw extensive experimentation.

Out of my first attempt, 2 jars grew. That was all! I was happy anything grew at all, since I was "just experimenting". You can't expect perfect harvests on your first time.

Nowadays, if I want to grow mushrooms, I get perfect results & great harvests every time with a tek that some people would call old fashioned (& retarded perhaps).
But I still experiment, I think that it is a great learning experience and a _must_.

I hope to have shed some light.

Sorry you got flamed here, but you brought it upon yourself. I shall not contribute this time... But next time, Gadget... Next time...
(I am of course joking... I am a nice moomin. (at least as long as I am asleep...))

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//Moomin666 -When madness is an art...