with perlite, just keep adding water. it lasts a while. i've noticed that after a while, it doesn't work as well. i don't know if it needs cleaned or not, but i just dumped it. it's cheap enough.

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[This message has been edited by Psychonaut (edited January 08, 2001).]

Dessicant may be cheap, but there is no reason to be wasteful, first allow them to rapidly dry to the ambiant humidity (using a small fan, such as those found in power computer power supplies) then finish them off by leaving them in a dessicant chamber.

I use a small cardboard box (5x8x8 inches) with a cutout on one side in which I have mounted a salvaged power supply fan (4 inches square). On the other side of the box I've cut several vent holes, about 5 square inches worth. The freshly harvested mushrooms are placed on the bottom of the box and the flaps are closed and the fan turned on. In less than 10 hours they have been dried to the ambiant humidity. The are then transfered to one of those round metal fruitcake tins with about 1/4 inch layer of Damp-Rid on the bottom and a small plastic dish in the middle. After a day or two there all remaining moisture has been removed (to the maximum extent that Damp-Rid will remove the humidity), and they can be transfered to the storage medium.

This one 1/4 layer of damp-rid has lasted most of a year (although it is beginning to stick together now and could be replaced at anytime).