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Asante
Mage


Registered: 02/06/02
Posts: 86,795
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Grain Gel -- a near ideal agar formula substitute
#7496806 - 10/08/07 09:48 AM (16 years, 3 months ago) |
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Agar media can be hard to come by or expensive, and if you make your own you often are faced with the task of gathering unusual ingredients.
No longer!
If you mix a bit of grain flour with water to a paste, and add this to boiling water under good stirring, you are left with a paste that gels or even solidifies when it cools.
It contains all the nutrients of the grain you're using, so if the fungus grows on a particular grain, you can be sure it will grown on the corresponding Grain Gel.
To make GG, grains like rye flour, millet flour and brown rice flour come to mind. You might even grind up WBS to create WBS Gel 
The heat of the boiling water turns the starches into dextrins, which form gels with cool water. When the GG is prepared, you can sterilize and pour it just like regular agar.
Like said: if it will grow on the grain, it will grow on its gel.
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Wronguy

Registered: 03/05/05
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Re: Grain Gel -- a near ideal agar formula substitute [Re: Asante]
#7496835 - 10/08/07 09:56 AM (16 years, 3 months ago) |
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I have moved this thread from Mushroom Cultivation to this forum so that discussion into the use of this substitute can reach a deeper scale. The idea sounds interesting, but I would like to see some more discussion prior to introducing this to our general cultivating audience.
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Asante
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Re: Grain Gel -- a near ideal agar formula substitute [Re: Wronguy]
#7496842 - 10/08/07 09:58 AM (16 years, 3 months ago) |
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Fine by me
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ThePyschonaut52
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Registered: 04/24/07
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Re: Grain Gel -- a near ideal agar formula substitute [Re: Asante]
#7497041 - 10/08/07 11:08 AM (16 years, 3 months ago) |
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can you write a proper tek? this definetly seems like good idea.
-------------------- "In god we trust..." -I guess we're screwed.
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Asante
Mage


Registered: 02/06/02
Posts: 86,795
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Re: Grain Gel -- a near ideal agar formula substitute [Re: ThePyschonaut52]
#7497169 - 10/08/07 11:46 AM (16 years, 3 months ago) |
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Lets discuss the ins and outs of it first
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theratatat
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Registered: 03/09/07
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Re: Grain Gel -- a near ideal agar formula substitute [Re: ThePyschonaut52]
#7497171 - 10/08/07 11:46 AM (16 years, 3 months ago) |
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This sounds really interesting and easier. A tek would be great!!!!
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ThePyschonaut52
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Registered: 04/24/07
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Re: Grain Gel -- a near ideal agar formula substitute [Re: theratatat]
#7497312 - 10/08/07 12:13 PM (16 years, 3 months ago) |
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well, i guess a problem that exists is the optimal ratio of ingredients needed to achieve a good nutrient/sugars content.
anyone got any clues
-------------------- "In god we trust..." -I guess we're screwed.
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ThePyschonaut52
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Registered: 04/24/07
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Re: Grain Gel -- a near ideal agar formula substitute [Re: ThePyschonaut52]
#7497331 - 10/08/07 12:16 PM (16 years, 3 months ago) |
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im gonna give this a try tomorrow.
-------------------- "In god we trust..." -I guess we're screwed.
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Asante
Mage


Registered: 02/06/02
Posts: 86,795
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Re: Grain Gel -- a near ideal agar formula substitute [Re: ThePyschonaut52]
#7497349 - 10/08/07 12:19 PM (16 years, 3 months ago) |
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Well the nutrients to dextrins ratio obviously is fixed. All that takes some tweaking would be the right flour-to-water ratio to form a gel that is stiff enough.
-------------------- Omnicyclion.org higher knowledge starts here
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ohmatic
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Re: Grain Gel -- a near ideal agar formula substitute [Re: Asante]
#7497502 - 10/08/07 01:00 PM (16 years, 3 months ago) |
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i dont see what would make PDA difficult at all, by every means as simple as it can get.
back when i didnt have a flowhood i could also make and pour my own dishes with close to 0% contam ratio.
i dont understand Quote:
Agar media can be hard to come by or expensive, and if you make your own you often are faced with the task of gathering unusual ingredients.
at all
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MONOTUB tek HEATBOMB tek RIP #cultivation! ....can't associate? well FUCK U !
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Andrew47
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Re: Grain Gel -- a near ideal agar formula substitute [Re: ohmatic]
#7497623 - 10/08/07 01:50 PM (16 years, 3 months ago) |
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Here in wisconsin I can get different rye flours at the store but no agar-agar, I'd have to go searching for it.
I know there is a tek for using brown rice flour as a substitute for agar already
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fastfred
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Re: Grain Gel -- a near ideal agar formula substitute [Re: Andrew47]
#7497698 - 10/08/07 02:22 PM (16 years, 3 months ago) |
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One of the main reasons that agar is used rather than gelatin or just anything that gels is that agar is non-nutritive. It can't be broken down by the organisms that you study. The problem with gelatin is that bacteria and other organisms will break it down and you end up with a watery soup rather than a nice solid plate.
Perhaps that's not so much of a problem with fungi, but once the media breaks down you're not going to have a nice solid that you can use to isolate from. Once it becomes watery any contaminants will pretty much infect the entire plate rather than just the area they happened to land on.
We've had a discussion about using guar gum as an agar substitute before. But that has problems also, mainly that it's harder to work with.
When working with substitutes that aren't non-nutritive and won't maintain gel strength I wonder why not just use standard substrate media instead? What advantages would gelling starch have since it doesn't really have the advantages that agar is usually used for?
You might do just as well making some sort of rice flour jello if you don't care that the gelatin will be degraded over time.
-FF
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Wronguy

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Re: Grain Gel -- a near ideal agar formula substitute [Re: Andrew47]
#7497711 - 10/08/07 02:27 PM (16 years, 3 months ago) |
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I personally see gel strength as the issue here. If the mix proposed does not have the gel strength of traditional agar, mycelia could potentially colonize the entire plate, inside and out.
The goal of agar is to have a 2 dimensional medium in which to observe growth and capture sectors. It seems difficult, if not impossible, to view and capture rhizomorphic sectors when you're working in a 3 dimensional environment. The goal is to have the growth on the surface only, not the entire plate.
Any other thoughts?
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Wronguy

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Re: Grain Gel -- a near ideal agar formula substitute [Re: Wronguy]
#7497717 - 10/08/07 02:29 PM (16 years, 3 months ago) |
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Oops. Looks like I was beaten to the punch. I was typing while you were replying FF.
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lorbitherize
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Registered: 11/24/05
Posts: 328
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Re: Grain Gel -- a near ideal agar formula substitute *DELETED* [Re: Asante]
#7499166 - 10/08/07 07:47 PM (16 years, 3 months ago) |
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Post deleted by lorbitherizeReason for deletion: ...
Edited by lorbitherize (10/08/07 07:50 PM)
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Xeluc
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Re: Grain Gel -- a near ideal agar formula substitute [Re: lorbitherize]
#7499676 - 10/08/07 09:57 PM (16 years, 3 months ago) |
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Well guys, I thought I remembered doing this like a year ago and my interest was sparked again by this topic. I did a very quick skim over the available teks on this site and got two mentions of this same idea. So here you guys go 
http://www.shroomery.org/8507/Funkybaloons-no-agar-growth-medium http://www.shroomery.org/8514/Agar-substitute
Btw, the latter seems to be more credible, but I posted both just for the info.
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Asante
Mage


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Posts: 86,795
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Re: Grain Gel -- a near ideal agar formula substitute [Re: Xeluc]
#7500709 - 10/09/07 07:39 AM (16 years, 3 months ago) |
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Quote:
* 2.5 grams of Brown Rice ground into a fine powder * 8 ml (cc) of water
Excellent, for grains the ratio probably won't be much different from this.
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bonghittr
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Re: Grain Gel -- a near ideal agar formula substitute [Re: Asante]
#7511072 - 10/11/07 10:23 PM (16 years, 3 months ago) |
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I was wondering what about uing the gel as a LC type solution, or for fruiting in the dish? I mean you could use the agar for the isolation use the slurry from the gel to innoc your grains*or whatever you use*
On a side note, I was wondering what kind of things can this be used for when it comes to lab sterile spores, and in a sterile environment. I know there are other thing, but I was looking at it from the aspect that once you isolate on agar and move your wedges to your gel, you can then pick the strongest and most developd rhizomorphic strands to innoc your sub with.
I would rather use a gel than a LC, with the gel i dont think you would face the problem of over wetting the substrate or any of those related issues.
please bear in mind I have been out of mycology for a while, so I have not read up completely on all the new techs and things. I am sorry if this has already been discussed somewhere in detail.
Bong
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odizzle
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Registered: 01/09/07
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Re: Grain Gel -- a near ideal agar formula substitute [Re: bonghittr]
#7511430 - 10/12/07 12:35 AM (16 years, 3 months ago) |
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hey yall well i saw this a my local organics shop a while back and of corse i had to buy http://www.lundberg.com/products/syrup_nf.shtml here's the link to the web site.  I'm not positive but i think it was like 6 bucks ur so. think its usefull!!!
GLUTEN-FREE ALLERGEN-FREE WHEAT-FREE they cook brown rice in pure filtered water then evaporate the water .Whats left is "golden syrup" Whole grain goodness Anybody seen or used this before??
-------------------- Grow yourself!
Edited by odizzle (10/12/07 12:36 AM)
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a_guy_named_ai
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Re: Grain Gel -- a near ideal agar formula substitute [Re: odizzle]
#7511545 - 10/12/07 02:08 AM (16 years, 3 months ago) |
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Hey everybody, I was reading the first few lines of the thread, and I havn't read all the posts yet, but I would just like to tell you that agar agar is not hard to find, and it is extremely cheap if you know where to look.
Go to one of those little oriental grocery stores, and ask them for agar agar. They'll sell it to you real cheap.
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