i3oosted said:

Doing a simple casing with half pints BRF cakes. Ive seen both ways, what are the pros/cons of doing each?

Also how do you determine how many cakes to crumble for casing? I know this is size of the casing dependent but give me a size to cakes to crumble ratio for an example, thanks.

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skaterickets said:

Well, not crumbling them could take a bit longer to colonize before pins since there's going to be those empty patches in between cakes. I think it's arguable whether they will have more/less yield, because I've seen pictures, and not crubling them is going to give you a hell of a high yield, but only/mainly on the casing layer on top of the cakes, while crumbling them gives you a pretty decent yield, but all around. You're also going to get better flushes with crumbled cases. Oh yes and non-crumbled casing can lead to uneven pinset much more often.

I basically see no reason why you wouldn't want to crumble them unless you're dealing with things can't be shaken during inoculation such as BRF.

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I've never had a whole cake take longer to pin, if anything, it's faster.  The myc isnt looking to "colonize" the vermiculite.  It's seeking out food essentially, growing through the verm.  Yield IMO is better with casing, and whole cakes have always worked better for me.  It may be one of those use-what-you-learned and what works best kinda things.  Better flushes with crumbled cakes? I again disagree with mostly everything you said!  Heh.  Stay tuned to my journal to see whole cakes cased. 



After further thought..  I think I will case 8 crumbled cakes along next to one that is 8 whole cakes and we will see what happens!   Check my journal within the next week.