Unless you know how to sterilize a cake.. Maybe if you dig a piece out of the middle nice and clean? That could be interesting.

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I think the monkeys at the zoo should have to wear sunglasses so they can't hypnotize you.

There are a couple of better methods that I would use in place of this however. Check it.

1. Don't wait for your substrate to fruit. Once it is 100% colonized then you can be pretty sure that the mycelium is virile and thriving. Let's say you have 11 out of 12 1/2pt jars that survived (we'll subtract one due to possible contamination). I would use the other 10 jars exactly as you were planning on (birthing/casing) and reserve one jar. Keep this jar in a cool environment until needed, this is now called a "Spawn Master" (I wouldn't store it longer than a week to ensure 100% effectiveness, although in theory you should be able to store them for months under proper conditions). Now after you have birthed/cased the other 10 jars and thoroughly cleaned the contaminated one, sterilize them and prepare another batch the exact way. Except this time don't use spores. Use substrate from your "Spawn Master". Use about 1/10th of the Master per jar. Place them in the incubator and wait. You should notice growth in a couple of days. Once these jars are 100%, repeat, saving one jar and starting again.

2. If you are already too late in the game for this to be a viable option, don't fret man, we gots ya covered :P So you've already cased/birthed all of that beautiful mycelium? No problem, once you have mature fruits prepare another batch of jars, take a nice big/healthy looking shroom, and in a sterile environment and using sterile tools slice open the stem of the mushroom lengthwise (one big long cut up and down the middle of the stem). Now using a sterilized scalpel/knife cut a small chunk of shroom out and place it in your jar, repeat for the rest of your jars. Put them in incubatin' conditions and wait! When they are colonized, I would use step 1. as it's a bit simpler.

If you do this you can successfully shed about a week from your total production times. Doing this essentially bypasses spore germination and established a healthy myclial "core" fast, and that helps to beat out would-be contaminators.

Hope this answers your question and helps!

Thanx again.

As for the cutting of the mushroom the actual technique is to take the stem (all of this should be done in a sterile environment) and cut a little bit into it (1/16 of an inch?) in several pieces and then "peel" the "skin" of the stem, you should be left with the exposed inside of the mushroom. The exposed part is what you want to use to transfer, not the outside (too big of a risk of contamination). If you go under the Grow/Find section and look at the 9er TEK and look through it , it has pictures and very complete instructions on how to accomplish this. Go here: http://www.shroomery.org/9er/Cloning.html

Enjoy!

Or do I just lay it on top or something. Thanx again for your help. Sorry if I seem retarded or something.