I have a great deal of experience with this strain and I'll give you what tips I can. First of all this species is not very resistant to invaders. Likely you will fuck up before you get it right, and even after you get it right occasionally you will fuck up. But once you get it right... the trips pretty cool.

First of all I've always grown it out in large bags of manure straight from the field. I use liquid innoculation to innoc it. As far as casing goes nothing beats straight verm. Layer on the bottom, layer on the top and your good to go. If you're using straw I would suggest you make sure you've got a goodly layer of verm on the bottom one, and a not so thin one on top, so long as your substrate layer is sufficiently deep.

ThE JafF

As far as straight verm for other species... ABSOFRIGINLUTELY! hehe. Your exactly right, peat is a source of carbon based edible objects and therefore isn't the best casing material. Vermiculite stores *more* water than peat, so it is by all accounts a "technically" better casing material. In other words if your casing just to add water it's better than peat. More resistent for sure.