Expectations

[B. Self Reliant]

Quick question. . . .

When the jars are sitting waiting to colonize, how tight should the jar lids be on. I have them on pretty loose right now because I read to leave them that way? SHould they be on tight or kind of loose?

 

[79towncar]

The lids should be on tight.. You only want gas exchange. Not fresh air getting into the jars.. Keep the lids tight and just make sure the holes are covered with a layer or two of pieces of tyvek or micropore tape..

 

[B. Self Reliant]

Just tightened them. Thanks.

Hopefully the white fuzzy spots will be big enough for images tomorrow! No signs of contamination yet. . .

 

[B. Self Reliant]

Day 11 Update

This is what 6 out of 7 jars look like. It stays about 70 degrees in the closet all the time. The last jar is a little behind due to only getting about 0.5 cc's from the syringe, where as the rest of them got about 2 cc's each. I plan on keeping one jar to make more jars anyways, so if one is a little behind, that's alright with me.

Closer shot. . .

This is what all the white spots look like as of now. They all look like the fuzzy type of spots as opposed to the ropey type. From what I understand, the ropey type is much more desirable. Is this true? If so, how bad will it be if all my bulk substrate is made with the fuzzy type?

No signs of contamination yet, so I'm stoked! Are they going slow for 11 days though, or am I just getting impatient?

 

[B. Self Reliant]

After seeing how slowly things have been going, I decided to add a heat source to the closet the jars are sitting in. I put a small desk lamp with a 65w bulb in there and within a half hour the closet had gone from 69 degrees to 74 degrees. That was yesterday, and the jars have already started to progress faster! Funny how that one variable changing made things go so much faster. I'll post some more pics soon, but as of now still no sign of contamination.

 

[79towncar]

Don't worry about the fuzzy mycellium.. Since you went multi-spore and used a spore syringe there will be a plethora of varied genetics in there.. Just wait until full colonization and then after you fruit you can clone your biggest and best specimens.. After that you can further isolate and improve your genetics and ultimately improve your flushes, yields and potency..

 

[B. Self Reliant]

Sounds good. The closet now stays at a steady 75 degrees and the jars are colonizing much faster now.

 

[B. Self Reliant]

Day 19 Update

Here's my first three jars. No signs of contamination in any of the jars, and the fuzzy white stuff is spreading very quickly. From what I understand, I should shake the jars when 20% of each one is colonized. Is that correct? If so, are they getting close?

Here's the other three. The six pictured here will be used to inoculate the bulk coco substrate I'll be using in the bins. The seventh jar got off to a slow start due to only getting the last drop or two from a spore syringe. That jar will be used to make more jars if necessary.

The closet's temp was raised from 68-70 degrees to 75-78, and that's helped tremendously in terms of moving things along at a tolerable pace. All I did was add a 65w tungsten light bulb in a desk lamp to the room the jars are in, but it's worked very well. If I end up doing this regularly, I'll get a temp. trigger for the lamp so the ideal temp is always maintained, but for my first time things are going well without all the fancy gear.

I'm trying to be forward thinking about the fruiting phase by making sure I have everything I need early. I have 5 gallon buckets with lids, a huge stock pot for the coco mixture, vermiculite, coco, & gypsum, but I still need my bins. Is there a particular model I should buy, or should I buy whatever fits my space as long as it has a clear lid? There's a 66 qt model at my local Home Depot that's clear with white lids. Could I just stack those on top of each other and then run a fluorescent tube down the side, or do mushrooms have more specific lighting requirements than that? If that's all they need, I'll be stoked because I can fit 3 of those bins on top of each other and run a single tube to light them all. If they need even, overhead lighting, then I'll need to go out and try and find bins with clear lids and then somehow rig up a light for above each one. That would be a pain in the ass though compared to stacking them. . .

 

[B. Self Reliant]

Day 22 Update
I'm heading out of town for a few days, so I decided t shake the jars up before I left. It feels so counter productive, but I'm looking forward to seeing the jars explode with growth after I get back.

No contaminants so far!

 

[st0ne]

Mushrooms only need light to trigger themselves to fruit. A single flouro in the room should do nicely. By your pictures everything seems to be going extremely well. The most important thing with mushrooms is keeping things sterile. In the past I had great success with colonizing birdseed, and yet always ended up with contamination in fruiting. Often times I would try to pasturize cow shit and straw, chasing the big yeilds. I always ended up with loads of mushrooms, but not what it should have been.

I'm a little older now, More Patient.
Perhaps it's time to pull out the spore syringes once more.

 

[B. Self Reliant]

Day 26 Update
Wow! It took those jars weeks to cononize the 20 needed to shake them up the first time, but took only two days to go bananas after letting them settle again. I shook them again for the decond time yesterday, and the contents of the jars were like one big chunk of white mycelium. Very motivating. As of this morning, all the jars are doing great after their second shake up and hopefully tomorrow I'll be going out to buy 66 qt tubs and mixing up my bulk substrate!

st0ne - I hope it works out for you your next time around. 79towncar and some other folks have been helping me along the way and they haven't steered me wrong yet. . . everything's been dead-on accurate. I'd sure they'd help you too!

 

[B. Self Reliant]

Day 29 Update

The jar on the left is an accurate representation of what the 6 primary jars all look like. They're all one big clump of solid white. The jar on the right is the oddball 7th jar that's a little bit behind. It did a killer job of closing the gap though. . . it almost caught up!

Does the jar on the left look ready to inoculate my bulk coco substrate? 79towncar told me to wait 5-7 days after they LOOK ready. . . so do they Look ready? I'd be stoked if I could mix up my coc/verm/gypsum substrate a week from now.

Speaking of the bulk substrate, from what I understand, I mix 10 pints of loose coco with one quart vermiculite, one quart coffee & 1/2 pint gypsum. Is that correct? I'm assuming the coffee is coffee that's been brewed, right? I don't drink the stuff, so I was going to go get a cup from the gas station. Sound legit?

I just bought this rack for my closet. Even with the limited headspace in my small closet it'll still accommodate three of the 66 quart Sterilite bins. Right now I have two of them in there, but I can fit another one up top if I decide to increase production in the future. I still need to hang a 4' fluorescent fixture behind the shelf so all the bins get light, but that's easy enough to do last minute.

How do I prepare my bins? From what I understand, the bulk substrate should be about 5" deep on the bottom. Do I need to line the bottom with something opaque or does light on the substrate not matter? Also, I know I need to drill holes and plug them with polyfill, but how many should I drill and how big around should they be?

I'm gonna need this info soon so please pipe up if you know what's up. . .. 79, you around anywhere?. . . .

 

[B. Self Reliant]

Day 45

Well, I hope it isn't possible for jars to be "overdone!" I just mixed them in with the bulk coco substrate today.

The bulk substrate is the one that 79towncar recommended. It's 10 quarts of loose coco, one quart of vermiculite, one cup of gypsum, and enough water to bring it to field capacity. I made 2.5 batches of this, but I should have made 3. After it was all mixed up, I put it into the pressure cooker and brought it to 190 degrees. This step suuuucks! So messy to put coco coir on the stove. . . . After the stove it went into two different home depot 5 gallons buckets with the lid placed on top. They sat in there until this morning when I started making my bins. . .

I made two tubs. Both are 66 qt. Sterilite brand tubs. The first one is filled to about 5-5.5", and the second one is filled to about 4". Each tub had (3) quart jars worth of inoculate mixed into it. I wanted to fill the second tub with 5.5" inches of bulk substrate too, but I didn't make enough. Next time I know to make three full batches in order to have enough for two tubs. I put two layers of Micropore tape over each bin's holes (there's fourteen 3/4" holes per bin), then put lots of saran wrap over the top of each bin before putting the lid on and setting it in the closet to do it's thing.

I used plenty of inoculate, so hopefully they don't take too long to colonize. We'll see where it's at in a few days. . .

What exactly am I looking for ? How do I know that the bulk substrate is ready to go into fruiting conditions?

 

[B. Self Reliant]

Day 48
I'm not going to take off the saran wrap to take pics because I don't want to screw up the process. The tub with the full 5" of bulk substrate has a few dime-sized spots that are colonized. This tub also received 1/2" of substrate on top of the mixed-in spawn, so I think it's taking a little time to work its way through that layer.

The second tub that only has 4" of substrate in it is killin' it! 1/3 of the surface are is already colonized and it's only been 3 days. I used the same amount of jars to inoculate each tub, so it makes sense that the tub with less bulk substrate in it would colonize first. More to come. . .

 

[79towncar]

Looking good... What your looking for is full colonization just like what happened inside your jars.. When the tubs are fully colonized then you can fruit them.. When you fruit them I would recommend putting the bins side by side instead of on-top of each other.. When you stack them the part of the tubs that are away from the light can get shaded.. Light is very very important to fruiting.. You are going to want 2 use as much light as possible without heating or drying out your substrate.. 1st let them fully colonize.. Once that happens you are going to need to mist and fan them a few times a day.. I can see right now that you are going to really have to fan them bins out alot because of the confined space..

Your looking good.. Keep an eye out for contams.. Make sure you wait until full colonization before fruiting... I know it can be hard but you really have to be patient with mushrooms.. You can run into alot of problems if you fruit too soon.. I'm still here although I haven't been on here in awhile.. But if you have any questions you can send me a PM and I'll get back to you as soon as I can.. Congrats on making it this far I'm glad you used my CoCo Substrate Tek, I hope it works well for you..

 

[79towncar]

I can really see the tubs in your pics.. Any way you could take a better photo? You dont have to open them I just want to see them in color from the outside.. What did you use on the bottom of the tubs as a liner?? Or did you just put the Bulk substrate right inside the tub??

 

[B. Self Reliant]

I'm out of town for a few days tending to my outdoor guerilla garden, but I'll take a better pic when I'm back home. Your advice has been right on & I appreciate it. When you weren't around I supplemented your info with info from the shroomery.

The tubs are clear with opaque, brown lids. There's a 4' fluorescent strip running down the wall plus the natural light that hits them from the other side that will light them up when fruiting conditions are triggered. There will also be a fan that's on 24/7 and it circulates air in & out of that small closet. I work at home so luckily I'll be able to fan quite a bit. The bottom of each tubs is lined with black plastic trash bags. There are two layers of micropore tape over each hole right now. I hope I didn't forget any major components to this operation. . .

No contaminants as of this point. Hopefully when I get back into town in a few days they will be well on their way to fruiting! If anyone has any suggestions, let me know. . .

 

[B. Self Reliant]

10 Days Since Inoculating Bulk Substrate

10 Days Since Inoculating Bulk Substrate

Here is a better image of by bins.

The holes are just slightly above the substrate & plastic's height.

There's condensate all over the bins, including the saran wrap on top. Is that typical or is this a bad thing?

Not the best image, but at least it shows how much of my substrate was colonized as of about 4 days ago. This is the bin with less substrate (4") and it also didn't receive any plain substrate over the inoculated mixture. The colonization that has taken place is mostly fuzzy growth.

This is the bin with a full 5" depth of substrate. It also received a thin layer of substrate on top of the inoculated mixture, so it's not showing as much colonization at this point. I'm guess this is because it has to "work its way through" the top layer of coco. The colonization that has taken place is mostly the rope-like growth with fuzzy stuff mixed in here & there.

 

[79towncar]

Hey your looking decent.. The substrate looks alittle on the wet side.. That could be what's making the bins take alittle longer.. But its not uncommon for bulk substrates to take a full 14-16 days or longer to colonize using unknown genetics without isolation.. Also alot depends on how much spawn was used as well.. Your looking good though.. From what I can see there is no contams so I wouldn't be worried about the slow colonization time.. If they aren't finished by day 14 or very close then you might be showing some signs of trouble.. But so far so good.. Hopefully that gave you some peace of mind.. Mycology is a slooow hobby..

 

[B. Self Reliant]

Thanks. It's always easier to relax when you have good info to base your opinion on. I hope all goes well, but if not I have a jar that can be used to inoculate more jars.

I'll give an update in a few days. . . .

If worse comes to worse and the substrate is too wet, would it be a waste of time to start fruiting conditions and just let it dry out a bit? If it isn't inoculated in a week or so, should I just toss it because fruiting at this point is a waste of time?