T
tiacadra
Guest
I'm new to this site, I was brought here by interest in another topic. But I was browsing around and noticed a mushroom area! Cool news, good for you all, mushrooms are fantastic! I used to grow quite a few of the 'little guys' what I like to call them, because they are so damn cute when they are just past the pinning stage. I grew lots, lifetimes worth really. I had stopped growing for awhile, then met my gf (now my wife), who was interested in trying a psychedelic, she never had - well she came to the right place 
So I was like - sure I'll just whip up a batch (just = approx. 3 months by the way, for those that need to plan their time). Well, I get so addicted to this hobby that when I started up again for her to try, I kind of went above and beyond and she literally threatened to leave me if I continued. We were swimming in the damn things, they were everywhere, dehydrator (for eating), frigerator (for cloning), in dried bags in the closet for giving away & taking. They were in our tea, hell they were creeping into the honey for a nice morning cereal spread (only half joking there).
On a sidenote, I should point out that in my modest opinion, the little guys are not a recreational drug (unless you were to hippie-flip with them). Every psychedelic trip I've had was a challange at some point in the experience.
In any case, I should probably share what I've learned over the years about the little guys. But I need to first tell say that all of my technique comes from others for the most part. I amalgamate a number of different elements together from a variety of experts in the subject. I want to call special attention to some dude named eatyualive on another board for his efforts. He's the one that found strawnet and figured out the right proportions for the substrate. Genius! With strawnet you can get many, many flushes, and low likelihood of contams which is hard to do on straight up pasteurized chopped straw (my old technique), and you don't have to chop that shit thank GOD! Usually on straight up chopped & pasteurized straw, you get one flush (two if lucky) and then the green-machine comes a roarin over your substrate (at least it does in my parts) and you start to calculate your chances vs losses with salt packs & H2O2 disinfection. You do that once or twice and learn the rule. The rule is - if it is green, toss that shit and the bag it is in (more later). Not worth it to keep around, it'll fuck your shit up long after its gone if you chose stupidly to try and medicate a substrate.
In any case, here's what I used to do, hommage to my little guys, who have taught me so much. Note please that this is strictly for straw-loving varieties like psilocybe (stropharia) cubensis. This will not work for wood lovers.
First, needed some spores when I first got started. Got in touch with a dude named Captain Max - up in Canada. Don't know if he is still around, this was years and years ago. Cool guy, I had him send me like 16-20 different spore types, as syringes. I always over do it. Wound up consolidating over the course of a couple years to just two strains (Ecuador and Koh Samui, not that it matters much). I even had some Allen strain at one point, what a wild one that one was (wild = hard to domesticate). The biggest 'little guy' I ever had reached from one side of a 33" bin all the way to the other side and up the wall to the lid - it was about 45 inches long and the cap was about 7 inches (I don't keep notes - doing so in such a hobby is stupid imho - what you can commit to memory, you can commit to loss if you have to!). That biggie was India Orissa - they grow enormous sometimes. and it was one of only a few that fruited in the entire bin - as if it said fuck y'all I'm growin here, don't mess with my water and all the other pins aborted out of sheer terror for this motherfucker of a mushroom.
I got my spores originally as spore syringes from vendor Max. I didn't yet have the technique of creating spore syringes from prints. But thats something you learn right after your first couple flushes. Gotta keep 'em growing! So I had syringes and I made mistakes, I did the PF, variations on the PF, I tried microwaves, I tried birdseed, I tried rye berries, I tried funky concoctions for substrates, I tried Karo LC (liquid) you wouldn't even want to know what else. I tried lime, I tried casings, I tried all kinds of crap. Here's what I found worked the best:
1. Buy some birdseed without birdcoat (basically, buy the cheap shit with no additives or anything from your local feed or pet store). Avoid Penningtons for example.
2. Throw that in a big sterlite bin you bought from wally.
3. Dump a bunch of tap water (if you have hard tap water, be safe and buy 4-8 gallons of dH2O from the store, and use that, whatever is appropriate for your bin and how much seed you have in there) on it so that it is completely covered in water and let that sit for 24 hrs, but no more! If it goes past 36, you are going to hate your life and so is your wife. Also, I fill the seed about 1/3 up the side of the bin, then fill with water. If you got the birdseed that has the black sunflower looking seeds, please note that some folks scoop and filter the floating black seeds, I tend to do this as well, scooping as many of those out as possible, but I do it only because of an unproven voodoo fear that they cause issues. I've heard that they don't cause any issues. It's up to you.
4. Get your jars (12-24 is good - 16oz)
5. Pack your jars 2/3 - 3/4 full of this wet birseed (do not bring water over, the birdseed already has water in it as a result of the soaking).
6. Take the lids of the jars and pop two holes with a small nail on opposite sides.
7. After your jars have the birdseed, use a little paper towel to wipe off any weirdness around the edges of the jar, about a centimeter deep all around the glass so that it is clean. Make sure there is NO standing water in the bottom of the jars. Standing water = disaster.
7. Screw the lids onto the jars after you've cleaned them up.
8. Get some of that blue painters tape (or any masking tape) at the hardware store.
9. Rip off pieces of tape about 1" long and place them over the holes.
10. Take some tin foil and wrap up the lids.
11. Place tapped/taped/al wrapped jars in your sweet ass All American 41 Qt Pressure Cooker (or whatever pressure cooker you happen to have lying around). Place them up-right (not upside down). I've gotten away with sideways occasionally but wouldn't recommend it.
12. Crank it up on your stove (don't use a flat-top if you have one of these enormous PC's, they somehow transmit current between burners across the bottom of the aluminum pressure cooker). You can use your electric, gas, or propane stove/burner though.
13. Cook at 15 psi for about an hour and finish around 9pm
14. Let cool overnight.
15. Now it's morning, lets open the cooker, pew that stinks.
16. Pull out your jars, use a rag if its too hot.
17. Pour out that stinky water into the sink left over in the PC. Tell your wife you love her if she's home, or before she comes home and smells cooked birdseed permeating the homestead.
18. Stick the jars in a cupboard in their original boxes for a day to let them cool. If you don't do this, your spores could die on contact with the hot birdseed.
19. Cool, now they are cool. Lets remove the al foil on the tops.
20. Grab your syringe, a lighter, some 70% IPA (or whatever they sell you in your parts).
21. Grab your medical gloves (you can by these at wally too).
22. Wear gloves and wear a mask over your mouth and tie your hair back if it is long and make sure you shower and have clean clothes on prior to innoculation, and make sure you have TURNED OFF THE HEATER / AIR CONDITIONER! And make sure you've lightly sprayed the room you are in with lysol.
23. Put on your gloves, grab the syringe, grab the lighter, grab a shot glass, turn the shot glass upside down, pour some IPA on the top, light that shit on fire, should make a nice little flame. Hold the metal part of the syringe over the flame, make that red tip go back about halfway then forward again to the tip of the syringe. You are sterilizing it. Don't you feel like smacky dope fiend today? Yeah - don't do this with family around, they would probably start wondering about you.
24. Squirt just A LITTLE of the water/spore solution out of the syringe, it might pop a little bit, you are cooling it down prior to injection.
25. Grab a jar, pull back DELICATELY the tape from one of the holes but only enough to show the hole (like a chicks panties you know, when you are checking out the good stuff and getting ready for action!)
26. Insert syringe needle down side of jar, and depress syringe releasing about 1-2 CC of spore solution AS YOU PULL THE SYRINGE OUT! Yes more analogies, I won't mention.
27. Real quick like tape that hole back with the original tape that you didn't completely unstick, right?
28. Do same with other side, and do same with every other jar you have. If you made your own syringes from your own prints originally, you should have PLENTY of spore solution. If you bought your spore syringes, well, don't fret if you have 48 jars and 4 syringes, just do 20 jars and toss out the rest (ie, toss the birdseed & wash the jars for future use).
29. Sterilize your syringe between each jar innoculation.
30. Now that all your jars have been innoculated and the tape replaced over the holes in the jars after each innoculation, put your jars in a nice safe spot away from disruption. Some say dark, some say it doesn't matter... I'm in the latter camp. I've done both, and it doesn't matter. Sometimes you'll get invitro mushies growin in the jar when incubated in light, but that's not really a problem unless you hate picasso.
31. Wait for 5 weeks as these jars become completely colonized. If any jars get green shit, red shit, or black shit, toss the jars (DO NOT OPEN THEM! NOT WORTH THE RISK!). Typically you'll see a jar go completely white (yes i know you are checking every freakin day), but please wait 1 week past full colonization by outside appearance. You want the inside to be completely colonized as well.
32. DO NOT open the jars unless you see absolutely no birdseed, when the thing is basically completely white, colonized with mycelium. Should look like frosting on a wedding cake, beautiful white goodness.
33. Now that the remaining jars are colonized completely, lets go make your bulk sub.
34. Previous to all of this around the time you bought your spores, you went on the web and looked up something called Strawnet, and bought it. This is pelletized straw. I used to buy 50lb bags for $25. I don't know what it is these days. 1 or 2 bags would be enough for... tons of little guys.
35. You also went to the garden store and bought a bunch of coco coir. At least several bricks. Just whatever they have - keep it around.
36. Put new gloves on prior to making your bulk sub.
37. Now take 8 cups of strawnet, put it in a BIG pot and put that on the stove, and cook for 30 minutes at just steaming. This stuff expands 300% so make sure it is a big pot.
37. Now strain the strawnet in a strainer. You'll lose some over the sides, it's ok.
39. Now take your coir and submerge it in water, allowing it to expand for about 15-30 minutes.
40. Get a bowl of medium grain vermiculate and mix it in with the expanded coir. Buy the verm at the same spot you bought the coir.
41. Put the strawnet in and mix with your gloves on, make sure to mix it well, it is an even brownish-greenish color as a result of the even mix of verm/coir/strawnet
42. Now that it is all mixed up you can do the squeeze test for water content - that is just get some in your fist and squeeze. If more water than a few drops comes out, then you should add some more vermiculite to saok it up.
43. The water content is now good, so you can clean out a big sterlite tub with lysol and wipe the insides with a clorox bleach rag. You don't need the lid of this thing, I'll explain why later.
44. Now prior to cleaning the tub, you took a hammer and heated up the end of it real hot and pushed a big quarter size hole in four spots (two top, two bottom) on the short sides of the tub. The bottom holes are about 2" from the bottom of the tub. The top holes are about 3-4" from top of tub. You filled these with polyfil which you can get at wally. Same place you bought the sterlite tubs and jars.
45. Once moisture content is good, you may add mix into aluminum turkey tins that will fit inside your oven. I've had to phase them because only have one smallish oven.
46. Place foil over the turkey tins and stack them in oven for 4 hours. Allow the tins to cool overnight along with the jars you just removed from the PC. Good thing you read this whole thread from start to finish before beginning this process right?
47. Now take a big black (or white) trashbag and place it in the bottom of the tub, you may have to fold it. The idea is that it covers the bottom of the tub and the edges up to about 3-4".
48. Now you can take your mixed up substrate and spread it around the bottom of the tub on top of the trash bag. The trash bag is useful because it makes an easy way to dispose of spent substrates and makes cleaning the bin after each use easier. Spread your bulk sub about 2" deep. Some go deeper, I haven't found a need - it's not the thickness of your sub, it's how you use it, right bro?
49. Do this for like 4 tubs or more, because you have at least 12 jars that are finished, right? think 2-3 jars per bed, and each jar that goes in one bed must be of the same strain (unless you are weird and love to see mycelium fight).
50. Now take your colonized jars and birth them. This means to open the lids and pop out the white cake. Crumble that in your fingers or with a fork all over your newly placed substrate. Again, 2-3 jars per tub would be good. crumble it really well.
51. Mix that up well (with new gloves on), and then cover the tubs with large plastic material (lid or really wide saran wrap like stuff is what I use).
52. Place tubs in rack, each rack should have a florescent light taped to the shelf above it so that it shines straight down (mushrooms rise to the source of light I've noticed).
53. Let that sub sit for 3-5 weeks as it colonizes (depends on speed of strain, how deep your substrate is, how many jars you used). Wait some more, wait some more, wait some more.
54. Keep the light on, once fully colonized you can... wait some more! Wait for pins - takes 2 weeks.
55. Now when you see pins (little tiny white dots that rise just barely above the substrate), do a backflip because now you get to wait even more.
56. Keep waiting as the mushrooms mature from pins to full blown mushrooms. Ok the waiting is over, damn you'll say I was checking every day and they still took their time.
57. If a sub gets green stuff (you'll know it when you have it) anywhere on it, toss the whole thing except the tub itself (pull the bag out with the contaminated sub in it). Lysol / Clorox the shit out of that tub for re-use.
58. Now let them grow!
59. Allow caps to open, use a needle or hooked pin to latch onto dome of cap. Use alcohol sterilized scissors to cut stem right beneath the cap. Place this cap on a piece of tin foil that you previously cut out a rectangle of (about 4"x8") and folded in half. The little guy cap should go right inside the tin foil, and the rest of the foil pushed over the cap. Do this with several caps. As many as you'd like, you can still eat these mushies. Some say open cap mushies less strong than closed cap mushies, but I don't think it matters when you've got fifty tubs of this goodness in your basement.
60. Wait 24 hrs while you pick the rest of the little guys and dry them. Dehydrators are useful, but be sure to dismantle the heating element. Don't want to destroy the psilly!
61. Now pull the cap out of the tin foil and fold the foil edges around so that no air can enter or escape.
62. Save that print for later.
63. Continue to harvest mad flushes of awesome little guys.
64. Throw out your spent substrates or rehydrate them with tap water & see what else you can get out of it.
65. Now you have spore prints. You can use your original syringes or go to a horse and feed store and buy syringes.
66. To create a new spore syringe right before use, sterilize the tip of the syringe, open the foil carefully on one edge of the print. Fill syringe with dH2O at RT and then squirt it carefully, a few ml at a time onto the print over the exposed spores without folding back the foil (so you are looking into it sort of sideways). Now once you have some water in there, scrape GENTLY the tin foil where the spores are to loosen them up and then suck the water back into your syringe. Do this with a couple more syringes. One print can make quite a few syringes, but make them as dark as you like. There's nothing like black syringe
67. Repeat steps 1-66 scaling up continuously until pretty soon your gf threatens to leave you over fear of the MAN. Crack a beer and scale back, find a good friend and give him/her 5 big gallon zip locks of freshies for their birthday, as a surprise
And that's pretty much it! I'm sure I've left stuff out, but thats kind of the process in a nutshell. I hope someone out there tries this method, you will make mistakes, you'll get the nasty trich, you'll have water logged jars, you'll have stalled jars, you'll have stalled bulk subs, but in the end when you get the technique down, it can get to the point where all you do every day, all day, is harvest and prepare new subs & jars. It gets really quite rediculous in terms of size. I have no idea why people buy mushrooms these days, when techniques like this exist on the net. Everyone should grow.
Best,
Tia.
So I was like - sure I'll just whip up a batch (just = approx. 3 months by the way, for those that need to plan their time). Well, I get so addicted to this hobby that when I started up again for her to try, I kind of went above and beyond and she literally threatened to leave me if I continued. We were swimming in the damn things, they were everywhere, dehydrator (for eating), frigerator (for cloning), in dried bags in the closet for giving away & taking. They were in our tea, hell they were creeping into the honey for a nice morning cereal spread (only half joking there).On a sidenote, I should point out that in my modest opinion, the little guys are not a recreational drug (unless you were to hippie-flip with them). Every psychedelic trip I've had was a challange at some point in the experience.
In any case, I should probably share what I've learned over the years about the little guys. But I need to first tell say that all of my technique comes from others for the most part. I amalgamate a number of different elements together from a variety of experts in the subject. I want to call special attention to some dude named eatyualive on another board for his efforts. He's the one that found strawnet and figured out the right proportions for the substrate. Genius! With strawnet you can get many, many flushes, and low likelihood of contams which is hard to do on straight up pasteurized chopped straw (my old technique), and you don't have to chop that shit thank GOD! Usually on straight up chopped & pasteurized straw, you get one flush (two if lucky) and then the green-machine comes a roarin over your substrate (at least it does in my parts) and you start to calculate your chances vs losses with salt packs & H2O2 disinfection. You do that once or twice and learn the rule. The rule is - if it is green, toss that shit and the bag it is in (more later). Not worth it to keep around, it'll fuck your shit up long after its gone if you chose stupidly to try and medicate a substrate.
In any case, here's what I used to do, hommage to my little guys, who have taught me so much. Note please that this is strictly for straw-loving varieties like psilocybe (stropharia) cubensis. This will not work for wood lovers.
First, needed some spores when I first got started. Got in touch with a dude named Captain Max - up in Canada. Don't know if he is still around, this was years and years ago. Cool guy, I had him send me like 16-20 different spore types, as syringes. I always over do it. Wound up consolidating over the course of a couple years to just two strains (Ecuador and Koh Samui, not that it matters much). I even had some Allen strain at one point, what a wild one that one was (wild = hard to domesticate). The biggest 'little guy' I ever had reached from one side of a 33" bin all the way to the other side and up the wall to the lid - it was about 45 inches long and the cap was about 7 inches (I don't keep notes - doing so in such a hobby is stupid imho - what you can commit to memory, you can commit to loss if you have to!). That biggie was India Orissa - they grow enormous sometimes. and it was one of only a few that fruited in the entire bin - as if it said fuck y'all I'm growin here, don't mess with my water and all the other pins aborted out of sheer terror for this motherfucker of a mushroom.
I got my spores originally as spore syringes from vendor Max. I didn't yet have the technique of creating spore syringes from prints. But thats something you learn right after your first couple flushes. Gotta keep 'em growing! So I had syringes and I made mistakes, I did the PF, variations on the PF, I tried microwaves, I tried birdseed, I tried rye berries, I tried funky concoctions for substrates, I tried Karo LC (liquid) you wouldn't even want to know what else. I tried lime, I tried casings, I tried all kinds of crap. Here's what I found worked the best:
1. Buy some birdseed without birdcoat (basically, buy the cheap shit with no additives or anything from your local feed or pet store). Avoid Penningtons for example.
2. Throw that in a big sterlite bin you bought from wally.
3. Dump a bunch of tap water (if you have hard tap water, be safe and buy 4-8 gallons of dH2O from the store, and use that, whatever is appropriate for your bin and how much seed you have in there) on it so that it is completely covered in water and let that sit for 24 hrs, but no more! If it goes past 36, you are going to hate your life and so is your wife. Also, I fill the seed about 1/3 up the side of the bin, then fill with water. If you got the birdseed that has the black sunflower looking seeds, please note that some folks scoop and filter the floating black seeds, I tend to do this as well, scooping as many of those out as possible, but I do it only because of an unproven voodoo fear that they cause issues. I've heard that they don't cause any issues. It's up to you.
4. Get your jars (12-24 is good - 16oz)
5. Pack your jars 2/3 - 3/4 full of this wet birseed (do not bring water over, the birdseed already has water in it as a result of the soaking).
6. Take the lids of the jars and pop two holes with a small nail on opposite sides.
7. After your jars have the birdseed, use a little paper towel to wipe off any weirdness around the edges of the jar, about a centimeter deep all around the glass so that it is clean. Make sure there is NO standing water in the bottom of the jars. Standing water = disaster.
7. Screw the lids onto the jars after you've cleaned them up.
8. Get some of that blue painters tape (or any masking tape) at the hardware store.
9. Rip off pieces of tape about 1" long and place them over the holes.
10. Take some tin foil and wrap up the lids.
11. Place tapped/taped/al wrapped jars in your sweet ass All American 41 Qt Pressure Cooker (or whatever pressure cooker you happen to have lying around). Place them up-right (not upside down). I've gotten away with sideways occasionally but wouldn't recommend it.
12. Crank it up on your stove (don't use a flat-top if you have one of these enormous PC's, they somehow transmit current between burners across the bottom of the aluminum pressure cooker). You can use your electric, gas, or propane stove/burner though.
13. Cook at 15 psi for about an hour and finish around 9pm
14. Let cool overnight.
15. Now it's morning, lets open the cooker, pew that stinks.
16. Pull out your jars, use a rag if its too hot.
17. Pour out that stinky water into the sink left over in the PC. Tell your wife you love her if she's home, or before she comes home and smells cooked birdseed permeating the homestead.
18. Stick the jars in a cupboard in their original boxes for a day to let them cool. If you don't do this, your spores could die on contact with the hot birdseed.
19. Cool, now they are cool. Lets remove the al foil on the tops.
20. Grab your syringe, a lighter, some 70% IPA (or whatever they sell you in your parts).
21. Grab your medical gloves (you can by these at wally too).
22. Wear gloves and wear a mask over your mouth and tie your hair back if it is long and make sure you shower and have clean clothes on prior to innoculation, and make sure you have TURNED OFF THE HEATER / AIR CONDITIONER! And make sure you've lightly sprayed the room you are in with lysol.
23. Put on your gloves, grab the syringe, grab the lighter, grab a shot glass, turn the shot glass upside down, pour some IPA on the top, light that shit on fire, should make a nice little flame. Hold the metal part of the syringe over the flame, make that red tip go back about halfway then forward again to the tip of the syringe. You are sterilizing it. Don't you feel like smacky dope fiend today? Yeah - don't do this with family around, they would probably start wondering about you.
24. Squirt just A LITTLE of the water/spore solution out of the syringe, it might pop a little bit, you are cooling it down prior to injection.
25. Grab a jar, pull back DELICATELY the tape from one of the holes but only enough to show the hole (like a chicks panties you know, when you are checking out the good stuff and getting ready for action!)
26. Insert syringe needle down side of jar, and depress syringe releasing about 1-2 CC of spore solution AS YOU PULL THE SYRINGE OUT! Yes more analogies, I won't mention.
27. Real quick like tape that hole back with the original tape that you didn't completely unstick, right?
28. Do same with other side, and do same with every other jar you have. If you made your own syringes from your own prints originally, you should have PLENTY of spore solution. If you bought your spore syringes, well, don't fret if you have 48 jars and 4 syringes, just do 20 jars and toss out the rest (ie, toss the birdseed & wash the jars for future use).
29. Sterilize your syringe between each jar innoculation.
30. Now that all your jars have been innoculated and the tape replaced over the holes in the jars after each innoculation, put your jars in a nice safe spot away from disruption. Some say dark, some say it doesn't matter... I'm in the latter camp. I've done both, and it doesn't matter. Sometimes you'll get invitro mushies growin in the jar when incubated in light, but that's not really a problem unless you hate picasso.
31. Wait for 5 weeks as these jars become completely colonized. If any jars get green shit, red shit, or black shit, toss the jars (DO NOT OPEN THEM! NOT WORTH THE RISK!). Typically you'll see a jar go completely white (yes i know you are checking every freakin day), but please wait 1 week past full colonization by outside appearance. You want the inside to be completely colonized as well.
32. DO NOT open the jars unless you see absolutely no birdseed, when the thing is basically completely white, colonized with mycelium. Should look like frosting on a wedding cake, beautiful white goodness.
33. Now that the remaining jars are colonized completely, lets go make your bulk sub.
34. Previous to all of this around the time you bought your spores, you went on the web and looked up something called Strawnet, and bought it. This is pelletized straw. I used to buy 50lb bags for $25. I don't know what it is these days. 1 or 2 bags would be enough for... tons of little guys.
35. You also went to the garden store and bought a bunch of coco coir. At least several bricks. Just whatever they have - keep it around.
36. Put new gloves on prior to making your bulk sub.
37. Now take 8 cups of strawnet, put it in a BIG pot and put that on the stove, and cook for 30 minutes at just steaming. This stuff expands 300% so make sure it is a big pot.
37. Now strain the strawnet in a strainer. You'll lose some over the sides, it's ok.
39. Now take your coir and submerge it in water, allowing it to expand for about 15-30 minutes.
40. Get a bowl of medium grain vermiculate and mix it in with the expanded coir. Buy the verm at the same spot you bought the coir.
41. Put the strawnet in and mix with your gloves on, make sure to mix it well, it is an even brownish-greenish color as a result of the even mix of verm/coir/strawnet
42. Now that it is all mixed up you can do the squeeze test for water content - that is just get some in your fist and squeeze. If more water than a few drops comes out, then you should add some more vermiculite to saok it up.
43. The water content is now good, so you can clean out a big sterlite tub with lysol and wipe the insides with a clorox bleach rag. You don't need the lid of this thing, I'll explain why later.
44. Now prior to cleaning the tub, you took a hammer and heated up the end of it real hot and pushed a big quarter size hole in four spots (two top, two bottom) on the short sides of the tub. The bottom holes are about 2" from the bottom of the tub. The top holes are about 3-4" from top of tub. You filled these with polyfil which you can get at wally. Same place you bought the sterlite tubs and jars.
45. Once moisture content is good, you may add mix into aluminum turkey tins that will fit inside your oven. I've had to phase them because only have one smallish oven.
46. Place foil over the turkey tins and stack them in oven for 4 hours. Allow the tins to cool overnight along with the jars you just removed from the PC. Good thing you read this whole thread from start to finish before beginning this process right?
47. Now take a big black (or white) trashbag and place it in the bottom of the tub, you may have to fold it. The idea is that it covers the bottom of the tub and the edges up to about 3-4".
48. Now you can take your mixed up substrate and spread it around the bottom of the tub on top of the trash bag. The trash bag is useful because it makes an easy way to dispose of spent substrates and makes cleaning the bin after each use easier. Spread your bulk sub about 2" deep. Some go deeper, I haven't found a need - it's not the thickness of your sub, it's how you use it, right bro?
49. Do this for like 4 tubs or more, because you have at least 12 jars that are finished, right? think 2-3 jars per bed, and each jar that goes in one bed must be of the same strain (unless you are weird and love to see mycelium fight).
50. Now take your colonized jars and birth them. This means to open the lids and pop out the white cake. Crumble that in your fingers or with a fork all over your newly placed substrate. Again, 2-3 jars per tub would be good. crumble it really well.
51. Mix that up well (with new gloves on), and then cover the tubs with large plastic material (lid or really wide saran wrap like stuff is what I use).
52. Place tubs in rack, each rack should have a florescent light taped to the shelf above it so that it shines straight down (mushrooms rise to the source of light I've noticed).
53. Let that sub sit for 3-5 weeks as it colonizes (depends on speed of strain, how deep your substrate is, how many jars you used). Wait some more, wait some more, wait some more.
54. Keep the light on, once fully colonized you can... wait some more! Wait for pins - takes 2 weeks.
55. Now when you see pins (little tiny white dots that rise just barely above the substrate), do a backflip because now you get to wait even more.
56. Keep waiting as the mushrooms mature from pins to full blown mushrooms. Ok the waiting is over, damn you'll say I was checking every day and they still took their time.
57. If a sub gets green stuff (you'll know it when you have it) anywhere on it, toss the whole thing except the tub itself (pull the bag out with the contaminated sub in it). Lysol / Clorox the shit out of that tub for re-use.
58. Now let them grow!
59. Allow caps to open, use a needle or hooked pin to latch onto dome of cap. Use alcohol sterilized scissors to cut stem right beneath the cap. Place this cap on a piece of tin foil that you previously cut out a rectangle of (about 4"x8") and folded in half. The little guy cap should go right inside the tin foil, and the rest of the foil pushed over the cap. Do this with several caps. As many as you'd like, you can still eat these mushies. Some say open cap mushies less strong than closed cap mushies, but I don't think it matters when you've got fifty tubs of this goodness in your basement.
60. Wait 24 hrs while you pick the rest of the little guys and dry them. Dehydrators are useful, but be sure to dismantle the heating element. Don't want to destroy the psilly!
61. Now pull the cap out of the tin foil and fold the foil edges around so that no air can enter or escape.
62. Save that print for later.
63. Continue to harvest mad flushes of awesome little guys.
64. Throw out your spent substrates or rehydrate them with tap water & see what else you can get out of it.
65. Now you have spore prints. You can use your original syringes or go to a horse and feed store and buy syringes.
66. To create a new spore syringe right before use, sterilize the tip of the syringe, open the foil carefully on one edge of the print. Fill syringe with dH2O at RT and then squirt it carefully, a few ml at a time onto the print over the exposed spores without folding back the foil (so you are looking into it sort of sideways). Now once you have some water in there, scrape GENTLY the tin foil where the spores are to loosen them up and then suck the water back into your syringe. Do this with a couple more syringes. One print can make quite a few syringes, but make them as dark as you like. There's nothing like black syringe
67. Repeat steps 1-66 scaling up continuously until pretty soon your gf threatens to leave you over fear of the MAN. Crack a beer and scale back, find a good friend and give him/her 5 big gallon zip locks of freshies for their birthday, as a surprise
And that's pretty much it! I'm sure I've left stuff out, but thats kind of the process in a nutshell. I hope someone out there tries this method, you will make mistakes, you'll get the nasty trich, you'll have water logged jars, you'll have stalled jars, you'll have stalled bulk subs, but in the end when you get the technique down, it can get to the point where all you do every day, all day, is harvest and prepare new subs & jars. It gets really quite rediculous in terms of size. I have no idea why people buy mushrooms these days, when techniques like this exist on the net. Everyone should grow.
Best,
Tia.
