The guy I get grain spawn from comes with a guarantee to be pathogen free so they’re covered if contaminated, he makes these bags to order so something may have happened. He drops straight to my house so it’s really convenient . I’ve used these bags from him to inoculate buckets a few times now without and issue, . What do you think of this one?
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I’ve never grown gourmet mushrooms before but every grow is an experiment imo. That bag is sealed so let it grow out. Those look like rye berries do you know what else is in the substrate? The first bag I see a bit of bacterial contam on the mycelium but mushrooms are usually stronger that bacterial contam. Fungal contam are done out the door because they had spores that spread very easily. It you aren’t sure take a pic and ask your supplier his opinion. I guarantee he knows his work and should be able to give you solid advice on especially since you live in the same environment. Just my two cents.
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What’s the pressure cooker for?
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Sterilize grains, spawn, agar, jars and other equipment.
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Thought you’d all enjoy this - I put some hardwood pellets and sawdust spawn for winecap mushrooms in a couple grow bags indoors last year. I found out:
A. Winecaps are just as easy to grow as people say.
B. I don’t think they taste good at all. 
So yeah, whatever you’re going to invest the resources in growing, I recommend finding out first whether you like it. So glad I did a pair of grow bags rather than a big outdoor garden.
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Got some good practice at least.
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I’ve heard numerous people say this about wine caps 
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He only uses rye grain in the bags. They have pretty much looked like this the last couple times. I’m going to start cloning to agar and making these myself in the next couple months so I can bypass the cost and start collecting genetics. I’m by no means an expert in growing but I am an advanced forager and have been for about 20 years now so figured growing my own was the future. So far I’ve had 6 suscceful harvests from these bags in a row going into buckets of Aspen with zero problems so far and I actually sell these to a local restaurant I used to be the chef at. Literally just soaking the wood in hot tap water and they have been fine with zero issues yet, maybe this will be the first problem bag, I divided the two bags into four buckets anyway, see what happens. The pink oyster has been extremely set it and forget it to grow so far. I don’t care for pyschadelics anymore. I ate enough for a lifetime in my teen through 20’s. Figured out what the universe and life all meant and forgot the meaning when I came down way too many times to count lol. I think if I was to grow my own Shroomies to trip I would probably dabble a little but the last few times I took the little buggers they went very dark and disturbed my inner peace lol. I have eaten some amanita muscaria that I stumbled across in the woods because when they find you, yiu eat them. I like those more than psilocybin tbh
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This bag also looks badly contaminated. You want to see pure-white, fluffy growth that resembles marshmallow as it colonizes the grain. Unfortunately these bags appear to have mold and bacteria growing, and no visible mushroom mycelium in the second bag you showed.
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Definitely an acquired taste, much more like “potatoey asparagus” than I was expecting the first time I ate them. The caps are a great portobello replacement for stuffing and grilling, but beyond that I mostly just grow winecaps for the compost and the honeybees.
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Does pink oyster mycelium go pink? I was seeing lots of pink starting to form.
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Yeah, once the mycelium of Pleurotus Djamor (pink oysters) begins forming pins, it’ll go very light pink, but there is also a pathogen called Lipstick Mold that does that as well, so it can be deceiving. Sometimes the mycelium will stress-pin in response to an immune reaction, I’ve seen contaminated grain spawn do that with other species personally.
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So got my cheap reusable agar plates sterilized and almost ready to be noc’ed up.
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Are you dropping spores, or tissue culture?
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Spores to agar. All my cultures isolates and lc’s are toast haven’t done anything for 5 months.
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Ooh fun, what are you germing?
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Dude i want to grow my own shrooms!!
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Oh John Allen’s since those have been my favs and pf ? I forget off hand I was mailed it recently and not sure but probably another variety as well melmac or some PE maybe.
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Dude! It’s not hard lmk can get you reading some basic info on how to get started. Do you have a pressure cooker? Even an instapot can work.
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Do it brother @Dannyrawdog420 ! It’s not as difficult as it sometimes appears to be. The main thing is keeping everything clean/sterile, but even then, once you get into using agar, it really opens up the door to endless possibilities. When you start, always make more jars/bags than you need. Also, spread your spawn into more “smaller” tubs just incase something does go wrong, you will still likely get a few that are still good/clean instead of putting all your eggs in one basket. Over time you’ll begin to get a grasp on it n things becomes more clear n straightforward.
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