Morning update, I think a couple will be ready to pick tonight, I donât want spores everywhere but none have opened yet.
Then thereâs the next box, the one I was originally focused on 
No need to. Just give the surface a light mist to keep the humidity up, really donât need to do much at this point. Donât let it dry out but donât overdo it on spraying. Maybe one to two light sprays a day until harvest then soak the cake for a couple hours afterwards, drain, and put back into fruiting conditions.
As far as harvesting goes, Iâd just wait until the first one starts to spread and tears the veil then harvest the whole tub.
If Iâm isolating myc I typically try to have more than one plate to pull from. And, unless I am really fucking determined that nasty one is getting nuked. If it is my last culture or a wild specimen then I scramble.
With that said I do this with plant tissue culture too. Anything funky gets autoclaved, very few exceptions. If I am doing a valuable subculture and I see something funny then I dip the explant into NaDCC and swirl it around for a minute or two before I move it to new media. Sometimes it works, sometimes it does not.
I also have a full-size lab hood and not a SAB so YMMV.
Oh well youâre in way deeper than most of us. lol. I have a flow hood but moved recently and havenât set it back up. I typically do any cleanup in a SAB though so when I open the contaminated plate itâs a bit more contained. Quickly get the nice mycelium out of the gross one and in the new plate, close it, seal it, and trash it then sterilize/sanitize everything. When I first started I was doing Uncle Bens tek and cracked a bag that was all black in my kitchen outside of the SAB, was worried for the rest of the grow that I fucked up everything. lol
Yep, mold contamination gets worked on in SAB. Bacterial isnât as much of a problem, but yea, donât want stuff being blown around into your space.
Well, about to pick my first set! These are cubes right 
?
Second box is right behind, about to put the other tub on top of this one too
Those are some very interesting-looking clusters!
What variety is it supposed to be?
Itâs suppose to be a z-strain isolate. I need to get better at making sure the substrate is flat and evenly packed, thatâs for sure. I harvested a good handful, thereâs many that havenât opened yet, Iâll get them in the morning. I pored some water down the side of the tub and letting it soak for a bit too. Man fruiting really pumps all that water up and out of the substrate.
Oh, the bare stem without a cap, I cut the top off to make a print to frame, never kept a fan leaf off my first plant, figured Iâd do this since I can save a pretty looking mushroom. I mean, I could preserve a whole one in alcohol but itâll leach the color out too.
yeah they look to be. they should also bruise blue where you cut them during the harvest(looks like they are in the one pic where a cap is missing), thatâs the easiest way to tell if theyâre active. If youâre going to keep going with your grows, one of the best tools I accidentally found was aquarium scissors used for trimming live plants. Theyâre long handled and curved at the end, pretty sharp too, so it was easy to cut near flush with the substrate without damaging the surface.
I know exactly the scissors your talking about. Thatâs a good idea. The next box is going to be a bit more tricky to pluck individuals, I was actually trying to get the base unbroken after I saw it had a rounded base that would disconnect. I know with identifying mushrooms thatâs sometimes a feature and shape to look at.
Wow. I picked this box all at once
I got the bocks in the first two boxes soaking now for a second flush.
Drying on top of a dehumidifier worked nice, except the spores flying all over and my eyes started to tingle. I now have them on top of my LEDs in the grow tent, constant air movement below them and exhaust with carbon filter set to 49% humidity, it should get them dry pretty nicely.
It works I slept with my door barricaded for years. I wouldn't engage with people and lived in isolation for years. No barricaded doors and no harmful chronic isolation. I talk to people now engaging conversations. like a healthy human being. Peace
Been thinking about growing mushrooms for a minute. How viable would setting up in my lung room be?
I remember being a lot better when indulged in psychedelics back in the day and kinda want to try microdosing for an extended period to help with my depression, ptsd, and borderline personality disorder.
Just need a table you can sanitize and have space for a large tote to use for a Still Air Box (SAB). If you use grain bags or mason jars with self healing injection ports, it makes working with them a lot easier. Agar work can also be done that way, I made a bunch of mini jars with agar and injection ports so I donât have to open them or necessary to do in a SAB (still recommended, the needle and samples still exposed).
Check out Philly golden teacher or 90sec mycology on YouTube. Rice bags or broke boi tek is very beginner friendly, but you have to take the right precautions still; and putting spores to grains without testing for contamination is always a gamble
Iâve got space for a table and totes, shopping out a pressure cooker, theyâre pricier than expected but not unreasonable.
Make sure you get a pressure canner not cooker.
Then youâd want a cooker⌠not like an instant cooker but an actual pressure cookerâŚneed to get your grains to 15psi to kill endospore growth so the seeds wonât germ⌠like my instapot maxes at like 11 I think, God knows the lady was trying to make me happy when she brought it home thinking I could use it for mushrooms lol
Just have to be super careful with the big pressure bomb sitting on the stove .
If youâre looking to get started easy without buying a lot of stuff look into âUncle Ben Tekâ. Youâre just inoculating precooked bags of Uncle Benâs Brown Rice. Itâs the easiest, cheapest, and quickest way to get started.
This, if youâre going the route of sterilizing your own grains you need a canner. You need to get to 15psi and most cookers donât go that high. Again, I canât recommend the UB Tek enough. PhillyGoldenTeacher on youtube also has some good videos on other easy teks to get started with that donât require canners. Thereâs a high chance with working from a spore syringe that you might get some contaminated grain, so I will always recommend starting with the cheapest way possible, then while your first grow is going start getting the gear to do your own grain jars. Do one more UB bag than you plan on growing, when they are colonized break up the mycelium cake and drop chunks into new grain jars and then youâre off to the races for sustained grows. Can learn about agar plates after that.
Thatâs a great haul! Not sure about that drying method, let us know if it works. I let mine sit in a food dehydrator at 120f for up to 48hrs as they need to be cracker dry for long term storage to avoid mold/rot. Then I put them in a jar with desiccant packs.
