by 35 people |
So you want to grow mushrooms?
So you want to grow mushrooms? Well then I will show you how to get started in this great hobby.I will show you the easiest way to grow mushrooms. I will even provide simple methods of obtaining some of the stuff required for this method.
Finally guys I have found a decent mushroom spore site. These people get your order out fast and are always reliable. They even have "research" only spores!
Growing Mushrooms With BioHaze!
Here you can find all my pages on growing mushrooms!
- How to Build a Incubator
- Here I will show you how to make a cheap incubator. The reason to make you own is because its cheap, easy, and its a reliable method. A samll incubator that can hold 5-10 jars cost $100-$500. The Incubator in this lens only cost $46.97 and can hold 20 or more jars! so you decide do you want your mushrooms to grow slow at room tempature? Buy a small expensive incubator? OR build a nice one!!!
- How to Make A Liquid Culture
- This one will teach you how to make a liquid culture. This will allow you to grow mycelium in a lar and inoculate a lot more jars, more than one spore sryinge can do. Also great for cloneing a singel mushroom that did extermely well. So Check it out .
The growth cycle of mushrooms.
How do mushrooms grow?
When spores germinate they consume the water and nutrients from their environment and begin to reproduce. The medium that mushroom mycelium grows on is usually called substrate. Before the mushroom can start to form fruit bodies the mycelium colonizes the substrate fully and when the environmental conditions are right the mushroom emerges to produce more spores.
A mushroom cultivator can take advantage of the rapid growth mushroom mycelium exhibits by introducing it into new, sterile substrates. The mycelium is so tenacious that a 10 cc culture syringe can inoculate 10 quart jars of rye substrate, the preferred medium of most cultivators, and those in turn can be multiplied up to 10,000 times their weight. The true potential of mushrooms has yet to be taken advantage of.
By: mike jones
Things needed to grow mushrooms
What do I need to grow shrooms?
Dark Spores is a pretty decent mushroom spore site. I have linked it to the cubensis section, but if you look on the left of the page there are a lot of other kinds. Without mushroom spores you will never grow mushrooms!!
Jarden #60000 Ball 12PK 1/2PT Mason Jar
These will be containers for your mushroom substrate.
Amazon Price: $7.94 (as of 07/12/2009) 
Presto 6-Quart Stainless Steel Pressure Cooker
I highly recommend getting one of these. Being sterile is the key to growing mushrooms successfully.
Amazon Price: $49.99 (as of 07/12/2009)
Brown Rice Flour, 5 lb.
Food for your mushrooms, your mushrooms wont grow without this!!
Amazon Price: $12.30 (as of 07/12/2009)
Hoffman A H #16002 8QT Vermiculite
This help protect against contaminants coming from around the lid.
Amazon Price: $5.67 (as of 07/12/2009)
Mushroom Substrate Preparation
What are the jars, rice, and vermiculite for? This is what the mushrooms will grow on!
140 ml vermiculite
40 ml brown rice flour
some vermiculite to fill the jar to the top (app. 20 ml)
water
Put the required amount of vermiculite for all the jars of one batch (for instance 6 jars: 6 x 140 ml = 840 ml ~ 3.5 US cups ) in a bowl. Pour water slowly over the vermiculite while stirring with a spoon .Be careful to only put that much water in as it can be absorbed by the vermiculite. Stir it well so the vermiculite is uniformly soaked with water. When you tilt the bowl you should see just a little water starting coming from the vermiculite. This is when the correct water content is achieved. If there is too much water in the bowl, pour the wet vermiculite in a strainer and let the excess water drain for a minute. Then the vermiculite will be at the field capacity, which is perfect. Now put the required amount of the BRF (for instance 6 x 40 ml = 240 ml = 1 US cup) into the wet vermiculite at once and mix it in with the spoon. The goal is to uniformly coat the wet vermiculite particles with a layer of BRF.
Fill the mixture in jars ½ inch under the top. It's very important to fill the substrate in the jars without tapping it down at all. It should stay very airy and loose to provide optimum conditions for the growth of mycelium. Be careful not to leave any substrate on the upper edge of the jar. If you weren't careful enough and there are some substrate specks at the edge take a clean moist cloth. Otherwise contaminants can start at those spots and work their way down into the jar. Fill up the jar with dry vermiculite to the top. This layer hinders airborne contaminants reaching the underlying substrate in case they manage to come in during the inoculation and incubation. Take a 5in wide stripe of aluminum foil and fold it in the middle. Put the foil over the opening of the jar. If you're using jars with metal lids, you can poke 4 holes at the very edge of each lid with a small nail and hammer and screw the lid on. The holes should be slightly bigger than the diameter of the syringe needle.Fold the foil edges up and press them together so you get a nice aluminum foil lid. Then take a piece of foil measuring 5in x 5in in and put it over the first two layers (respectively the metal lid if you're using lids) leaving the edges of the foil reaching down, since it has to be lifted again during the inoculation. So now you have 3 layers of foil over the opening. The top layer is lifted during the inoculation.
Sterilization
Sterilization? Mushrooms? Fungus? Yes being sterilie is important!!!
Then stack the jars into the pressure cooker. The use of a rack to keep the jars from directly touching the bottom of the cooker is strongly recommended.
Put the lid on and bring the cooker to the required pressure (15 psi = 1atm over atmospheric pressure) slowly over a period of 15 minutes on a medium flame.
If you heat up the cooker too fast this can cause the jars to crack.
As soon as the steam begins to escape the rocker or the vent at the top of the pressure cooker turn the heat back so only a very small, steady steam flow persists from the vent. From this point on, pressure cook for 45 minutes.
Depending on the pressure cooker model the cooking procedure works a bit different so if you're not familiar with pressure cooking consult the instruction manual or someone who used pressure cookers before.
After 45 min take the cooker from the flame and let cool for at least 5 hours or even better over night.
If you never used a pressure cooker before check out this document about the correct pressure cooker use.
If you are unable to find or buy a pressure cooker, you can also sterilize the jars using a big pot with a lid.
In this case steam the jars for 1.5 hours in a pot lid on. Use only approximately 1 inch of water at the bottom.
You might have to add some water to the pot during steaming due to evaporation.
Spore Inoculation
Putting the mushroom spore into the jar.
After the cooker is cold to the touch take the jars out and place them on a clean surface, have an alcohol lamp or a lighter and the spore syringe ready. Shake the spore syringe to break up the spore clumps. To be able to shake it it's necessary that there is a small bubble of air in the syringe. If this is not the case, then you can suck approximately 1cc of sterile air into the syringe by placing the tip of the needle into the flame and slowly pulling the plunger back.
Loosen the foil from all of the jars so it can be lifted easily when you inoculate.
Take the cover from the needle and heat it over the flame until glowing red. Let cool for a few seconds
Take the upper foil layer off and put aside upside down.
Pierce the foil at the edge of the jar with the needle app. 1in(2.5cm) deep and inject the spore suspension towards the inner jar surface. You should see a small drop running down the inner surface of the jar towards the bottom. Each jar is inoculated on 4 equally spaced points. You should use 1 - 1.5 ml of the spore suspension per jar so one 10ml syringe is sufficient for 6 -10 jars.
Put the foil on again. Flame sterilize the needle again after inoculating 3 jars to prevent cross contamination just in case a jar wasn't properly sterilized. When all of the jars are inoculated fold the foil edges up and press them firmly together so you get a nice aluminium foil lid. Write the inoculation date and the species/strain information on the foil with an all surface felt tip pen. If you touch something other with the needle during the inoculation procedure except the foil surface of the bottom foil layer immediately flame sterilize the tip again.
Incubation
The jars should be stored at 21-27°C (70-81°F), the warmer the better, but not exceeding 27°C. If you don't have these temperatures at home you can build an incubator to accommodate the jars.
Providing the jars are kept warm you should see the first sign of germination after 3-5 days as bright white specks. This is mycelium. If anything grows that is not white, for instance green, black or pink, then the jars are contaminated and their content must be discarded and your clean procedures need some improvement. After the jars are emptied and the jar is washed with detergent and hot water it can be used again.
Depending on the temperature and the viability of the spore syringe it takes 14-28 days for the mycelium to colonize the whole jar. Once colonized store the jars at normal room temperature, about 21°C (70°F) to initiate pinning.
Don't expose the jars to direct sunlight. Indirect sunlight (= the natural light that lights up a room because at day time out) or a low wattage lamp (cool white fluorescent lamp is ideal, incandescent lamp is less suitable) for 4-12 hours a day is sufficient.
Within 5-10 days (with certain mushroom strains it can however take up to 30 days) pinhead-size accumulations of mycelium should form. These so called pins represent the beginning of mushroom growth. In the following days also small mushrooms with brown heads become visible. When this is the case it's time to birth the cake into the fruiting container where the mushrooms can develop to maturity. Some strains don't easily develop pins. In this case put the colonized jar wrapped in a plastic bag in the fridge over night and then proceed to fruiting next day, even if the cake doesn't show pins yet. This cold shocking usually helps trigger pinning somewhat.
The Fruiting Chamber (Terrarium)
Pinning, Fruiting, and Harvesting
Aborts
Q&A
Have questions?
If you have any questions about growing mushrooms then post it here and I will get back to you as soon as possible!
This will be turned into future content as a FAQ moduel
blue phenix wrote
very bummed! this is my first time growing and frankly i have had no success. i have followed pf.tec to the letter!20 jars no mycelium growth in 6 weeks another 20 jars and 20 days later i got nada. substrate appears to be moist,syringes were from reliable place ,i think?. i am using an incubator at around 82-86F in total darkness,i dont have any contamination,so i am at a loss. help!!!! any advise or ideas? is b strain easy to cultivate?do i need light during the first stage?
Posted July 05, 2009
chris wrote
does it matter if the pressure cooker is brand new?
Posted July 01, 2009
Madjar wrote
in reply to speedkillz
DON'T THROW IT AWAY, YET!!!
This is the first year I ever tried to grow mushroom and I had the same problem as yourself. I innoculated 4 jars and after a month, I had nothing but a tiny, tiny spot of fuzz on one. After about 5 weeks, I threw 3 jars away. I almost threw that last one away, but thought, there might be a chance. I poured a little bit of bottled water in it and stuck it back in the closet. I actually forgot about it for about 3 months! I went and checked it out just last week and it was colonized about 50% and had 4 very long mushrooms growing. I have tried 2 of them and they are excellent. I placed the cake in a terranium I made and it is now doing very good. I expect to have a fully fruited cake in the next couple of weeks.
I innoculated my jars in the last week of February. I added that water on April 1st. I just pulled it out of the closet on June 25th, if that helps. Good Luck!
Posted June 29, 2009
rahul wrote
i want to know that how msh room grow in house?
Posted June 20, 2009
CherylK wrote...
This lens is fascinating! I cannot believe you can actually grow mushrooms...I love mushrooms. So maybe I'll try it. Once I work up the nerve - :-). Good job!
Posted May 30, 2009
Cody wrote
weres the best place to get mush, spores?
Posted May 18, 2009
horsethefan wrote
in reply to daniel It's called a spore syringe, and you can buy them online.
Posted May 06, 2009
horsethefan wrote
in reply to DAWG This method is generally used for indoors
Posted May 06, 2009
DAWG wrote
is there anyway of growing outside? im in canada and the climate goes up and down more often then my grandmother chages her panties...or is this more of an indoor thing? and how long from start to eating them does it take?
Posted April 25, 2009
PF Tek YouTube Videos
Here you can actually watch as someone goes through the steps.
1
PF-Tek Part 1 0 points
2
PF-Tek Part 2 0 points
3
PF-Tek Part 3 0 points
4
PF-Tek Part 4 0 points
Mushroom RSS feed
Fetching RSS feed... please stand byReader Feedback
super_ryug
i made the pf cakes, and i was wondering how to make them colonize faster because my other batch took 2 months to colonize.
Posted February 13, 2009
Robyn_Abbatiello wrote...
Great lens! I just started learning about mushroom it this is a big help :)
Posted December 10, 2008
garywgoldstein wrote...
Interesting! Never thought of this before. Well done lens!
Posted December 03, 2008
alexlovesshroomsallday
Wow this is awesome, all I need is a spore print...By the way what was that german song called that was playing during the last video, i loved it haha
Posted October 22, 2008
Rolas wrote...
Amazing lens! Very interesting information. 5 from me! Please visit my lenses
http://www.squidoo.com/lensmasters/Rolas
Best regards!
Posted May 05, 2008
