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Smart mushroom growing device for beginners

shrooly.com

191–200 of 209 posts

Re: Smart mushroom growing device for beginners

#191

For the section on growing your own "special" mushrooms, they have a young guy in a baja hoodie watching the "magic" happen and winking at the camera. Pretty sure they're targeting a very specific audience here. Solid marketing.

Wow is that why the scene of the family in the kitchen has what appear to be psilocybes growing in the device? lollll

Re: Smart mushroom growing device for beginners

#192
post #25

as a home mushroom cultivator I can tell you that this device is pretty much the Juicero of the mushroom world. from what i'm reading this device accomplishes nothing that one can't do with a homemade monotub composed of a 32 quart storage tote, a spray bottle and some polyfill. if you are interested in growing edible gourmet mushrooms look up a local mushroom farm in your area, most of them sell blocks that you can…

There is a lot of effort in those simple words though. Based on my experience— 1) Sterilize the substrate/polyfill. This is not trivial. I personally use a bag set in a hot water bath with a sous vide heater. 2) Use food grade buckets and make evenly spaced holes in them. Sterilize those buckets. 3) Prepare the buckets by layering substrate and then a layer of the inoculated material. This is not easy, everything nee…

I always recommend the "uncle bens tek" to people who are starting out. The tl;dr is that you use pre-sterilized uncle bens rice packets that are a buck a pop from the store. Innoculate, forget about them, and then fruit them. Fruiting requires some work for sure, but it's pretty minimal with this tek and you can really neglect it and still see results.

Re: Smart mushroom growing device for beginners

#193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had been considering setting up my own small lab to grow and do experiments for ... reasons. I think that this is a great way to get started and should greatly simplify the process.

Plastic storage tubs from IKEA or similar works out cheaper, and higher volume. Its pretty hard to fuck up as well.

Perhaps, but then I will also need instruments to measure humidity, airflow, temperature and so on and a means of controlling parameters.

Re: Smart mushroom growing device for beginners

#194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes but I was using straw and if the temperature is too high it cooks the straw and then it’s useless. I guess it’s a crap shoot hoping there wasn't anaerobic conditions to grow botulism in the straw bale. For all other spores, the mycelium grows fast enough to make sure nothing else can gain a foothold.

you do realise that you aren't sterilising anything though right? It's not a crap shoot - it's a unnecessary step since you aren't actually achieving anything. You might as well not do that step

When I make alcohol, I usually use a pasteurization equation to figure out what temp and time will kill pathogens [0]. Depending on what you do, and what you want to kill, your needs might differ, but this is usually good enough. But it is not, as you say, complete sterilization if that is what you meant. As you will notice, temperature can be lower, if you increase the time.

[0] https://craftmetrics.ca/blog/2019/pasteurization-part-1-the-...

Re: Smart mushroom growing device for beginners

#195
post #25

as a home mushroom cultivator I can tell you that this device is pretty much the Juicero of the mushroom world. from what i'm reading this device accomplishes nothing that one can't do with a homemade monotub composed of a 32 quart storage tote, a spray bottle and some polyfill. if you are interested in growing edible gourmet mushrooms look up a local mushroom farm in your area, most of them sell blocks that you can…

Was thinking the same. All you need is a tub and a drill.

Re: Smart mushroom growing device for beginners

#196
post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a lot of effort in those simple words though. Based on my experience— 1) Sterilize the substrate/polyfill. This is not trivial. I personally use a bag set in a hot water bath with a sous vide heater. 2) Use food grade buckets and make evenly spaced holes in them. Sterilize those buckets. 3) Prepare the buckets by layering substrate and then a layer of the inoculated material. This is not easy, everything nee…

I always recommend the "uncle bens tek" to people who are starting out. The tl;dr is that you use pre-sterilized uncle bens rice packets that are a buck a pop from the store. Innoculate, forget about them, and then fruit them. Fruiting requires some work for sure, but it's pretty minimal with this tek and you can really neglect it and still see results.

Do you just inoculate the grain and they fruit in there too? Or do you have to then take the grains and put them in a larger amount of substrate?

Re: Smart mushroom growing device for beginners

#197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fruiting body of hericium mushrooms like lion's mane do not contain Erinacine A, which is generally recognized to be the most beneficial component of lions mane. That compound is present only in the mycelium. The fruiting body does contain Hericenones, which are also thought to have some health benefits, just not the nervous system repair benefits that Erinacine A provides.

Thanks!

No problem - the post you were replying to also left out some information, though- almost all hericium liquid culture mycelium also fail to produce the compound in question. It can be produced with certain specific liquid cultures, but for the home grower the highest erinacine A yields can be achieved by growing on small-ground corn kernel ( you could be forgiven for thinking consumption of the fruiting body is what provides benefits - almost all lions mane 'supplement' companies are selling dried, ground fruit bodies because that also 'supplements' their income stream - sell the fruiting bodies for a premium, grind up the trim pieces and leftovers for a secondary income stream. They fail to mention that the product they are selling is essentially worthless, outside of what could be better achieved by eating fruiting bodies anyhow.

There are a few reputable companies out there that validate the amount of erinacine A in a typical batch, those are the ones you want to buy from.

Re: Smart mushroom growing device for beginners

#198
post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always recommend the "uncle bens tek" to people who are starting out. The tl;dr is that you use pre-sterilized uncle bens rice packets that are a buck a pop from the store. Innoculate, forget about them, and then fruit them. Fruiting requires some work for sure, but it's pretty minimal with this tek and you can really neglect it and still see results.

Do you just inoculate the grain and they fruit in there too? Or do you have to then take the grains and put them in a larger amount of substrate?

You can fruit in bag, but most people do "shoebox tek" where you mix the grains with coco coir in and fruit in plastic tubs.

Re: Smart mushroom growing device for beginners

#199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes but I was using straw and if the temperature is too high it cooks the straw and then it’s useless. I guess it’s a crap shoot hoping there wasn't anaerobic conditions to grow botulism in the straw bale. For all other spores, the mycelium grows fast enough to make sure nothing else can gain a foothold.

you do realise that you aren't sterilising anything though right? It's not a crap shoot - it's a unnecessary step since you aren't actually achieving anything. You might as well not do that step

You do NOT want to sterilize straw, or indeed most substrates. You typically only want to pasteurize your substrate, sterilization is what you want for for your grain spawn. There are all kinds of beneficial microorganisms you are killing off if you do, which help to prevent contamimation/re-colonization from wild micro-organisms. Pasteurization of the substrate is intended to kill off competitive fungus and mold spores while leaving these helpful organisms alive.

You can get away with sterilizing your grain spawn because you keep it isolated in a sealed jar, away from environmental contaminants, until it is completely colonized by mycelium. But since substrate is exposed to wild molds and other ambient contaminants, it needs it's microbial defense team.

Straw is quite a hassle, it contaminates with mold super easily, and is and about 20 years out-of-date to current practice. Yes, the Stamets book calls for it. The Stamets book is old. Any advise older than about ~5 years in this field is questionable at best.

Most folk these days use coconut coir (shredded husk) as a substrate. It's cheap, convenient to ship and store, and it is more resistant to contaminant growth. Coir comes in compressed bricks, you rehydrate it in water just off boil, it expands about 10:1, then you psuedo-"pasteurize" by letting it sit in an insulated cooler for 2 or 3 hours until it is below 170F.

Re: Smart mushroom growing device for beginners

#200
post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://foragerchef.com/hericium-crabcakes/ Okay, is this one better? It still only calls for 16oz of mushrooms to make 4-6 cakes. I can't find a single recipe that calls for anywhere near 10lbs of fungus. Could you link one?

If you look at the different photos in that recipe, you can see that the one on the tree has several times more water than the one purchased from the store. So which '16 oz' is it even referring to?

This still isn't addressing your hyperbolic statement. And now I feel you don't wish to address that. And that's okay.
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