[i] CrazyCatLushie (2019). Most SABs are made from large clear plastic storage boxes (although my first SAB was a cardboard box with a cling wrap window!) When you have removed all the mushrooms, let the cakes sit for a few days, then submerge them in clean water for 12 to 24 hours, remove and drain. You DO NOT want standing water, or for it to be soaking wet on the bottom. Ill break this write-up into 4 main posts. After a while, you should see mycelium growth through the jar, When the jars are colonized, you can fruit from the cake or do a bulk grow, Wearing food-safe gloves, clean and wipe down your working area/ SAB, Clean all your tools thoroughly with 70% isopropyl alcohol, Using a torch lighter or (gas stove) heat the needle of the syringe til it is red-hot. Preventing contamination by disinfecting and meticulous sanitation practices, and getting the right inoculation temperature are the name of the game. Once again, we will not be using this method for Uncle Bens spawn grains (though you can experiment with it!). When you can see mycelium at the bottom of the bag, break up the clumps a bit and then wait a week to ensure full colonization. Heres my pinset. Then, once the spores have germinated and the mycelium has fully colonized the substrate (youll know because it will turn into a white mass), you migrate the colonized mycelium cakes into your fruiting chamber for the mushrooms to grow. You can also combine this method with the next method for ultimate anti-contamination efforts: The Capri-Sun Method will likely be the next big thing, if it works well. The idea behind the Spiderman Tek first surfaced on the Shroomery and Mycotopia around 2005. Side and bottom pins arent the end of the world. Wait a few seconds for it to cool between each injection. Personally, though I had success going straight to fruiting, I often dried out my tubs before they produced pins (baby mushrooms) because my air is so dry here. DoubleBlind Mag is devoted to fair, rigorous reporting by leading experts and journalists in the field of psychedelics. 05:22. Drill the holes on the marks to the full size of the 4-12 mm step drill. This Tek is a great choice for beginner cultivators as it requires minimal materials, is inexpensive, and is resistant to contamination. Once drained of excess water, place them back on the foil islands to get a second flush, when you get another batch of mushrooms from the same cake. While it is optional, a Still Air Box is highly recommendedit also makes cleaning more manageable. June 11, 2022 . This started to change with the introduction of the PF Tek, a simple technique which allowed people with minimal skills and no knowledge of lab technique to grow mushrooms at home easily. Some have gloves physically connected to them so once sealed the contents remain sterile, but with caution and good technique this is not altogether necessary. I didnt need a SAB (Still air box) for my first few generations of Uncle Bens Tek, and I never lost a single bag to contamination. If you have an outdoor compost, it is safe to add contaminated vermiculite+brf+gypsum, as some contaminants are beneficial in compost. Damn you Uncle Ben! A little water is ok. Heres a video of my pins the day before they were ready to harvest. All you need is a bit of sterile-mindedness, a spore syringe, and some patience. Make sure your Lysol settles, though. Window light and ambient room light is ok too. Sanitize everything. There are several stages to the mushroom growing process: inoculation, colonization, harvesting, drying, and storing. Bucket to pasteurize/hydrate your substrate. This is the number one time in which its helpful to have support from live mycologists or mushroom experts. UPDATE: Many users find that brand-name Uncle Bens bags are already too wet, **so for brand-name or already-moist bags, I definitely recommend no more than 0.5cc per bag. Once your bag is 20-30% colonized, you should break up the mycelium chunk and shake vigorously to redistribute your mycelium. By rejecting non-essential cookies, Reddit may still use certain cookies to ensure the proper functionality of our platform. During this time, you want to focus on Surface conditions of your substrate. Incorrect sterilization is the lead cause of . Let it dry. You still need to add a Gas Exchange hole in the form of a corner cut or a hole punch. The mycelium used all the nutrients gathered through the colonization process to produce the first flush of mushrooms, and will then need to accumulate more nutrients for the second and then the third. You need a pressure cooker to reach the proper pressure and temperature to kill any mold spores or microbes. the two tubs colonizing have two bags of UB each as well as the tubs that have started fruiting, the bags will be three weeks on wednesday, and the agar is a fifth transfer. CVG, CV, or just Coir? Once you get your pinset, try not to mist directly on the pins. As mentioned, consider the placement of the armholes before you cut, in time you may find yourself working longer and longer hours, so comfort is essential. Use only approximately 5 to 10 cm of water at the bottomdepending on the size of the jars. Theyre much more tall than then are horizontal, which is what you want. The alcohol or methylated spirits need to either be 70 percent or diluted to 70 percent. You are more likely to succeed by shooting the spores directly into a trash can full of dirty diapers. Find a warm, dark place in your home to put your bags, that is free from extra humidity and mold (under a kitchen sink or in a bathroom are both terrible ideas). Yield varies greatly, with some growers reporting huge harvests and others getting nothing at all. All you need is a bit of sterile-mindedness, a spore syringe, and some patience. Growing mushrooms can look incredibly daunting. If you can maintain thousands of tiny droplets, and some humidity on the sides/top of your tub, youre in great shape. Wait a few seconds for it to cool. Once colonized, you can start growing your mushrooms. We recommend sporestock.com for USA and Orangutan Trading Co.com for UK! Instant rice, which you do need to cook, it just cooks very quickly, is a very different product and not at all what this tek requires. Theres nothing sketchy about it, unless youre in one of the unlucky 3 states. Note on pressure cookers: There is a huge range of pressure cookers available from homewares stores or catering suppliers. IKEA Samla 1 gal tubs are perfect. *The level of your success is proportional to your cleanliness.*. Break it apart as finely as you can. Our advice is to develop good habits and be as clean as possible to minimize contamination. If contamination is suspected, throw the bags away and try again. If you feel passionate about your interest and feel you are going to be doing a lot you could invest in a 22 litre Hawkins Big Boy, or lab grade autoclave. Uncle Ben's Tek is a death sentence for spores. The substrate is sterilized in wide-mouthed canning jars by steam sterilization, tyndallization, or pressure cooking, with a layer of dry vermiculite as a filter to keep out competing bacteria and fungus. Be careful only to add as much water as can be absorbed by the vermiculite. Colonization is occurring, half of bottom seems to be doing well Day 59 (12/31/2019) - No Pic but update Stalled @ 50% colonization It's clear that it stalled and did not fully colonize This could be due to lack of air exchange or moisture Last ditch effort - cutting slit in bag and spraying in additional water Day 78 (1/19/2020) - Update Pics Remove the lids of the jar, place the foil over the top of the jar, then turn upside down, tap the jar for the cake to drop onto the foil. If you do the Capri Sun method for injecting, make sure to cut a vent or use a hole punch to add a GE vent. Blue bruising is totally fine, but green, solid yellow, red, and purple are signs of contamination. So, you want to grow magic mushrooms. These varieties are not like weed 'strains', and arent all that much different. The plastic in many of these types of boxes are quite brittle, so the step drill allows a slow increase in sizestandard drill attachments have a tendency to cause the plastic to fracture. Mycelium colonizes faster with steady temperatures. For each jar, screw on the lid and cover with a piece of foil. A great trick to reach near-perfect "field capacity" is: for every 1g of dry/compressed coco coir, add 5.1g of boiling water and mix extremely well, then let sit. )rice sticks together really well, and the dense clumps can inhibit both water movement and airflow, both crucial in terms of colonization. My first time inoculating pre-sterilized bags of Uncle Ben's Ready Rice with mushroom spores. Temps should be 72-76*F. Let your tubs colonize first, like this. It may seem counterintuitive, but picking one from the cluster will disturb the remaining mushrooms, and they will stop growing. By accepting all cookies, you agree to our use of cookies to deliver and maintain our services and site, improve the quality of Reddit, personalize Reddit content and advertising, and measure the effectiveness of advertising. Make sure you get every part of it covered, and especially the front where you will inoculate. This step is to provide FAE (fresh air exchange). colonize somewhere out of the way and about room-temperature (colonization will be slower than for jars incubated in . You can create a simple incubator by purchasing a reptile heating mat, or horticultural heating mat, to make an incubation chamber using another plastic storage box. Flick, shake, and spin your closed spore syringe. You will add more later. On the inside, these bags are miniature, pre-sterilized, perfect-humidity-water-weight nutrient-filled grains, just waiting for some spores to grow mycelium. The conditions. Heres an example of a corner that was cut too much, you should break up the mycelium chunk and shake vigorously to redistribute your mycelium. But by being careful, the risk of contamination from airborne spores or bacteria is small, especially when using a Still Air Box* (more on that below), because air exposure is minimal and the layer of vermiculite we add to the top of the substrate acts as a filter. Pour water slowly over the vermiculite that you have in a large bowl while stirring with a spoon. Wipe your surfaces with ISO and Lysol the air. A Still Air Box is a small space that can be kept sterile with no air flow. 8) Add your casing layer. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); The statements made on healing-mushrooms.net have NOT been evaluated by the FDA. Wear hat, mask, and gloves. Take your micropore tape, and tape over the open corner in a way that holds the corner-hole open to create a gas exchange vent. Use the Capri-Sun method to inoculate your bag by sticking a hot-tipped needle into the middle of your bag and inserting 0.5cc of solution, then covering that hole with micropore tape. Dont skip out, get the right stuff. Psylocybe Fanaticus, shortened to PF, was the business name of Robert Billy McPhersonaka Professor Fanaticuswho pioneered a method of mushroom cultivation called the PF Tek. In time the mushrooms will grow largerwhen the caps open, the annulus (the skirt) drops, and you can see the gills, they are ready to harvest. Part 2 of the Uncle Ben's Tek is all about inoculating and colonizing the Rice Bags. **You do NOT need many spores to enter your bag; all it takes is a few. This is to get rid of contaminants. Then, theyre placed on foil to separate them from Perlite, a waterlogged high-surface-area material that allows for high humidity and evaporation, and given immediate FAE (Fresh Air Exchange). The mycelium will colonize from the top of the jar, where you have injected the spores, down through the vermiculite+brf+gypsum. Video of some time lapses that I've done Ask Question Download Step 1: Supplies to Begin To begin growing your own mushrooms you will need the following for the PF tek: I add 1-2 bags of Bens per 4 quart tub, and mix in coco coir until 2-4 deep. See this post for proper surface conditions. Liquid culture in a syringe will also work for the following teks. Once you have a solid 2-4 deep spawn:substrate combination, level it out. Contaminants spread quickly and dont take long to become visible if they are present. The distinctive feature of Uncle Bens is that you dont have to mix your own grain substrate or prepare your own jars. Drop your temps down from colonization temps (75-79*F), to fruiting temps: 72-76*F. Instead, I went with the first method: I let my bulk substrate colonize, 50-75%, until I saw primordia, knots, and a few pins, then introduced fruiting conditions. Uncle Ben Tek Contamination; 10 year . At field capacity, sprinkle enough coco coir to cover all visible white grains completely, 1/8 to deep. Initially, the PF tek used organic rye berries (rye seeds) but later simplified to use brown rice flour and vermiculite. Methods involve sterilizing grains in jars like PF Tek, or sterile plastic bags filled with pounds of grains. If youre using a SAB, flame sterilize outside of your box so you dont light any ISO inside on fire. To be clear, whether you choose the PF Tek or Uncle Bens Tek will affect the first stage of the process: inoculation. If there are a few grains uncolonized, thats ok. Make sure to brush off these grains and dispose of them properly. Generally speaking, a good beginner strain is any strain that's easy to find, has fast colonization rates, is less prone to aborts, and is tolerant to underoptimized fruiting conditions.