Here I present the construction of my incubator box, for seed incubation and for any other experiments in mushroom cultivation.
Is there anything else? What is the advantage of breeding in bags?
Of course there's more to come, but more for the We. At the moment I don't have time to transfer everything from TG to here.
Great, no stress, I just wanted to make sure that everything works, everything has just been set up....
I just wanted to say that I am very interested in the continuation of this thread. It's been a while since the last entry. ❤️
Hey there, I'm also very interested in the box. Any idea when we will get instructions and pictures 🤗 🤗
Best regards
So I took a polystyrene box with a capacity of about 70 liters. A large heating mat for the floor. Above this I have a stainless steel grid which I had specially made. So I have about 5 cm of air between the heating mat and the grain spawn. The heating mat is regulated via an inkbird. The light source is an LED strip, which is controlled by a timer. I used a normal aquarium air pump for the air exchange.
For cold nights, I have filled two bottles with water because they still heat up more slowly than the air overnight, so the temperature remains relatively stable. I just keep it in the cellar
I've also prepared something, thanks to Hobbit for the tip with the Inkbird - I got myself one too.
The first attempts I made with the grow kits in summer also worked without heating, but now it's winter, and when I turn the heating down to sleep or am not @ home for several days in a row, it's sometimes 15 degrees or less in the apartment, so my little friends shouldn't have to freeze.
The heating element is a chicken lamp, this radiates mainly to the front, I have intercepted the heat that rises to the top with aluminum foil, but I will revise the construction at times. The lamp gets relatively hot during operation, so operating it in a closed plastic box gives me strange feelings. I would prefer a solution with a heating element & aluminum heat sink that would not get so hot on its own. The Inkbird only outputs 100v, and not 240v, so the chicken lamp probably only runs at a little less than 50W instead of 100watt, so that only a few centimeters below the lamp towards the mushrooms hardly any heat radiation is perceptible.
The holes in the box are 10 cm above the floor and are about 34 cm apart. My first attempt with a much smaller box had them too far together - in the end it was all too tight and fiddly. I didn't drill or saw anything, I had a metal cup with the right diameter. I got it really hot on the stove and then melted the holes into it, not my idea, gauged from another forum, but that way it's really nice and round, without any sharp edges.
Inside there are jars of inoculated grain spawn, in the jars with the aluminum foil around them there is inoculated nutrient solution for liquid mycelium propagation. Actually one jar would be enough (200ml) but for fear of contamination I have prepared several jars to be on the safe side.
The polystyrene box insulates much better, and the much less powerful heating mat is also completely sufficient to incubate mycelium. Costs for the polystyrene box €10 - nothing gets too hot, heat losses are minimal and it's dark in there too.