A smal step for a men ...
I'm really pleased at the moment, the mycelium or the grain spawn in 2 of the Grow Boxes seems to be colonizing as planned.
However, the two smaller boxes that I finished 3 days before are still not doing anything, the smell is not really any different from the
others, but have been prepared much drier by me. I stirred in a bit of water in the Stilläir Box earlier.
Somehow it wasn't so easy to get the right humidity at first, especially as my pressure cooker is actually far too small - it's all a bit awkward at the moment.
i was also wondering whether i actually have to tap the substrate mixture somehow, the ready-made grow kits are quite a bit more compact than what i have made here.
I fear the "color" is contamination, green mold, which is deadly. It is possible that if conditions are good for the magic mushrooms, some will still grow, but a second flush is rather unlikely.
This is definitely mold - it's just the very first attempt. Now I'm thinking about cutting out the moldy areas generously and then seeing what happens. The next attempt with the grain spawn that has survived will be in a much smaller box and in a grow bag - unheated. It's not about quantity, but to test how it works best, and of course to be able to harvest at least a small number of mushrooms.
I have already disposed of a lot of inoculated brood, there is still a little left to continue working and multiplying. Let's see how long we can do this.
I think it fermented in a couple of jars, the mycelium that was awake at the beginning was broken at some point. I spoiled other jars because I tried to dry the pre-cooked grains in a towel, thinking that the subsequent sterilization would kill any germs that might have been introduced. But it was exactly these jars that got it. A couple of the other jars went moldy because the temperature in the incubation box was simply too high. However, enough jars survived this (27 degrees at times) and they still smell really good. Smelling it too often is also a risk of contamination again, I think, in the meantime I really like the smell of fresh mycelium, I don't know what you could compare it to, I don't think it smells like other mushrooms you know.
hmmh - strange, somehow I have the feeling that there might be something wrong with my pressure cooker. It's used and a bit older. Unfortunately, there's no real pressure gauge or thermometer on it to check whether it's reaching the required pressure/temperature at all.
in the meantime I have a well-trained person for this, I immediately smelled that something was wrong when I opened the box where the jars are stored ...
Generous cutting out usually makes little sense in such breeding environments. The pressure/temperature does not necessarily have to be "right", in fact simple boiling usually works too, it just takes longer. So if you think the pressure is too low, leave it like this for 90 minutes, which is usually enough.
If the inoculation culture is good, then it manages to prevail against small amounts of contamination in the substrate - at least at the beginning and to produce at least 1-2 flushes.
If there is already contamination in the vaccination culture, then you have no chance - and that is the case.
It is normally better to choose Lilli's "spore cap method" for inoculation and not to produce an inoculation culture at all.
okay, I was seriously considering getting an autoclave from the classifieds.
A few days ago a friend gave me a larger pressure cooker, I just need to get a new sealing ring, it's a branded pot - I'll probably find something. 4.5 liters was just too small - you really have to make sure there's enough water in it for long cooking times, it's run dry before. Something must have gone wrong with the propagation of my grain spawn, at first it went well, and at some point I either mixed in grains that were not well sterelized or caught something else.
The next round I will probably start with a ready mycelium growing set from you - then at least I will have ready mushrooms at the end, the year has already started, and I haven't done a single mycelium growing this year, menno ....
and then see what I can do with the spores. I will try both: inoculate directly with spores, prepare liquid cultures etc. depending on how many spores come together.
edit : But you are probably right. If you are working with fungal spores, it probably makes little sense to first make liquid mycelium and then inoculate grain spawn with it. Once you have grain spawn mycelium, you can produce a lot of grain spawn mycelium from it in no time at all. For commercial companies, the detour via liquid mycelium is probably simply easier, as it is easier to bottle and ship than grain spawn.
where I think I was also struggling a little is getting the right humidity from the grain spawn. It may well be that in the end it went wrong because I worked with too much moisture.