I’ve lost track now of how long since I started on this, but I think it’s been 2-3 weeks since I transferred my original spawn to grain jars? All of the jars have been fully colonized except for one jar of pink oysters, which fought against some kind of contamination but seems to have gotten going again. It had some good looking growth though, so I decided to use that jar plus one jar of blue oysters (but grown on popcorn kernels) for my first attempt at fruiting. If it is too weak and fails, well if was worth a shot and I wouldn’t have gotten anything else from it anyway.
I’m using some 8" fruiting bags from ebay, and pasteurized chopped straw in a lime water bath overnight then let it drain today for about 2.5 hours. Each quart jar of spawn was split between two fruiting bags.
Now here comes the scary part… I didn’t have room inside to work on this, and knew working with the straw was going to be very messy, so I set up a table in the yard. I wiped everything down with 91% ISO as I went, but being outside has me worried about the chances of contam. Guess we’ll see?
So now I have four stuffed fruiting bags hanging out in the garage where it will be a little warmer than the basement. I had considered putting the bags in my garden but I’m worried about squirrels and such getting into them (especially when they start to fruit) so I figured the garage was safer. I’m expecting another 2-3 weeks of expansion before they’re ready to fruit, but it’s just a game of wait&see now. And assuming I get some mushrooms from this batch, I can bring it back full-circle and start a new batch of spawn (this time directly in the grain jars) from what grows.
One question I have for everyone… I have three more jars of spawn that are pretty well completely grown in (one popcorn and two rye berries). Should I put these in the refrigerator until I’m ready to transfer them to fruiting bags? I’m not sure how long they can survive at room temperature but I seem to recall they can hang out in the fridge for 3-4 months without any problem?
Part 1: lime baths
I personally think that lime baths aren’t the best recommendation.
Yes, it might and will work, and doesn’t need energy for cooking huge volumes, but it is easy to overdo and then nothing will survive anymore. For those small amounts, like yours, I would recommend boiling.
Ca(OH)2 isn’t as dangerous as everyone says. Those guides just pretend that everyone is dumb, at least that’s what it feels like to me. It’s like saying “Be careful, if you use a knife then you might cut yourself” tbh.
I’m a chemist and work with lyes all the time, and sometimes I get them over my hand. Concentration and exposure time are key. Just wash your hands after that (if pure lye gets on you, act fast!). It will hurt/ tingle long before harm is done. Remember to apply cream after it, it makes soap out of your fats.
But the concentration for the lime bath is super low. It should have a pH of 9-10, which is super soft in comparison. It is basic enough to promote an environment unfavorable for contams, but not enough to “kill” everything. Oysters for example can tolerate that, bacteria can’t.
Interesting, the info I’ve been reading suggested a pH around 12. 9-10 isn’t really much at all, my tap water tests between 8.5 to 8.8.
Yeah, same. Mine is also 8 or so.
Maybe I was a bit wrong about the lime pH. I thought 10 or 11 max was the limit. pH is logarithmic, so 11 is 10x more basic than 10. That’s huge.
But if that’s the information you got, then you’re probably right :)
I just checked again, the info came from https://grocycle.com/cold-water-lime-bath-pasteurization-for-mushroom-substrate/ and they suggest reaching a pH of 11-13. I forgot pH is logarithmic so yeah you’re right about that being a big difference. Hopefully I got it high enough, all I had was an aquarium test kit for “high” pH and it only goes up to 8.8, so it barely keeps my tap water in range, and it had no hope of testing my lime bath. I’m surprised there’s no suggestions to rinse the straw after you pull it from the bath, but oh well.