brf cakes in chineese restaraunt to go containers (rednek tek)

Started by thenewguy, November 04, 2012, 10:13:01 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

thenewguy

first of all let me thank all the vets with advice:
I recently ordered two syringes Cambodia, Equador and did 6 jars 3 of each, step by step the right way w/ glove box, jars the whole nine yards... messed up a lil on the amount of spore solution but myc. still growing on the eq strain which are still incubating right now... the syringe had about one cc of solution with visible chunks of color so i say fuck it why not experiment. filled the syringe with freshly opened bottle of distilled water no gloves no glove box shook it up and decided to wait a couple of days long story short i wanted to finish my experiment but all i had was leftover Chinese food containers (the clear kind with the airtight lid about a pint usually used for soup) so i used them... made up a 2-1-1 brf mix, filled em' up, put the verm layer in and used a pot with jar lids and a plate on top of them to steam the container for an hour inoculated thru pre made holes in lid and covered them with micropore tape put the container in a shoe box in the closet (not even the incubator my house stays around 75f) 2 DAYS LATER THE CONTAINER WAS AROUND 25 PERCENT COLONIZED!!!  i was happy and worried at first was this contamination? NOPE smelled like mushrooms nothing else...this container was only 75 percent colonized before i chose to dunk it early after the overnight soak this cake broke up into three pieces which i rolled then put in fruiting chamber after 4 days i could see pins forming though the cakes were covered in white fuzzy stuff.. (vertic.) this is when i learned about the use of hydrogen peroxide mixed with my spray water, anyways the first flush off of one piece of the broken up cake The smallest one was three nice sized mushrooms and now they are all over these "experiment cakes" around 20 nice fungi so far. am i just lucky?
has anyone tried this type of container before?

i was amazed at the shocking rate it colonized and now the rate that the fruits are growing
this method seems to be a lot faster,
my pf jars were innoculated two days earlier than this experiment and it took a week longer for them to even fully colonize
the only thing that may be considered contamination is the fuzzy bottom of the stem but h202 should take care of that right?

i would encorage my fellow fungifunfanatics to try these containers for themselves and see if they get the same results
i look forward to your response(s)

LIVE LAUGH LOVE....PEACE...

darksyde

Glad everything worked out well for ya.
I have to disagree with your verticillium diagnosis though, at least for now.

High humidity and lack of FAE can cause myc to grow up the stalks of your shrooms.  It happens to me in just about every monotub I run.  Its not a problem and has no ill affect on the shrooms.

Vert can look like myc, but will have devastating effects on your shroom beds. It causes mutations and literally wilts the shrooms from the inside out, leaving you with hollow, tough/leathery, odd looking stalks.  If its Vert, you will definitely be able to tell within a few days, but peroxide isnt going to be anywhere near strong enough to kill it off.

Peroxide is used for cobweb mold growing over your casing layer, but cobweb is an off white to grayish mildew that really does resemble cobwebs. 

Hope that helps   :ph34r:     

thenewguy

Thank You again Darksyde for the useful and very helpful advice. Just ate my first batch off of this experiment it yeilded about 10 descent size fruits and 12 small ones. This was the Eq. strain wasnt too impressed, ate around four fruits (mostly dried) just had very light body buzz and sensitivity to light the next day, some were not fully dried but they seemed to be dry enough. The fruits were placed in a dehydrator at 95 Deg farenheit for six hours, is this an ok method for drying? or is my method affecting the potency of the little guys?

darksyde

The fruits are usually around 90% water weight give or take.  Some people swear by eating them fresh, but I prefer to have mine cracker dry so I always know exactly what Ive got.  They are very weight sensitive. Eating 4 shrooms with hollow stems is gonna give you a lot less bang for your buck than 4 similar sized shrooms with meat in the stems.  Completely dried, the weight will never lie.

I put mine out on dehydrator trays in front of a fan for a day or two.  They lose a lot of moisture naturally in that time, so keeping a steady stream of air flow will keep em from getting mushy and rotten.  My dehydrator came with plastic screen inserts, so I pour desiccant all over the insert and put that tray at the bottom, then stack the trays of shrooms on top, put the lid on and let it sit for another day or two until they are completely dried. The desiccant can be purchased at any hardware store (lowes, home depot, menards, etc etc..) usually in the paint department.  They are little pellets designed to absorb moisture and they work great.

Myc will die around 105 -106 degrees, but the active alkaloid compounds in mature mushrooms can withstand quite a bit more heat without rendering them useless.  That being said, I never use any heat when I dry them.  Not even the 95 degree setting on the dehydrator. Cool air temp drying ensures you are getting the full potential of the shrooms potency.

I always test the potency of new strains by starting out with 2 dried grams.  I would definitely recommend this to anyone thats not a regular weekend warrior with shrooms.  You can always eat more, but you just have to hold on and wait it out if you get a little too ambitious with your dosage.