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I turn down the heat in my house when I go to bed to about 65 degrees. (I live in a cold climate) I have about 30 jars that I have out for pinning, and I have about 30 still incubating. The incubating box that I have will hold all 60. Should I keep the jars out at night when the temp goes down to 65, or since its dark anyway and I have the incubator already going - should I put them back into the incubator until I wake up and then put them back out in the indirect light when I turn the heat back up?

Thanks for your help.

I'm sure you don't want to step on any toes of other cultivators - but could you help some of the newer guys with which of these aren't good and for what reason? I'm sure the answer could fill a book but it would be helpful to those of us who are newer at this than yourself.

Thanks.

Tried several times to post only to get error message. Any ideas?

No need to go overboard. I have a Presto aluminum 6 quart pressure cooker. It works fine. It holds 4 half pint jars at a crack. Cost was around $40 new.

http://www.fungifun.org/English/Pressure-Cooker-Use

This link goes into Pressure cooker types and how to use. Just follow the step by step and you'll be fine.

I figured that one would be toast - I needed to check if the others were the same - so actually I ended up chucking about 8 jars in frustration before I posted. Luckily I didn't innoculate them before I chucked them. I just thought I did something wrong so I went back to the drawing board. I currently have 48 jars, with pretty white stuff growing on about 20 or so right now. Do you have any advice for growing 20 - 50 jars at a crack? I figured if I do this I might as well do it right - you know - no sense in letting space in my incubator go unused. This is my first run so I wanted to get the hang of the "Simple Minds" before casing. I'll try to get some pics up in the next few days of pretty white jars. Thanks for your help.

So I didn't contaminate the jars and they are good to use? Thanks for your reply.

What am I doing wrong? I keep getting wet lids when I remove the foil (after letting them cool for about 6 hours). The outside of the foil is dry. The underside of the foil as well as the top (and after removing the lid entirely to examine) and bottom of the lid are also wet. The top vermiculite layer seems to be dry. I tried another batch with less water in the pressure cooker to see if there was water coming in from under the foil, but I got the same results. I am using the Simple Minds Tek - is this because of too much water in the substrate?

Does the tightness of a lid matter if you're using foil to cover the holes? I can understand why a loose lid would be needed if using tape over the lid holes, but is the same necessary if using foil with no tape? I would figure the gas exchange would be through the holes in the lid and not through the lid itself. Or do you do both foil and loose lids just to be on the safe fide of gas exchange? Thanks for answering my rambling question.