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B+ on crumbled PF cakes, 50/50 casing (my first).  Only because you guys nominated it; I'm sure once this thread gets going the pro's will put me to shame! 

Thank you, thank you   

 

It rained all night and the humidity in my house went way way up.  These are a bit soggy. 

Question- probably before this casing is all flushed out, it's gonna be time for me to put new trays in... and then more trays... and then more and more for a good long time.

How often should I change my Perlite?

Better?



Sorry it's blurry, I'm not great with cameras.

Yeah, I think I was just a little lacking in perlite.  I just went and bought a new sprayer, took care of that... wasn't really sure how much I needed to spray so I kept it to a minimum.

Thanks for the tip, PW.  I was definitely a little overzealous with that first batch of casing I made. 

ok... good deal.

now that the fruits are blowing up, the RH is dropping dramatically.  I'm having a little trouble managing it.  Up until now I've been able to keep it within 90-95 percent, but just about an hour ago it plummeted to about 80.  i got it back up then it dropped sharply again.  is this normal, do the fruits just suck it right out of the air, or is there something wrong with my FC?  Nothing about it has changed, there are no holes or anything that would let out that much humidity so quickly.

Malabar- these aren't the millet yet.  But the millet colonization is going wonderfully!  These are PF cakes.

I thought they looked a little dry as well, but I don't know what to do... I get the impression that you stop misting once the primordia pop out.  I don't have a "fine mist" sprayer, mine is a pretty "coarse" mist, and I don't want to damage the babies.  I assume that I can't just increase the RH in the chamber, that's supposed to be fixed, yes?

here's my first casing with B+ on crumbled PF cakes.  This was just a test run to see if I could do a casing since I'm trying grains now- in other words, I was expecting it to be a failure but I must be doing something right because... check it out!  I was a little surprised to see primordia popping out before I saw any mycelium, but it looks pretty good to me now and today the mycelium is popping up all over.  I took two pics because I can't figure out my wife's camera, which has a hundred different settings.  Let me know if there looks like something is wrong.

cool... confusion averted.

Malabar, so what you're saying is that I don't add water to the jars once I've put the millet in?  Just brief soak, rinse, then into the jars with no extra water?

Well this first batch is too late, they're already 20 minutes into the PC cycle and they have 1/3 millet in the jars with enough extra water so that the water line is a centimeter above the grain line.  Guess I will dump and start over.  I still have plenty of millet.

Yeah, the millet I soaked/rinsed looked quite dry but just now I tested it by chewing a bit and it just falls apart!

so... it IS ok to have standing water in the jars. 

ok, then time to get the PC up and running again.

you guys are confusing me!

if I don't follow the simple minds directions and just put soaked and rinsed millet in the jars, how much millet per jar?  Grain for simple minds ends up to be about a third of the jar, which isn't much; i just assumed that the millet would absorb water and cook up a bit in the PC.

i only soaked it for 30 minutes.  so if I soak it... don't follow grain for simple minds?  it still seemed relatively dry after a 30 minute soak

OK I just loaded my millet jars into my brand spankin new Presto 23-quart.  To prepare, I rinsed the millet thoroughly, soaked for 45 minutes then rinsed/drained again.  I followed the measurements on grain for simple minds and when the jars were prepared, they were a bit more than 1/3 full of millet, with the water about a centimeter higher than the grain level.  Does that sound about right?  I'll post some pictures of the PC'ed jars once they are done to see what you guys think of the water retention.

My jars are almost ready to case, but I lost one today to green mold (finally- my first contam).  My quesiton is- how much elbow room is ok in the casing tray between cakes?  The tray I got holds 6 cakes perfectly, with a tiny bit more elbow room than the pics in english/casing; if I only put 5 in, will that be too much free space?  I might crumble them, but will that make the myc layer too thin?

brilliant

water retention as in... too much or too little?  I'm planning on just soaking for an hour, rinse, PC.  no simmer.

the millet I'm planning on using is hulled, is that ok?  any reason to stay away from millet on this first go?