Letter to a brand new grower with zero experience

[the jesus]

A FOAF emailed me with interest in getting into this hobby. I emailed him back today and figured I would copy and paste it here. It may help someone with zero growing experience.

Remember this is just what worked for me my first time, there are many ways to do things, I just wanted to get him started on the right foot with decent info.

Hope it helps someone:


Here is some info for you.
Everything you need to know is at this site:

http://www.mycotopia.net/

I would highly suggest you read all you can in the archives and vaults
there.

The PF Tek is going to be the easiest way to get started. It basically
consists of A brown rice flour substrate in jars that are innoculated
with spores from a syringe. The jars are then incubated at 80-82
degrees until they turn completely white with what is called mycellium.
The "cake" of mycellium is then removed from the jar and placed in a
terrarium to fruit (grow shrooms!). I know you might not have
understood all that if you are truly just beginning so check this out
too. Just type any word you don't know in here and it will define it
better for you

http://forums.mycotopia.net/glossary...ssary&term=290

So I'll try to find all the most helpful stuff to get you started. This
is just the way I did it to start, there are many ways, but this worked
for me.


Now lets start with jar prep:

http://forums.mycotopia.net/faq-freq...tek-guide.html (A More Understandable PF TEK guide)

it is the easiest overview of making jars I have found. The jars are
what you will germinate the spores in. If you are gonna make your own,
you will need a pressure cooker to sterilize them. I didn't bother my
first time and just bought pre-made and sterilized jars, EASY.

You can buy pre made and sterilized jars that are all ready for spore
innoculation here.

http://www.mycrotopia.com/catalog/catalog.php

I would recommend 12 half pint glass jars all ready to go. You could
also go with the 6 plastic pints jars from that site as well.

Once you get your jars you will need to innoculate them with spores.
Spores come in syringes and can be purchased here.

http://www.thegoodspore.com/

I would recommend the "cubie 3-pack" with the B+ strain. It is commonly
thought of as the best strain for beginners.

Now read this, it is a good write up on how to innoculate the jars with
the spores. It really has the whole process but I specifically like
the pics for innoculating. When you do this you should spray the room
with lysol, wait 10 minutes, spray again. You should also spray
whatever counter or table you use with it too. Rubber gloves, long
sleeves and a mask of some sort are good ideas too. The single most
important thing is to be very sterile while innoculating, when you get
to this point I will write up my whole process if you want. Remember to
shake the syringes to disperse the spores. You can use a glovebox if
you want, I built one but never use it though. So here is the link,
scroll down to the innoculation part:

http://archives.mycotopia.net/discus...tml?1130154483

Now you need an incubator, so here is a link to the "heatbomb"
incubator, its the easiest one in my opinion. Just make one of these
and throw it in a styrofoam cooler with a thermometer and your good to
go. 80-82 degrees.

http://forums.mycotopia.net/showthre...bomb+incubator (the heatbomb incubator [merged])

or you can buy one here:

http://www.mycrotopia.com/catalog/catalog.php

Here is a good writeup on what the jars will look like while incubating.
Remember this is a BEST case scenario so yours will be slower.

http://forums.mycotopia.net/showthre...ht=photo+essay (PF jars, inoculation through birth - a photo essay)

Once the jars are all white You can birth them to a terrarium. A monotub
is the easiest. It is just any rubbermaid or sterilite container,
clear, with some holes drilled in it that you fill with polyfill(the
stuff in pillows) for air exchange. You want 100% humidity and temps of
70-75 for fruiting the cakes. Open to fan 3-4 times a day. You can see
a good picture of it here, or just buy this one.


http://www.mycrotopia.com/catalog/catalog.php

They have perlite there (for humidity) for the bottom of it too.
Here is a link to a bunch of info on pinning and fruiting.

http://forums.mycotopia.net/forumdisplay.php?f=169

All vendors I linked to are stand up peeps that have been in business
for a long time and I have personally used them. Remember, nothing you
are ordering is illegal, spores are legal. These people have been doing
this a while and know how to spot trouble. Any sponsors of mycotopia
are totally legit, the dude who runs it runs a real tight ship.

Good luck bro, and feel free to email me anytime if you have any
questions, I am sure I left a bunch of shit out.

[Hippie3]

nice.

[Freaky]

Very well written Jesus!!!!! That is a great first introduction to the hobby!!!!!!

nice post and youre a good friend to whomever you sent the letter too. go ahead and award yourself a karma point.