Coir as a desiccant?

[Defiance]

I was searching on Google for a natural desiccant to replace the Damp Rid I'm using right now, and I came across a study (Link here) on using coco coir as a desiccant. I always read about people using rice or epsom salts but never coir, which is kind of odd because most of us have some coir on hand. According to the numbers here it's pretty efficient, absorbing 30% of its' own weight, to the 40% of silica gel.

That's nearly as efficient as the commercial standard and it's totally organic. Has anyone tried using coir in their desiccating chambers? I have a flush that's nearly finished fan drying that I'm going to test it with, but I don't use the typical Bed-A-Beast coir brick. I use coir pots that I get super cheap from my Friendly Neighborhood Hydro Shop, they're a mix of coir and fiber. Hopefully it won't make much difference.

[~Hippie3]

news to me
let us know

[Defiance]

Originally Posted by Hippie3

news to me
let us know

Fair enough, I suppose I should do this up right then.

I've got 91g of semi-dry shrooms, pictured here on a festive holiday tray. They're still rubbery and a little damp. Typically I'd leave them under the fan
another day before putting them in with desiccant . (Image 1)

And 288g of bone-dry coir pot. (Image 2)

I layered them in a 4qt rubbermaid with the majority of the coir on the bottom, three layers of shrooms, and a bit of coir on the top. A paper towel separates each layer. (Image 3)

I'll give it until they're cracker dry (Assuming they dry at all) and update the weights.

That's my quota of Unexpected Science for the evening, off to smoke a bowl

[~Hippie3]

[ttam]

can't wait to see the results...keep us posted!

[Defiance]

I'm at work but I figured I'd update this. I'll put up pics later.

My early results were encouraging. Initially the coir sucked out a lot of moisture. The first round of fruits that went in the coir box lost water weight pretty quickly but even after 8 days never made it to cracker dry.

A second round was started Friday with some thoroughly air-dried shrooms. They went into the box nearly cracker dry and this morning when I checked they seemed to have gained moisture if anything.

So I've pretty much come to the conclusion that coir isn't a very good desiccant for mushrooms. It seems to give its' moisture right back up to the shrooms far too easily. Of course, all these results are with my compressed coir/fiber cakes and not your standard Bed-a-Beast brick. I'm planning on getting a brick of that on the way soon to see if it works any better.

For the moment though, I'm still using Damp Rid in my desiccant chamber.

[pareil]

you were using shredded coir for this?