Pearl Oysters

[TastyBeverage]

Have some pearl oysters growing on newspaper in plastic shopping bags per Lazlo's tek in the archives:

http://forums.mycotopia.net/oyster-m...newspaper.html (Cultivating Oyster mushrooms on newspaper........)



Every time i look at them, they're bigger!
I took that pic this morning, but this is what that cluster looked like on Friday.

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[eastwood]

Yummy

[crazy1]

way to go Tasty!!

Looking great.

[TastyBeverage]

Thanks, guys!

A couple of shots from yesterday.
Just misted and looking wet and delicious...

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[TastyBeverage]

Here they are this morning.
You can see clusters all over the bag.

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This is the smaller bag of the 2 that i made.
The other one beside it is twice as big and should start fruiting very soon.

The varying cap colorations are fascinating.
I stuck the tip of my finger in some of the shots to show scale.

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Here's the other side of the bag that is facing away from the window.
You can see that the caps are much paler even though they get plenty of ambient light.
Oysters are very photosensitive!

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And a nice gill shot to end with.

[wildburr]

Absolutely beautiful there Bev. I've got a bag like that colonizing with the blue oysters. One Question, did you make the holes in the bag at the start or after the bag was fully colonized?

[TastyBeverage]

Thanks, 'Burr! I didn't cut any holes when i first made up the bags. They seem to get enough from the bag opening, which is tied semi loosely in a knot. However, there was a tiny hole in the bag about 2 mm across that i didn't notice at first. That's where the first cluster erupted from. By the time i noticed it, i could see primordia forming under the plastic all over the place, so i carefully made holes around them.

The other bag hasn't started forming primordia that i can see yet, but i cut some tiny X's last night to see if i could jump start it.

I made up a bag of WBS with some of the blue myc that you sent me, but i let it sit too long in the incubator after it was fully colonized and it got wet spot. I saved some of the myc though (whew!) and will try again. I might have too many projects going on right now!

[wildburr]

Originally Posted by TastyBeverage

I might have too many projects going on right now!

Oh how I know that feeling.

If you need more I still have 7 pints of spawn.

[TastyBeverage]

Thank you! I'll take you up on that if i screw up the next go round, but i'm going to stay positive.

[chimp]

Those look real tasty Bev

[TastyBeverage]

Thanks, chip! I'm trying to figure out when to harvest... I mean they look the same now as they did yesterday, just bigger.

I read in another oyster thread that they should be picked when the cap starts to flatten out more, but they look pretty flat now!

[chimp]

Do you have any recipes in mind for when you eat them?

[wildburr]

Originally Posted by oibchip

Do you have any recipes in mind for when you eat them?

OOOhhhh great question. Bev lets hear some of your best. I do all the cooking at my house and love to learn new recipe's.

[August West]

Originally Posted by TastyBeverage

Thanks, chip! I'm trying to figure out when to harvest... I mean they look the same now as they did yesterday, just bigger.

I read in another oyster thread that they should be picked when the cap starts to flatten out more, but they look pretty flat now!

i prefer harvesting oysters just before the cap planes out, when there is still some mild curvature at the edges...for what that's worth.

nice grow. can ask what temps you used in the process? guess i just did ask.

[TastyBeverage]

Thanks for the tip!

The grain was incubated at 75 degrees. After i spawned it, there wasn't any room in my incubator for the 2 bags, so i ended up just leaving them out on my dining room table. The temps in the house fluctuated a lot during the grow. At night it dropped to the low 50's, then in the morning it would slowly climb up to maybe 65 until my fella came home in the afternoon and turned the heat on. Then it was around 70-72 until about 11 pm when i shut it off.

[TastyBeverage]

One of my favorite mushroom recipes is to slice the shrooms into thin strips then saute them with sliced shallots and tons of garlic. While they are cooking, i take a tube of store bought polenta* and slice it thinly. I take a glass baking dish and spoon a little marinara sauce over the bottom. Then a layer of polenta, then more sauce, then the shroom and shallots mixture. Make sure each layer is spread nice and even.

Then i shred a bunch of mozzarella cheese and sprinkle that over the shrooms. Add another layer of sauce, then the rest of the polenta. A bit more sauce, then cover the top with cheese and it goes into a 325 degree oven. 350 degrees if not using a glass pan. I can't remember how long i bake it for, maybe 30 minutes? Really just long enough to get the cheese to melt and brown a little and the sauce starts to bubble since everything is already cooked. If the cheese browns too fast just cover with foil and cook a little longer.



*i know i should make my own polenta, but for some reason i suck at it. I can cook a 7 course gourmet dinner but i can't make fucking cornmeal.

[mydarling]

ummmm, bev that sounds good, can i come over for dinner?

btw ! edibles seem hard to grow but looks like you're doing great!

[TastyBeverage]

Thanks, darlin', you're welcome at my table any time!

Here is the bag today.

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Think i might be close to harvesting that one big clump.
The edges are starting to uncurl, so i'm watching like a hawk!

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[TastyBeverage]

GET IN MAH BELLEH!



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[TastyBeverage]

Alrighty, i learned something. There is a delicate balance between having enough FAE and exposing the substrate block to drying out. I saw tons of pins on the top of the block, so i foolishly cut off a large part of the plastic bag. Even with multiple mistings per day, the whole thing got too dry. Some of the mushrooms got a little wrinkled on the edges and new growth completely stalled out.

I picked most of them off but one cluster didn't look ready yet so i left it. Oops, woke up this morning to a mess of white spores EVERYWHERE. I cleaned some of it up before i thought to take pics, but it's kind of hard to see since they're white and i have the oysters sitting on a white plastic bag to protect my wooden dining room table from moisture. You can see some tiny spore icicles dangling from the cap though.

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The other bag is starting to really take off. This bag is twice as big as the other one so i should get a good sized crop.

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Here's what that same bag looked like on Sunday, 12-14:

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Here's a cool bonus! I made up a bag of WBS 11-25. The WBS had some hydration issues, but since oysters are pretty forgiving, i thought it might have a chance. I had nuked the WBS in the microwave for 3 sessions on high at 5 minutes each. I had prior success with just nuking for 2x 5 minute sessions, but i tried 3 this time and it dried out too much. I noc'd 2 bags anyway, one with this pearl oyster and another with blue oyster mycelium that i got from Wildburr. Thanks, buddy! Well since the WBS was under hydrated, the mycelium stalled out at about 90% colonization. I should have just used what was already colonized, but i have too many projects going right now so i left them in the incubator.

Big mistake! The condensation on the inside of the bags caused wet spot in both of them. So i took them out of the incubator and left them on the counter by the front door. I kept meaning to take them down to the dumpster, but i'm always in a rush when i leave the house so they've been sitting there for a while. I looked at them this morning and the pearls not only overtook and ate the wet spot, but now is fruiting directly on the WBS in the ziplock bag!

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The front door is in a foyer which is the only part of the house that is unheated. Temps range between 45 at night to maybe 58 - 60 during the day.

[hyphaenation]

Excellent work Bev !

Now that's homegrown food-security right there.

[BeardedLadysLady]

Those look so good.
Seeing all of the edible mushrooms you have been doing lately really makes me want to try to do some once we have the space for it.

[dial8]

Damn thats awesome, tasty. Those look soooo delicious. Are you fruiting those in open air or are they in a fc?

[TastyBeverage]

Thanks for all the great comments!

D8, i am fruiting them in the open air on my dining room table. However, i am having some issues with RH because there is a central heating vent right by the table. I don't really have anywhere else to put them right now, so i am trying to ghetto rig something i can put over the vent to divert the air flow in another direction.

[dial8]

Ok cool man. I figured these could be done that way. I'm gonna start me a grow real soon. What is your rH in your house?

[TastyBeverage]

You know, i have no idea.

I do know that it's lower in the winter because of the central heat and because of my dry skin, boo. I think that if we weren't turning the heat on, my oysters would probably be ok, it's that direct blast of warm air that's really doing them in.

[Beastmaster]

"Sporcicles"!!

[TastyBeverage]

Woke up this morning to more spores all over the place, but this time i can't tell where they're coming from! No sporecicles hanging off of anything, i am mystified. Only one cap looks like it's really ready to drop (cap edges have flattened out) but the placement of it in the middle of a cluster doesn't seem like it would be the most likely candidate.





Anyways, about to harvest!

[MrChen]

Wow Bev, those are beautiful!

How often do you mist them please?

[wildburr]

Those look extremely delicious . I think this newspaper tek is definitely the way to go with oysters, hope my blues get that nice.

[TastyBeverage]

Thanks, guys!

Originally Posted by MrChen

How often do you mist them please?

I probably mist once an hour or so, mostly because as i have mentioned they are right next to a heating vent so there is warm dry air blowing near them all the time. Before we started turning the heat on, i only misted maybe 4 times a day and they did fine.

[chimp]

I just took a look at the g2g I did with some blue oyster spawn and it is eating the WBS quickly. I did some KSSS g2g at the same time and the oyster is growing at least twice as fast. I can't wait to get enough so that I can do this tek and have some tasty treats.

[TastyBeverage]

Chip i made the 2 bags as you can see, but made one of them twice as big as the other. I thought i would get a much bigger flush from the bigger bag, but they were about the same. Now i'm thinking it will flush more times before going kaput, but i'm not sure. Thought that might be useful info.

[wildburr]

Originally Posted by oibchip

I just took a look at the g2g I did with some blue oyster spawn and it is eating the WBS quickly. I did some KSSS g2g at the same time and the oyster is growing at least twice as fast. I can't wait to get enough so that I can do this tek and have some tasty treats.

Stuff is fast

[hyphaenation]

Encore !

[Mahi]

oh my!! thank you for bring this thread to my attention.. awesome~

[eatyualive]

yum. now i need to try some.

[turboinferno]

Since this post is back from the dead already I wont feel bad saying that those are some nice pictures.This post popped up just in time as am setting out on a very similar project with oysters .Thanks for posting !

[hyphaenation]

Sending Tastybev the best vibes ...

Your community loves you !

[zodd]

so no fc?

[hyphaenation]

so no FC ?

Not here to answer.

[growurown]

for some noob luck and come out with some nice looking clusters like that.

[eatyualive]

ummm yeah bumparooni.

[TastyBeverage]

I should check my old threads more often!

So this was my first oyster grow and they are a very forgiving strain. They colonize grain super fast, are contam resistant and no FC is required. That's right! No fruiting chamber required! I use Lazlo's newspaper grocery bag tek (link in the first post) and then i just set the bags right on my dining room table. After full colonization occurs, i just loosen the tops of the bags and fan with a paper plate every once in a while. I used to cut little holes all over the bag, (oysters require massive amounts of FAE) but i find that just loosening the tied bag handles & fanning encourages a massive top cluster without having to worry about side pinning. Plus, when you go to dunk you can just fill up the grocery bag from the top and there's no leaking out of other holes cut in the bag.

BTW, oysters like direct misting, unlike cubes. So proper hydration is super easy, just spritze them whenever you happen to walk by.

[Shroomette]

Excellent thread TastyBeverage... I'm about to begin some blue oysters myself. Thanks for all the great info and I will definitely be using Lazlo's tek in the process also.

[TastyBeverage]

Dude, that tek is GOLDEN! Don't be afraid to make a big huge bag either, really stuff that grocery bag to the top! I had a 3 pound first flush off of one of my blue oyster bags that i was eating for days...

[Shroomette]

Originally Posted by TastyBeverage

Dude, that tek is GOLDEN! Don't be afraid to make a big huge bag either, really stuff that grocery bag to the top! I had a 3 pound first flush off of one of my blue oyster bags that i was eating for days...

Sweet!!! You rock Tastybeverage and I will do as you said, My mouth is watering as we speak

[eatyualive]

nice yeah im going to start misting directly soon. my pins just popped up!

[wildburr]

Funny how threads like this one come back to life at the right time. I just made a new bag of Blues tonight. I like your modification of not cutting holes, gonna try it that way. Also bought a big ass bag of pearl dowels from Sporeworks recently, gonna get them going too. Yum I cant wait

[TastyBeverage]

The blues taste pretty good, but IMO the pearls taste best. I love how the blues look when they grow out though... not a true dark blue but more of a dusky bluish grey.

Yay, pins! I am enjoying your thread, eats!