casing

[Hippie3]

Once you have your fully colonized grain, you will probably want to case it. There is a bad stereotype about casings being hard and beginners shouldn’t try them. This is a load of shit. Not only will you vastly increase your yield, but you will protect your substrate from drying out which equals more flushes. This is an extremely basic casing, but it’s all you need if you’re a beginner or don’t want to do those more difficult/time consuming casings.

Practice sterile procedures when ever working with live grain cultures or inoculating jars.

First, you must find a suitable casing container. You want one that can easily be sterilized (microwave or oven). Also, you want to avoid clear containers. Clear containers can cause mushrooms to grow on the side and rot. Clear containers can be fixed by covering the sides with duck tape. For a ½ jar, I would use a container around the size of 3inch x 5inch x 2inchdeep. This is slightly small, so experiment with different containers and sizes. Just remember, the larger the container, the longer it will take the mycelium to colonize it, but the more surface area you have, the more mushrooms u will get.

Let’s get to the fun shit.....

MATERIALS (green materials are required)

Colonized grain jar, or BRF/verm jar
Casing container
Verm (preferably coarse, but fine grade works great too)
Microwaveable bowl
Lysol
Rubbing alcohol
Spoon
Paper towels
Small bowl or cup
Tin foil

PROCEDURE

I) Sterilizing Vermiculite

Before you start, you want to sterilize the verm, because it needs time too fully cool down before you use it. Start by filling the microwave bowl up with enough verm to cover ¼ to 1/2 inch of your substrate depth. The amount can be difficult to measure since you have not even touched the substrate yet, so fill the casing container with 1 inch of verm and then pour it back in your microwavable bowl. Now you know you have at least 1 inch of verm. Slowly add water to the verm in the bowl. DO NOT OVER SOAK THE VERM. You want it very moist but not soaked. This is where a little experimentation comes in. Since everyone’s microwave is different, and their room temps are different, evaporation of the water in the verm will occur different from everyone. You must find a balance that works for you, so that when you sterilize your moist verm all the water doesn’t evaporate leaving your casing dry. A perfect casing if when you grab the casing material, and a few drops of water come out. So before sterilizing, you want to squeeze the verm and make sure more water then usual comes out. This makes up for the evaporation. Put your casing in the microwave and nuke for 5 to 10 minutes. Stop it half way and stir it up a bit. Once its done, you may either leave it to cool in the microwave (35-45 minutes at least), or put saran wrap over it and place it in the freezer for much quicker cooling times (around 10 minutes).
II) Preparing work area and materials

While the verm is cooling, you can setup your work area. I prefer to work in the bathroom. In what ever room you choose to work in, make sure all windows are shut and cover vents that are blowing new air into the room. Put a plug in the drain of any sinks near you or turn on the water because so much mold and bacteria live down the drain. Give the room a good spray with Lysol. Wash your hands and wear gloves if possible. Pour some rubbing alcohol in the small bowl or cup. Dip a paper towel into the rubbing alcohol and wipe off surfaces. Pour some rubbing alcohol into the casing container and wipe it really good. Once it is clean, place the container upside down on a clean surface. This is to avoid air particles and contaminations dropping into it while you’re waiting to begin. Let your spoon soak in the dish of rubbing alcohol. Get a big piece of tin foil and fold it in half so it’s thicker. Lay it down on a clean surface and wipe it with a paper towel soaked in alcohol. Go and get your substrate jar from where you keep them and get the verm out of the freezer.
III) Applying casing layer

Before you open the jar or verm bowl, give the room another spray of Lysol. Every so often, dip your fingers in the bowl/cup of alcohol and wipe your hands with the alcohol to disinfect them, especially after touching non-sterilized materials. Non-sterilized materials can include the microwavable bowl after it was in the freezer, the bag of verm, the rubbing alcohol bottle, the Lysol bottle, and anything else you touched without properly cleaning. If the sink isn’t already on, turn it on now. Remove the saran wrap off the microwavable bowl. With disinfected hands, lightly touch the verm to make sure it’s completely cooled. Rinse the verm off your hand in the running water at the sink. If you wanted to add a bottom casing layer (not necessary), add it now. Flip the casing container over and use the spoon soaking in alchol to spread some of the verm on the bottom of the container. Place the saran wrap back on the verm bowl. Rinse the spoon in the water, and then put it back in the alcohol dish to soak. Give the room another spray of Lysol if want before you open the grain/BRF jar.
If using a grain jar:


Loosen the cap of the jar so that it can be easily lifted off. Remove the spoon from the alcohol and wipe it dry with a paper towel. Use the spoon to remove the grains from the jar and scoop them into the casing container. If you put a bottom verm layer in your tray, try and cover the verm with the grains. Try to get the grains to separate as much as possible to increase surface area. Try to level the grain layer as even as possible when pouring it into the container but do not push and force the kernels to flatten.

If using a BRF/Verm jar:

The easiest way I find to crush a cake is by putting it in a brand new zip lock bag and breaking it all up with your hands. Please, use a new zip lock bag. Don’t use the bag you got last week while purchasing marijuana on the street from some weird man where it was shoved up his ass in a park for 3 hours while he was lying down and hiding from the cops because he couldn’t move due to serious diarrhea. Use a CLEAN bag. If you don’t have a bag, you have to wash your hands REALLY good and crumble it with your hands. A much larger contamination risk is posed when not using the zip lock bag.

Once the substrate is evenly distributed its time to place the top casing layer on. Remove the spoon from the alcohol dish again and dry it with a paper towel. Layer the top verm casing to a depth of ¼ to 1/2 of the total substrate depth. The deeper the substrate equals a deeper casing layer. Again, try to make it as even as possible. Level all layers very lightly, leaving the verm and the substrate layers as loose and airy as possible. Use the tip of the spoon and slightly scratch the top of the casing making little valleys in it. Scratching the casing will increase surface area and help primordia formation.



IV) Aftercare

Examine the verm. If it looks too dry, give it light misting. Cover the top of your casing container with the piece of tin foil. Depending on your temps and if you can leave it alone in the complete dark for a few days, it should be done in approximately a week. After 3 days of being undisturbed, carefully lift the tin foil off the container and patch (cover with casing mix) the heavily growing areas to insure an even pin set. Once mycelium has colonized the casing layer you can induce pinning and wait for the fruits. Do not let the mycelium colonize so dense that it covers the whole top of the casing otherwise overlay will occur which will greatly reduce your total yield.



TROUBLESHOOTING

I) Overlay

Overlay can be helped by using the “deep scratching” method. Once overlay has occurred and the top layer is impermeable to water and no pins can grow from underneath the surface, the casing is basically doomed unless the hard top layer is broken apart. This method involves scratching the casing with a fork to help break up the strong, dried mycelium which blocks the top. Deep scratching is usually a last resort to try and recover a lost casing. After the casing has been scratched, time is needed for the casing to rebuild, which leaves it vulnerable to contamination. Scratching could also spread contamination throughout the casing. Unfortunately, the mycelium will not be able to beat the contamination while its recovering and the casing would probably be lost.



II) Casing Depth

Often, its hard to tell how deep the casing layer is because you cannot see threw the sides of the tray. One thing you can do to make sure you have the right ratio of casing to substrate is use a ruler. Get a piece of blank paper and use a ruler to draw a rectangle with the dimensions around 1” x 6”. Now cut out the rectangle and then use the ruler again to measure inches, centimeters, or whatever measurements you want on the rectangle. Now you can use the rectangle in your casing tray to measure how deep your substrate is and then figure out the casing depth.



In reality, the paper ruler would be inside the casing tray against one the walls. You can then measure the depth of your substrate while filling the tray and have no problems figuring out and measuring your casing layer depth.

TIPS & TRICKS

Mushies in a bag

This is an excellent little idea for anyone who is lacking growing space or can’t be bothered to make a terrarium. I have seen great success with this method, and I’m trying to get real pictures to put on here as a better example.All you need is a small casing (1 cake, or a ½ pint jar of grains) and one of those big zip lock bags. My casing containers are 6” long x 4” wide and 2”deep. They are made out of aluminum and are found at most dollar stores, although any container that fits in the bag would work. The zip lock bags are 10” x 10” and are found at grocery stores and many other places. Once the casing layer is colonized and its time to initiate fruiting put the casing in the bag. Mist the insides of the bag well to bring up humidity. Close the bag and put it somewhere so it can get some light. I usually do 12 hours light, 12 hours dark. Open the bag a couple times a day to give fresh air. The more fresh air they get the better. Misting isn’t extremely important because the bag holds in a lot of humidity. Mist every 1 or 2 days, but as long as you see condensation in there its probably good.

[Hippie3]

from the archives , original by max at sporelab [ i think ]

[livewire420]

[Santiago]

Thanks Hippie. Serendipitous timing.

[wildburr]

So if my sub is 3" thick I should have a 1 1/2" casing? Man that seems like allot of casing material.

[Hippie3]

lol
not so good math there friend.
he said casing thickness is 1/4th of substrate depth-
1/4 of 3 is 3/4,
thus a 3 inch deep sub gets a 3/4 inch casing,
NOT 1.5 inches which is twice the recommended depth.

[wildburr]

Originally Posted by Hippie3

Layer the top verm casing to a depth of ¼ to 1/2 of the total substrate depth. The deeper the substrate equals a deeper casing layer.

This is where I got that from, it says 1/4 to 1/2 of the total sub depth. so yes 1/4 of 3 is 3/4 at the low end, but at the high end of that statement would be 1 1/2. Thats why I asked, it seemed a little much to me.

[Freaky]

[meanman420]

does the bottom casing layer affect yield verry much?

[hyphaenation]

Thank you sir

[DjLiquid]

Thanks!

Nice diagrams too =D

[Freaky]

Originally Posted by meanman420

does the bottom casing layer affect yield verry much?

I've tried both ways for straight casings and found I had more flushes on average if I cased the bottom. Also, fruits tended to be larger because it makes the depth of the substrate deeper. It can also act as a way to suck up extra water from misting. I always had this bottom casing layer colonize completely over time as well.

So, does it affect yeild? Maybe a little because more flushes occur for me. Do I think it benefits a substrate not spawned to a bulk substrate? Yes.

[Shroomette]

[The Fun Guy]

I know im late to this thread but hopefully ill get a response. I just made 2 casings in aluminum meat loaf trays. Each casing has 2-1/2 pint brf cakes crumbled in it. Anyway, is it true that casing brf cakes will yield just as much if you fruited directly from the cakes or will it yield more . I was told the only way to increase yield is if you spawn from grain to straw, hpoo etc.