Agar With No PC ? Can It Be Done ? -- No Microwave , PC Blew Up

[hyphaenation]

Hello. My PC blew up literally. No one hurt. Old valve must have become plugged. No worky anymore. Retired.

So i'm in this position where I want to take a clone of a Redboy mushroom that is very fat. Due to neglect it semi-aborted , but I can tell its a stellar specimen.

I was considering cloning onto carboard , but as a sure bet I wanted to do some agar. I have agar , very small glass jars and the know-how to make them up , but i've only ever PC'd my agar jars ...

I have no microwave either. So here's the question. Can I steam , or otherwise "sterilize" the agar jars on the stove ? I was thinking on doing them BRF steam-style.

Any help appreciated. I'm hoping to do this today , if I can get some helpful advice.

Thanks in advance.

attached: Fatboy to isolate

Its on a small broken in 1/2 wbs "cake" that I took mercy on and popped it out of its jar because of invitro pinning before it was colonized.

[Looky]

I'm not sure. I wish I knew if this would work, but I don't see why it wouldn't. I would try the oven. It recently has poven to work well with BRF jars, so I don't see why agar wouldn't be the same. In the oven it's important to gradually get the temp up on the jars. I think I have read 250 is what you set it to for 45 minutes. I would ask IL, he should know.

[M&M420]

That is definitely a keeper for sure.Not sure about steaming agar but why not use WBS or a LC?

[hyphaenation]

Thanks for the responses. I have no wbs , i'm broke and I was hoping to take that clone today.

I'll go ahead and do the agar in the oven. I'll let you know.

Wish me luck.

[Irishlion]

Hyph try the oven man, for agar, 250 for 30 to 50 mintues should be more than sufficent, actually as it is thinly layered I would say, perhaps 25 minutes or so, but, agar can be touchy, so you will want to pay attention to it, to make sure it doesn't dry out man. Cover your air ports really well so the agars moisture can't evap or it will turn solid.

[Looky]

G'luck, I'm pretty sure it will work just fine as long as it isn't too hot. I thought that 250 was too hot, but IL assured me that it will not break the glass. With BRF extra water is needed since it is a dry heat.

[eatyualive]

you can do 9er tek but boil the water in the jar for about 15 mins. make sure you start the timer once you start to see the water in the jar boil.

then you have a sterile environment which you can move to your clean area once it cools. open the lid just for a few seconds while you toss the material in.

[hyphaenation]

Thanks all.

Would you put a small amount of water in the pan , in the oven ? I was going to use an oven roasting pan. I will cover the jar lids well.

Wet or dry in that roasting pan with the jars ?

[Looky]

He's going to say dry I think. Just may dry out the agar if you don't use a couple extra drops of H2O.

[Irishlion]

Originally Posted by hyphaenation

Thanks all.

Would you put a small amount of water in the pan , in the oven ? I was going to use an oven roasting pan. I will cover the jar lids well.

Wet or dry in that roasting pan with the jars ?

yeah man you want it dry, although you can add some water in there if you wish, but, that still will not prevent the mositure from evaporating from the agar, so one must compensate for that moisture evap, just make it a little more wet is all, that will allow for compensation and if after 25 minutes or so its not at the consistancy you want as in too runny just pop it back in till its the consistancy you want.

[hyphaenation]

Much appreciated advice. I went boldly where i've not gone before ...

-Soaked cardboard chunks in boiling water for 10 minutes
-Strained cardboard and set aside
-Added karo to soak water and stirred
-Put cardboard soak water in the blender
-Sprinkled in agar slowly and stirred constantly
-Gave it a short whiz
-Added cardboard chunks after agar fully dissolved/mixed
-Blended cardboard to a pulp
-Ground BRF and slowly added one grinder load full into blender of agar/pulp
-Whizzed this mix well

Scooped resulting mix into small jars. Had some extra so I did the big jar you see on its side. The jar lids have three pin sized holes on each. Over that I placed two layers of tinfoil snuggly fit and then the band.

Added all this to the roasting pan. Pre-heated oven to less than recommended and placed pan in oven. Brought heat up to 250. They have are now almost halfway done. I was thinking on doing them for 30 - 40 mins due to the rice flour in the mix. Theres extra moisture so i'm hoping it will be alright that way.

and if after 25 minutes or so its not at the consistancy you want as in too runny just pop it back in till its the consistancy you want

Think i'll do that...

Thanks again

[hyphaenation]

At 25 minutes I checked it out and its quite solid but still a bit liquid. So I threw them back in and will check at the 35 - 40 minute mark.

[hyphaenation]

Okay so I ended up leaving them in the oven for a total of 50 minutes. I did this because at 35 minutes it looked slightly runny. Instead of pouring a thin layer like regular agar I filled approximately half of each little jar. Because of this I baked them a little longer.

Took them out and they looked very solid. Not dry looking , not runny or giggley. Now there cooling down. I will put the clone material in there tonight.

Stay tuned.

[CoyoteMesc]

LC just in case???

[hyphaenation]

Might do that CM. Was considering taking Eats advice and do the 9'er Tek.

[CoyoteMesc]

Yeah, a good specimen and patience should stretch far
enough for several routes. That should get you some
good clones from the same boomer man. Good luck hyph,
Ill keep me fingers crossed for ya!

[hyphaenation]

The jars are cooling down. Here's a peak at how they look.

If the larger jar takes i'm hoping to colonize the medium then add water and blender blade assembly to jar so I can blend it into a slurry.

[hyphaenation]

Placed a clone chunk in each jar. Then replaced lids and added 2 layers of coffee filter discs.

We'll see what happens. I already feel I poured them to deep , but we'll have to see what happens.

[M&M420]

Good luck to ya but I have a feeling that all those extra nutes are gona cause you contam problems especially with it being done open air.

[hyphaenation]

I just did the one open air for the photo ... The lids do have 3 pin sized holes each and 2 layers of coffee filters above that.

[M&M420]

Oh ok I see.Guess I should have asked before making an assumption.Good luck I'll be looking forward to the outcome

[Foster]

Cool man, I hope it works out well for you. Keep us updated.

[hyphaenation]

The reason I did'nt just slap the clone in the fridge is because I have a busy week and this weekend was the only time I had to work with it. Normally I wouldn't be impatient like that.

Things seemed to go good. I haven't even looked today but will soon. In the meantime wifey came home and gave me a massive syringe ! It says 140 CC , but it can hold 160 CC. I was so stoked !

I decided to make it an LC right away. Added water and karo. Placed two new quarters in there for breaking up myc. Capped the end and simmered it lightly for 20 minutes.



Will add clone chunk material to it when it cools. Should I use a big tip syringe to poke through the clone chunk and shoot that material into the LC syringe ?

Any help welcomed.

P.S: I looked at the "agar" jars. Redboy in general bruises very dark blue and these little chunks sure did. Its hard to tell but the edges look quite bright white so there is hope. How long would you keep those chunks in there ? Remove on the first sight of myc transfer ?

[hyphaenation]

I took a new syringe and pulled the plunger back , stuck it through the clone chunk , pulled out and shot that into the LC syringe.

Stuffed the top of the syringe with polyfil and stored for observation.

[hyphaenation]

Decided on good advice from Eats to do the 9er tek blender clone. I've been reading that thread for years and was always taken by its brilliance. I chosse to use a small jar that fits on my blender.





I took the Fatboy (fat Redboy) clone chunk and added it to the blending jar as per instructions. Tightened the blender assembly on the jar. Placed it on the blender and whizzed in short blasts , only a few times.





This made a good blend which quickly started turning blue. I set it aside and started to prepare to pasteurize my materials. I decided to use what was laying around so it ended up being:

Coir mixed thourougly with Garlic straw chips 50/50
Soaked Cardboard pulp

I pasteurized all of these at 160 F for 2 hours , drained and allowed to cool. When that was done I got my blender ready. I use one made of glass so I poured boiling water in it for 15 minutes first to clean it. Dumped the boiling water and added cardboard pulp and coir/garlic mix. Blended that well and dumped it into a screened strainer.

I repeated this until I went through all the material. The end result was still very wet and as I rolled that around I shot the 9er tek clone water on the mix with a 60 CC syringe. Folded , squirted , folded etc until it was well mixed.

Then over a strainer in the sink I squeezed the heck out of the this mix in my hands like I was forming a tight snowball. Literally wrang the water out of there and they kept there ball-like shape.



Placed them in a bag with a breather hole filled with polyfil and set them in a warm dark place.

If all goes well i'll have some "clone balls" growing soon. If not I still had fun with the project and I have other pokers in the fire with the clone project so hopefully one will take off.

Thanks again Eats !

More later.

[hyphaenation]

I find it hard to take photos of the contents of jars. My camera is a real crapper.

Here's what that sideways agar jar looks like. Its starting to get white on the edges.

[eatyualive]

woah thats some blue muck!

[bear]

yeah never seen such a blue muck!

[hyphaenation]

The chunks are getting white and fuzzy. Thats a relief because they were so dark blue I thought they might turn to mush (literally).

[M&M420]

Aha success .How's the others looking?

[hyphaenation]

How's the others looking?

I had a shortage of jars and didn't think of the sideways bigger jar until the last second. Therefore I poured those little jars to high. Oh well , they're still looking good as far as the clone chunk goes.

Next time i'll just put a skiff on the bottom (like an 1/8th of the jar). Usually in the past i've done that but I was thinking the cardboard pulp and BRF would help it fully colonize. We'll see I guess ...

Here's what I normally do when I do regular agar jars in the PC.

Make agar and pour thinly in small glass jars
PC
Allow to cool
Innoc through lid
Colonize



Once colonized (with pins if you neglect) you inject 70 CC's of clean water into the jar. Shake vigorously. Suck 60 CC's out and cap. Drain the remaining liquid by askewing the lid and pouring. Replace jar lid and re-colonize.










As unsterile as that sounds i've done it as many as 5 times or more for each jar. After the jar recovers it colonizes very fast each time and seems to enjoy the process.

I'm hoping if the sideways jar goes off to do this process with it. If it does deep-colonize instead of on the surface then i'll go ahead with plan A to blend it to a slurry.

As mentioned earlier if it fails completely then I had fun trying ...

[hyphaenation]

Here's an update on the little jars of an "Agar-like-substance". I opened one for a second both to get a good look and to take a quick pic. Its at the 48 hour stage.

Its hard to see through that size of jar as it has relief work that obscures.

[hyphaenation]

Couple of questions:

1. How much growth is good before you'd pull those clone chunks out ?

2. Should I , now that I see growth in the big jar , flip those chunks over so they start new innoc points ?

Any help greatly appreciated.

[hyphaenation]

No help

Just kidding , it would'nt have mattered. Believe I made the mix to wet and this led to some foul smells. Wifey no likey ...

Had to discard.

It was fun going through the process though. What was I thinking , I should have used cardboard ! lol

Actually I did enable plan-B and made some clone-balls (pictured below)

[CoyoteMesc]

pictured where? lol

[hyphaenation]

Down below ... 12 posts under this one.


Here's an elevator.

http://forums.mycotopia.net/fungi-gr...tml#post699614 (Agar With No PC ? Can It Be Done ? -- No Microwave , PC Blew Up)

[CoyoteMesc]

Guess how many times I went in circles with that link...


AAANNyway, Hows the growth coming along on the balls

[hyphaenation]

My balls ?

Their starting to get hairy...

[CoyoteMesc]

Any change?

[hyphaenation]

They're going slow. I think I either blended the slurry to much (tried not to) or my temps are to low (severe cold snap for the last week or so).

I still see lots of myc but i've avoided looking daily because of let-down. I've got them in the warmest place in the house , probably 70 - 75 average.

*edit* actually I used 9er tek water on the balls and it was n'awfully blue.

Maybe a case of blue balls ?