B+ on 3 different subs-types : Mycelium growth in PF style jars

[RichShroom]

Hi Y'all

Okay, so these pics are nothing spectacular or exciting for the experienced growers here, but it's my first mycoporn - quite exciting for a noob virgin grower like me.

To make it at least a little bit interesting, I have 3 different subs types, and a little observation on each.

* Mix ratios are all 2 : 1 : 1 = subs : verm : water
- some are showing small areas of water against the glass
- next time I'm going to go closer to 3 : 1 : 1
* Jars are cheap Chinese whiskey tumblers
- Chinese glass, not Chinese whisky
- we don't get 250ml / half-pint preserve jars locally

1. Subs 1 : Brown Rice Flour

The mixed medium was light and I was amazed at how each rice flour grain has swollen up from a minute powder size granule to at least 10x bigger fluffed-up blob.

The initial source spots of mycelium growth seem to be mostly joining up co-operatively into one rapidly spreading circular wave at each innoculation site.

I can see now why BRF is recommended for beginners - this is the easiest & most consistent & heathiest of my 3 comparative choices.

Starting to look quite ropey at some of the growing edges.

2. Subs 2 : Rye Flour

The mixed medium was stodgy like porridge, sticky to the fingers and glass. I was reluctant to press it down into the bottom edges of the glasses, as I was worried that it would be unbreathable for FAE, and that the mycelium would not be able to penetrate the solid mass.

The initial source spots of mycelium growth seem to be very fluffy white spheres, like dandelions, unlike the BRF which seems much more 2 dimensional. They are spreading rapidly in number, as individual grow sites, but not too many are joining into a co-operative mass network.

Although I had some optimism for this subs from the in initial rapid growth, this is turning out to be the least heathy - the medium seems to be sweating, and some dodgy areas of sticky slurry/goop which may just be turning pinkish at the edges.

I quite expect to see confirmed contamination soon in at least one of the jars.

Might have been better with less water in the mix.

3. Subs 3 : King Korn - Home Brew Malt Mix

This is an experimental - it is a store bough home-brew malt mix - sorghum & maize & enzymes. You need to add yeast to make it ferment - which I neither bought nor added.

It is quite whole grain, not a powder, with traces of stringy roots - so I gave it a bit of a whirl in my crappy ineffective blender as I am without pressure cooker and wanted to expose more surface area for boil sterilisation.

The mycelium growth pattern is concentrated around individual grains, and is more like the malt - spherical growth in orbs.

A bit slower to take off than the other two - but I have high hopes for the finished result - the beer is a very healthy natural brew made & consumed by poor rural folk or low-income city dwellers - highly nutritional & full of vitamin B.

Two sets of pictures:
wed - this past week
sun - today = 4 days later

I've just attached thumbs - I'll spare the data load speed & bits for the casual reader.

I've now got 16 jars/glasses showing signs of mycelium ... with a few more possibly on the way. I hope to get at least a dozen to fruit ... 1/2 as cakes, 1/2 crumbled tp h-poo.

Schweet ... thanks for your interest.

Rich

[shroom57]

They all look quite healthy. I wouldn't worry too much about the cottony looking areas, they tend to get more rhizo when they meet and B+ mycellium will look different from one sub to the next.

Nice pics btw

[Awestruck]

Very detailed write-up. Love how you went and used the tumbler glasses with the foil and rubberbands; use what you've got.
Nice looking myc you have there. I hope you get speedy colonization and healthy fruiting.
Your mycoporn cherry is now popped!

[Shroomette]

Excellent write up Rich! Very beautiful mycelium indeed. Best wishes on your grow and I'm sending you great vibes for a successful first grow. Definitely will be keeping an eye on this grow.

[Om shanti]

It will be interesting to see how the different substrates perform over the longer run. And like the others say, it is a great write-up.

BTW, an idea for possibly a very cheap pressure cooker - check out Indian shops.

[Smiling Turtle]

[RichShroom]

Originally Posted by Om shanti

It will be interesting to see how the different substrates perform over the longer run.

The Rye Flour cakes are succumbing one-by-one ...

1. the rye seems to be sweating out & causing gunky spots
   • damp areas go snotty & pinky
2. in the rapidly colonising areas, the rye/verm mix is a deep golden brown. In almost every jar however, there are blackening areas. It's not a black mould, or any sign of living contam, it just looks like the subs itself is dying and turning necrotic. When the colonising edges of the myc reach this area, it slows down to a crawl.

Out of the original 5 rye:

• 1 glass cracked after boiling - binned.
• 1 was ajudged yesterday as too blackened with existing bright white myc. fading to grey - contents binned
• 2 are touch & go - 50% likely the blackening will overrun the mould, 50% likely the mould will overrun the blackening
• 1 looking clean & vigorous all round

The King Korn are doing nicely:

• not as fast as the BRF (about 1/3 of the speed so far)
• but still nice & healthy, and some rope emerging from amongst the fuzz

I'm wondering if the speed might not be as fast due to a "richer & more complex" nutrition source ... which takes longer to assimilate.

That's a bit of speculation based on a hunch and observation of another jar which is a King Korn / BRF mix (a man's gotta use all the left-overs you know). That particular jar is the slowest of them all - I figured that the 2 very different food sources intermingled are proving a challenge for the enzyme break-down / digestion process.

Conclusions thus far:

In my humble opinion, Rye seems to be a waste of (my) time. It maybe/possibly might produce a better cake-to-fruit result, but the risk/reward ratio seems too low for my liking.

I've more or less decided that I'm going to master jar-to-poo in the long run. Cakes are a valuable part of my learning - they will give me a chance for close-up, unimpeded, direct no-nonsense inpection & observation of the grow process.

But, shit is the shit - just like outside in God's playground.

Originally Posted by Om shanti

BTW, an idea for possibly a very cheap pressure cooker - check out Indian shops.

I've found some cheaper knock-offs (imitations) of a good brand name design. Sturdy 11 litre capacity for R 450 ~ € 40 ~ $ 45

When this first lot of babies make it to the dried fruit stage, a baggie or 5 will be heading in to the office of my g/f ... where some colleagues eagerly anticipate the results of her lunch time stories. Who knows what sort of thanks might be expressed

More pics tonight ... 1 BRF is 80% good to go !

[RichShroom]

Hi peops o/

BRF

I of my BRF-jars is sprinting towards full colonisation - 48 hours or less to go I reckon.

I am surprised by what seems to be a (shallow) exponential increase in the rate of growth. It really shows how the individual networks become cooperative, and as a whole are clearly greater than the sum of their parts.

The other BRFs are coming along nicely, I should have another 3 or 4 finishing by the beginning of next week.

Rye Flour

By that time, I'm hoping for my first Rye Flour to come home. The other two are hanging in there ... holding thumbs.

King Korn

Still slow, but plodding along at a respectable rate. Nice and healthy looking.

~ ~ ~

Oh ... the pics are not upside down, the jars are

I'm giving:

• the BRF some space to get across the bottom
• the rye & the king korn some relief from bottom collecting dampness

~ ~ ~

I'm getting optimistically excited ... I've bought my tub for my terrarium, got the perlite.

Time to get manufacturing the nursery for the great birth day.

Going to be a daddy soon

[Edit] I took the pics this morning, around 11am, it is now 11:30pm ... I swear the BRF sprinter has covered another 1cm 1/2" in that time.

[johnnydigital]

A+ for your B+

[Shady Ways]

Great description and endeavor! So many discussions on qualities & characteristics are subjective, but your method takes a single, highly aggressive strain and compares different subs, which is a more objective approach.

Barring any unfriendlies, the per cake yield, number of flushes, etc. will be great to know, too!

Count me in for a ticket to the show...

Good luck, RichShroom!!

[RichShroom]

Originally Posted by RichShroom

* Mix ratios are all 2 : 1 : 1 = subs : verm : water
- some are showing small areas of water against the glass

^^^ Absolute Bollocks Alert ^^^

* Mix ratios are all 1 : 2 : 1 = subs : verm : water

^^^ Corrected ^^^

Sheesh ... of course 2 : 1 : 1 would cause large pools of water inside the glass ...

My bad ... apology.

[tbonus]

NICE JOB..Keep 'em coming

[RichShroom]

The big event ... the birth of my first cake !

For the record - vital stastics:

• it is a BRF
• B+
• colonised 100% on day 17 from innoculation
• birthed from jar last night on day 22
• rinsed & dunked & overnighted in fridge - straight water (discovered that my bleach has smell-nice additives ... was wary)
• roll cased this morning on day 23

So here is photographic evidence of my very own 1st ever Stain Blue ... w00t:



I had a little moment of inspiration when casing & setting up in the new nusery / shotgun terrarium / fruiting chamber.

Here's what I did, a little innovation:

• made a cardboard circle, 2cm or 1" bigger than the cake bottom diameter
• snipped 1cm or 1/2" cuts inwards from edge all around, spaced 1cm apart
• folded the cut flaps upwards, each new fold overlapping the last flap
• covered the resulting little cuplet in foil both sides
• folded & crimped the foil nice & tight - gave it a lable with a permanent marker
• filled the mini-reservoir with verm & water
• gently sat my roll cased cake onto its mini-pedestal

This is what it looks like:



An update on my comparitive grow report:

• BRF = 3 more crossed 90% & approaching the 100% colonisation mark within the next 2 days
  • so that puts this speedy little bugger above 1 week ahead of all contenders
  • none lost to contam so far in incubation stage
• Rye Flour = 1 getting there, now at about 75%
  • 1 lost due to black bacteria sucking the white & life out of the existing myc
  • 2 lost due to no myc growth, and white gunk sludge - these guys sucked in water during boiling and were wet, not damp
  • 1 "partially lost" due to bad handling - the damn foil lid came off when lifting for inspection while it was upside down - the cake birthed itself prematurely
    • I cut off viable healthy myc with a clean new alcohol swabbed stanley blade - about 25% of the cake was colonised
    • sliced up the rescued myc
    • spread this as spawn between layers of decaying leaves & grass inside a 2l ice cream tub
    • gave it a thin casing layer of verm
    • popped it outside on a pile of garden waste, between 2 brick supports, no lid, but covered by a plank "roof" leaving 2cm or 1" clearance for air circulation
    • covered it all over with matted dry grass which I mist daily
    • the myc is showing signs of recovery & is slowly clawing its way into the leaf grass subs
    • it is quite chilly outside compared to its last home in the incubator - now at 10-20C or 50-70F
    • I'm watching this as a "nature grow" observation experiment - the tub has ants & spiders & mites & small millipedes busybodying about. My gut tells me that a grow in a total environment with other organisms in the food chain / pyramid will be more balanced than a sterile grow - harnessing little cleanup squads to dispose of contams before they can get a grip.

• King Korn Home Brew = now at around 60%
  • not the fastest, but healthy & ropey
  • I'll be watching the yield closely on this one ... got a feeling that it is slowly packing muscle that will produce heavy fruit

[Om shanti]

Happy birthday! :-) Looks good, and nice idea with the homemade cake-plate. I'm warming up for a pin dance with that whisky bottle that you told me to get for my ahemm.. agar experiments.