Pasteurising Rye grain as a bulk substrate?

[Faithjuice]

Just wondered about this, I understand the methodology of pasteurisation of horse shit and straw ect but what about Rye grain on its own? It is much easier to deal with and loose grains in a pan very easily handled and could be easily pasteurised because the gran is of uniform size, without a stinking mess. does it work using grain for mini bulk? And has anyone tried it. and how would you prepare it for pasteurisation ?

I should add you can't get Canning pressure cookers for love or money outside of the US, so it is small jars and small pressure cookers . So any tips on mini bulk would be much appreciated. it's far more about convenience, less fiddling around with the small jars and producing any sort of bulk. I have messed around with worm castings and verm in tubs that all contaminated and found it really filthy stuff to deal with. I believe I got my pasteurisation wrong.
thanks.

[BuckarooBanzai]

Pasteurization will not work on grains. Grains must be sterilized.

You can fruit just grain if you use a casing layer for some Rez effect. Mushrooms are %90 water and grains don’t hold enough on their own for good flushes.

Here is a thread Fahster did on cased grains and Rez effect:
http://forums.mycotopia.net/rez-effe...mparisons.html (Casing comparisions and inner Rez-effect no inner Rez comparisons)


A pressure cooker is not required to sterilize grains. You can very successfully sterilize grains with steam using Fractional Sterilization/Tyndallization.

Here is a thread I did on Fractional Sterilization:
http://forums.mycotopia.net/steriliz...re-cooker.html (Fractional Sterilization - mushrooms without a pressure cooker.)


It is a pain in the ass to try and Pasteurize worm castings because they are so absorbent. They tend to turn into mud.

[Faithjuice]

Thanks BuckarooBanzai, all my thinking is about five years out of date. useful about the sterilising grain, also what you said about the Rye poor water retention may explain the very poor results I've had fruiting the grain of its own when I have messed about in the past. it might have been me doing it wrong but I never managed to get it right. great FS tek btw

I should add I like experimenting and having fun. My only interest in growing is to replace my ancient spore prints. I think I might try experimenting with a tabletop mini bulk substrate mixture. something like wheat bran and worm castings and a bit of vem. finding a method thats nice and clean. Maybe get up to the correct moisture level and pasteurise it as a cannonball in a plastic bag in water with a temp probe in the middle. I'm interested in any other urban supermarket alternatives to horse poo and straw.

[Heisenberg]

I've used dried grass clippings mixed with coir with great success. But I also add straw and supplements like cotton seed hulls, kelp meal and gypsum.

[BuckarooBanzai]

You can have some easy and consistent results with PF cakes.

[MLBjammer]

It's the most dependable method to produce prints and tissue for cloning.

[Faithjuice]

Thanks for your comments. I agree 1000% about the PF method no argument. I don't know why I feel drawn towards trays and casings. I think it's because I've never managed to get it to work properly. I may be mistaken here, but just casing rye grain was a totally legitimate tek a few years ago. but as has been pointed out it doesn't work very well because it dries out too easily. It turns out it's not what rye is for, which is for spawning.

I think you would be more fun to try a mini bulk using non-standard ingredients. and maybe I can discover a new method and add to those wonderful Tek links of BuckarooBanzai. I want to get away from using vermiculite and find some sort of benign substitute. To make enough substrate to easily pasteurise in a normal sized pressure cooker. And then spawn it with jars. I'm thinking about experimenting with raw wheat bran as a water holding medium, in conjunction with maybe some worm casting just because I have some. though I would prefer to find a standard food grade ingredient. am also going to look if there's any toxicity problem with those water retention crystals you can buy the plants, and maybe experiment with them.

[BuckarooBanzai]

I use polyacrylamide (water crystals). Good stuff.

My bulk substrates are 80:80:20 coir:castingsoly.