Spawn to bulk- timing?

[viTaL]

Hey, where ya all been?

Well, its good to be back at this hobby after an unexpected break. Lost my job not long after I found this place, and had to re-prioritize things a bit. 6 months later- Found work, back and better than ever.... Glad to see this place is doing well.

So on to my question...

I've grown quite a few times throughout college, but its been a few years. So enlighten me if you would, please. How long can I wait to spawn these jars to bulk?

The jars are half colonized, and should be ready in a week. But I just recently placed an order from mycrotopia for sandbags... so I'm thinking I need to hold off for about 2 weeks or so.

Bad planning on my part.

Once these fully colonize, is it cool to just put them in the fridge for a week or so and wait it out?

-viTaL

[BuckarooBanzai]

After a grain jar is 100% colonized, you can toss it into the fridge for a week or two without any major problems. I would put it in a plastic bag to keep out nasties and to keep it from drying excessively.

Two suggestions with popcorn:

1> Leave about 1 inch of free space at the top of jars to make shaking them up easier.

2> When you are ready to spawn, shake the popcorn jar up thoroughly and then put it back into the incubator for 24 hours. The corn has a chance to recover (less chance of contams) and if the jar has a bacterial problem, you will find out before you spawn with it. Popcorn can have bacteria and still colonize completely - but it won't recover after shaking.

[larshroom]

Originally Posted by BuckarooBanzai

2> When you are ready to spawn, shake the popcorn jar up thoroughly and then put it back into the incubator for 24 hours. The corn has a chance to recover (less chance of contams) and if the jar has a bacterial problem, you will find out before you spawn with it. Popcorn can have bacteria and still colonize completely - but it won't recover after shaking.

Buckaroo, You told me to do this too but I was thinking that when I spawn to bulk, I smash my rye grain to individual grains, or at least kind of close to get an even mix with my substrate and thereby negating any recovery from the day before. Is that wrong?

[BuckarooBanzai]

Smash/shake the grains - then wait 24 hours. The grain will recover but it won't knit back together into one mass in that time. You can still spawn with it but there is much less exposed/plain grain.

Exposed grain is where contams frequently start.

[viTaL]

It seems all the jars colonized nicely, but were a little dry on top. So today I emptied the jars into individual bags and broke up the popcorn, per BuckarooBonzai's suggestion.

The dry parts on top were dumped out (just kind of fell apart). I think I waited too long, been busy with work, etc. But otherwise, it looked healthy. All work was done in a glovebox, and the bags are back in the incubator.

No pics this time, can't find the battery charger.

So, I take it that once everything begins to grow back, its time to chill the popcorn in the fridge until I'm ready to use it? So, a day or two from now I suppose Ill put it in the fridge.

So far, so good...

Thanks again.

-viTaL

[P4ulada]

Mycelium pretty dense, so beauty
Good lucky dude

[BuckarooBanzai]

Break the popcorn up and put it back into the incubator. You want it in warm conditions (preferably still in the sterile jar) to grow more myc to cover as many bear spots as possible.

If you put it in the fridge, it will grow much slower.

Shake and return to the incubator for 24 hours.

Then spawn.