Newbie question about 2 week old jars

[arigold]

Hello dear fellow members of mycotopia!

I have a question i hope you guys could help me with. I have incubated 6 8oz. It is my first time growing, so i dont really know what to expect. But its been 2 weeks now at 23 degrees Celsius (about 73 degrees Fahrenheit). And no growth has appeared. But what I have noticed is that where I shot in the spore solution the substrate has turned a more yellow color in all the jars. If anyone of you could tell me if this is good or bad it would be highly appreciated. Oh , and by the way , I used the PF tek and the spore strain is Lipa Yai.

[MLBjammer]

You are going to experience very slow colonization at 73 F. You need to raise the temps up in the low 80 F range for quicker progress.

Seeing yellow probably isn't good. Yet sometimes the first mycelium growth is very wispy and translucent. I would give them a few more days to see whether it turns whiter.

If you could provide pictures, that would greatly help.

[arigold]

ah , Okey. I was intentionally going to try having them at 80 F , but since i live in a dorm, I had to have them in my closet since I open my window at night and its like 35 F outside. But ill take them into my room every day and cranck up the heat. Do you think that will help? The photo isnt that good, but if you can see down the middle of the jar is the yellowy stuff im talking about.

[vwguy]

cant really tell much by the picture. when you see growth it should be up around the top of the jar where you inoculated not down in the middle. put your jars in a cardboard box on top of the fridge and throw a towel over them. that will get your heat up. what strain are you growing. what method BRF?

[arigold]

yepp , BRF. Its Lipa Yai, P. Cubensis. Thanks for the tip about the fridge , but dont really think its an option since i live with 15 other people. But I got them in a cardboard box close to a heater, its stable at 82 F now. Hope this will speed stuff up. There is no "danger" of having them too close to a heater? Or does the heater dry the air? I`m not quite sure about this and i dont have a hydrometer to check.

[DarkLestor]

my 2 cents:

vermiculite looks too course, try making it a bit finer.

if you see no growth, it may be that you inoculated too early, make sure that the jars cool overnight.

did you make your own syringe, or order it pre-made?

and lastly,

WELCOME TO 'TOPIA!!

[MLBjammer]

Please upload your pictures here from now on. Just click on manage attachments on the bottom of every post and upload from there.

That looks like early mycelium to me. You actually do want to inoculate as deeply into the jar as possible (makes for faster colonization). If you press your needle up against the jar's glass and slowly let the inoculant drip down the sides, that will do the trick.

Your jars are going slowly because of inconsistent temps. If you can put them in a cardboard box and wrap in a towel or blanket, that will help a bit. Ideally you want to make an incubator, something like a TiT. Just be careful putting them too close to a heater. You don't want the temps higher than around 84 F.

If your dry vermiculite layer in the top of the jar is the coarse stuff, next time grind it to fine grade (or buy some fine grade). It works better to block contams as it allows less air to pass through unfiltered.

You are going to have a hard time concealing your grow in a dorm.

Good luck!

And welcome to the site.

[arigold]

Thanks so much guys , alot of help here! Highly appreciated!

I will upload my pictures here , is easier as well , i just didnt find it at first:P

I think they are doing okey, just pretty slow. I incubated them with about 1,5 cl each in hopes that they would as fast as possible, since I would like to have them done for christmas.

The vermiculite I used is actually pretty fine, but I think a lot of coarse bits where at the top of the bag when I made the substrate.

Thanks again everyone. And if you have any other tips I could do at this point please post

[DarkLestor]

or get a space heater for your room, as i assume that your don't pay electric as you are living in a dorm. just make sure to keep an eye on it, don't burn the place down.

practice makes perfect. keep at it, PF tek will be 2nd nature before you know it.

[oderus urungus]

Originally Posted by arigold

Thanks so much guys , alot of help here! Highly appreciated!

I will upload my pictures here , is easier as well , i just didnt find it at first:P

I think they are doing okey, just pretty slow. I incubated them with about 1,5 cl each in hopes that they would as fast as possible, since I would like to have them done for christmas.

The vermiculite I used is actually pretty fine, but I think a lot of coarse bits where at the top of the bag when I made the substrate.

Thanks again everyone. And if you have any other tips I could do at this point please post

Is the yellow your talking about at the bottom of the jars?

[arigold]

Its like a stripe down the substrate where I incubated.

[MycoGranny]

A friend of mine used a Heating Pad under the box with the towel around it, in a dorm, but he said you have to be careful not to get things too dried out. I don't know if this is a good idea or not (NEWBIE ALERT) so don't take my word on it. Just a thought, not a sermon :-)

[arigold]

Thanks for the tip! Isnt fun having to try to hide it from the other people i live with either. Just too bad for them for I would gladly share Looking forward to moving out of here after christmas and trying again.

I have now placed my jars on top of a shelf high up in my room, the ceiling is pretty high here so its nice and warm up there. Got a steady 80 degrees F. So I hope there will be some mycylium showing up soon.

Oh, and I smelled the jars a little and they dont smell to bad, but I would say that is was a new smell for me at least. What would a contaminated jar smell like? Or would I see it before i would smell it.

Thanks again for all the replies

[stonedcoder]

smelling the jar is only an indicator ...from what i hear - you'll know right away if the smell is Off ...yuk... if it smells like the mushroom bin at your local grocery store then your golden.

and WELCOME to the topia

[MycoGranny]

CODER YOUR Signature is FANTASTIC!

[arigold]

thank you for your reply stonedcoder. I cant really tell what smell it is, after all it is not that strong at all.
As it seams at the moment if something went wrong, it went wrong with all of them. This leads me to a question, what went wrong if this is the case. I steam sterilized for 90 min with a descent lid, and parts of the time i was holding done the lid with a little force to build up pressure and heat. Would anyone think that this could be where things went wrong? As DarkLestor pointed out that maybe the jars where not cool enough during incubation, but I don't think this is the case since I did wait a full 24 hours after serializing. This is all hypothetical, but I wish to learn what can go wrong so I can avoid it for next time.

[Decon]

Well without the use of a pressure cooker you actually need to cook em at least twice. Look up fractional sterilization method. Believe it or not if you only steamed them once, even for 90min, you may still have living contams in your sub.

I still don't use a PC and fractional sterilize everything. Steaming for 90min once is not enough. It is really very amazing at how resilient some bacteria and spores are.

Regarding your jars, The smell you should be sniffing for smells slightly sour. A little bit like old garbage. If you have your jars incubating in a box, you can usually get a good wiff after opening the top after they have been in there a while. Yellow congealed slimy looking stuff is usually not a good sign.

Healthy jars usually just smell like the original moist substrate and like fresh mushroom goodness once the myc has started colonizing.

A foaf had some jars under suspicion a while back. We weren't quite sure if they had a bacterial contamination but not visible signs of mold or fungus. They just smelled a bit "off". We decided to experiment by injecting a small amount of hydrogen peroxide into each jar. Heres a pic.



The jar on the left had no reaction (A known good clean jar),
The jar on the right fizzed up like a jacuzzi.

I'm not saying you do this but thought it might interest you and others. Could be a good tek for diagnosing bacterial contam?

Last of all, Best of luck and welcome to MYCOTOPIA!

[MLBjammer]

Those are not grain jars. 90 minutes steaming should work for BRF/vermiculite. I have successfully done this more than once. If you are doing grain, then you should use fractional sterilization.

[copelandiaKidd]

that uncolonized part in the jar to the right, might say "i'm too wet"

[arigold]

Thanks for the replies guys.

Yeah , I was thinking they looked a little wet. There is a bit of condensation on the glass , so I unscrewed the lids a little or air it out. The humidity level here where I live is also very high, its surrounded by ocean and it rains ALOT. So how loose can I have the lids?

And how I have got it now , the jars are sitting in a cardboard box with a towel on top. Should I maybe fan the jars or air the box out a couple of times a day?

[arigold]

I checked the jars today and one of them had some white stuff, what do you guys think , might it be mycylium?