Ziplock Spawn bag test

[golly]

While plain ol'e ziplock bags can't be PC'd without rupturing ,they can be steamed..
So ,in this experiment i used the fractional sterilization Tek [ two steams 24hrs apart ] on 1 gallon ziplocks, filled with one pound of BRF/Horse poo..

After sterilization the bags are still supple/flexible and not brittle or weaken'd
at all...

First pic shows the "Hefty one zip" bag used ..25 bags for 4 Bucks...

second pic - the Polyfill needed for a filter and a wire tie to hold in place..

Third pic - the assembled bag, ready for steaming...The filter and zip was trimmed to ensure that the innoculating needle will penetrate through the
filter base after sterilizing...

[golly]

The Trick for making the polyfill filter nice and secure ,is to grab a loose handfull and stretch so that it's 3 times longer than wide -then twist it, so it compresses abit, then fold in half...
This creates a nice bulb shape which can then be mounted in the bag opening.

The wire tie is easiest to work with if its a bit longer than the one pictured..
8 ins is about right...

[Hippie3]

yep, i use ziplocks to pasteurize my donkey doo in,
they do get soft while hot but can take it ok.

[golly]

When the bags are ready ,they are placed in a large covered pot for the steam..

Bags are on an elevated rack above the water level [1.5 inches]

This part is important ,,I used a flannel shirt to insulate the bags from any direct contact with the metal ,also the sleaves were used to seperate the bags from each other..[the bags have a slight tendancy to stick to each other but actually not enough to be a real problem] .....

The pot was heated on a medium flame till steam appeared ,then turned down low ,to just a very slow steam..Approx a half to three quarters of an inch of water per hour is lost..

The last pic shows the bags after steaming [60mins for the first run and 75mins second run]...

[golly]

Yep ,,I'm pretty happy with what i see so far,,The first test bag is about 12 days old and half way colo'd , but it has no filter, just zipped shut...

Another important point is to let the pot cool completely b4 removing the bags , as they are soft when hot...
These newer filtered bags were knocked up 4 days ago,,Hope to see some action soon..
If this works then it could be an easy n' cheap no PC method for spawn or
fruiting invitro dealio...We'll see..

[Hippie3]

pretty clever going the fractional sterilization route with these

[golly]

Thanx....
This is the first test bag ,11 days old, had just been massaged yesterday, so myc is recovering..It's kinda hard to see white on white but doing fine..

I double bagged this first one to be safe but it's not nessessary...Also no filter so it may slow down..
I weighed all the bags so i can track the moisture loss ,through the filter and also through the bag itself...

Debating whether or not i should cover the filter on the other ones, with foil to slow any avapouration...

[cheshire]

this is awesome golly!
this would save people like me who have no access to poly bags!
i hope all goes well! good luck!

So might this work for growing pans?

[golly]

If it works for Cubes then should work with any,,but invitro Pans could be a real challenge...

[Godflesh]

Very interesting.

[Freaky]

Great thread Golly! I found when I used ziploc's they held up really well. I only used the freezer bag style though.

I understand you are using these as spawn bags, so are you inoculating with lc or grain?

I would think even just steam past. like folks do in jars, then spawning your colonized grains would work with this method really well also.

Makes me excited to use the freezer bag of poo I've been saving. Thanks for such a great and informative post.

[waylitjim]

Always dig ur experiments Golly!
Keep up the good work.

[golly]

Thnx...The bags should be good for any innoc with a needle, like LC or spores.

G2G would be a real pita though, as u would have to remove and reset the filter...Of course if you just use the ziplock as is, then G2G would be a snap, but another air exchange method would be needed...

[Hippie3]

obire



see
http://forums.mycotopia.net/showthre...ighlight=obire (Maximized Invitro Bag Method!)

[wayback]

Intersting, although I read a long ways back that brand new bags are sterile until opened. So with this concept in mind I have successfully used new zip log bags to either grow out into straw, or another substrate,of course, using a good inch thick verm layer as my filter.

In fact, I've had a greater success rate than trying to use spawn bags. But this steaming process may prove better yet, so I will give it a try soon.

Thanks for the tip.

[golly]

Ok... for a slightly bigger challenge - sterilizing these three Rye Grass seed bags by steaming twice for 80mins...
Also a bit different filter. Polyfill just jammed into the zip and glued the slider in place with "goop"..

Seems to have held just fine..There was some temporary stickyness where the two sides of the bags had to be pulled apart after the steam,but seem ok..
Being as less of the bag is cut off with this filter method , it gives more room inside...
The bags actually gained 2grams in the proccess..

The other filtered bags have lost 5 grams of water in 7 days while sitting in a very dry atmosphere ,so i may have to take some steps there...

The fully zipped bag has lost 2.5grams moisture in 13 days...

[Hippie3]

maybe smaller vents,
like get some 1/2 inch plastic pipe cut into like 4-6 inch section,
stuffed with polyfil ?

[golly]

Yeah the polly was a bit hard to get the needle through for innoculation..It's proly best to make a dot with a magic marker on the side of the bag and shoot through that,,then goop the hole..Have to wait for the glue to dry though, B4 shaking the bag up..
I want to keep it as simple as possible ..
One bag is Panaeolus ,the others Cubes ,,Going to fruit in the bag as semi-invitro...

[golly]

Eeek !...the first 4 bags all have bacterial comtam ...So what i have is more fertilizer for the Garden...
Next round I''ll increase the steam time to 90mins, 24hrs apart...So stay tuned, cause we're gonna nail this thing down...

[Hippie3]

bummer
you inoculate by injecting thru the polyfil right ?

[golly]

Just for the hell of it , i'm PCing those infected bags which are wrapped in cloth..Curious to see what they look like after the run..Will post a pic 2nyt when they're cooled off....

[golly]

Yes on the three they were knocked thru the polly, going to side inject next time and goop the hole..

[golly]

After 90mins PC at 15psi, the bags do not appear to have ruptured,, but they did melt down to the point where they can not be stretched back out..
So not usable really..
Any way, the next round of steaming for 90 mins x 2...coming up...

The Rye grass bags are still ok..

[golly]

Ok, In this third run Whole rice was boiled for an hour using 11/2times the
normal water amount for cooked rice..
The overcooked rice becomes really mushie and is easily mixed with dry verm...
I figure that actually cooking the rice in water first is likely to kill off most bacteria...
I made some jars also, as a control group...

The bags n' jars were steamed for 150mins..

The blue dots are the innoculation points [1 per bag]..which were then glued shut...

I like the idea of not having to grind the rice then hydrating ,as its all done in one step...

Now we wait...The RGS bags are still OK ,should be germinating any time..

[Hippie3]

good luck
i think i personally would have put a bit less in each bag,
more air, less water and faster to finish
all helps push odds
favorably.
and these are cheap enough to make a bunch.

[chill]

I've done a similar thing with vacuum seal bags. No twist ties tho, vacuum seal the suckas. I picked it up from blue helix. It's a little bit more money but you don't have to dick around with so many jars, verm barriers etc. No cleaning of jars either.

Also, the vacuum seal bags are boilable so can handle the heat.

For innoculation you shoot LC right thru the bag and then cover holes with tyvek or in my case a coffee filter (tape the sides down).

I use a roiling boil tho since we are after steralization and not pasteurization.

[chill]

If the goal is to do this in an inexpensive manner by using heavy duty ziplocks then I'd recommend skipping the polyfil and shooting straight thru the bag.

Also, rolling boil is probably better than just a mild steaming.

Could work. You may want to double bag tho. Water is the worst thing you can get into your substrate.

[golly]

Ok, all the steamed ziplocks are doing well.. ..The grass seed at day 11 and the rice/verm at day 7 ...It seemed that the first batch that failed ,just weren't cooked long enough...
Pre cooking the rice while hydrating it, is a good prevention method...
The bag which was made with whole "overcooked" rice is looking as good as any,,so if you don't have a grinder - no problemo..
The key ,is to boil the rice or BRF with enough water that it's consistancy is like cream soup ...Then add an equal volume of dry verm .
Make minor adjustments after that, B4 filling bags..
The bags are still strong and supple compared to any oven type bag i've used ..

[RootsDubJah]

To throw my (small amount) of experience in here. Last weekend I fractionally sterilized using the Ziploc quart size freezer bags with the double-zipper. They're the ones with the red & blue press-zipper, not the plastic zipper that slides along the top.

But, these easily held up to the steam. I didn't have them in the water, instead I used my big pasta-boiling pot with a build in strainer. I just put a few inches of water in (so it was below the strainer bottom), and them steamed the bags for about an hour, three times with 12-16 hours in between each steam.

Three of the bags had popcorn in them, and were about half filled (popcorn was soaked overnight then boiled for about 30 mins prior to bagging). Then in a fourth bag I placed a piece of bread. Initially the bread bag was to just make sure the bags could hold up to the steam, since I didn't want to waste the popcorn. But I continued steaming the bread with the popcorn each time and am now using it as my "control" and so far nothing has grown on either the popcorn or the bread.

One of the bags of popcorn I put a ring of paper-towel tube that I cloned some oyster mushrooms from the grocery on, so it was about 60% covered in mycelium. It's been a couple days since I put the ring in and it looks like the mycelium has begun spreading in to the popcorn, and I don't have any other contams (yet).

[golly]

That's great Roots...Do the bags have any kind of filter..?

[RootsDubJah]

I don't have any filter on my bags - do I need an air exchange for the mycellium to grow? Reading through the various teks (like PF, for example), the containers were sealed while mycellium grew out. I figured I'd leave them shut based on other tek's instructions. From here, I'm planning on following Lazlo's fruiting tek in this post using the popcorn spawn:

http://forums.mycotopia.net/showthread.php?t=19704 (Cultivating Oyster mushrooms on newspaper........)

[golly]

It's a good question..One of my first sealed bags gradually lost weight ,which means that water was moving through the plastic..It's possible that air also gradually migrates through the film...Whether it's enough to qualify as FAE, i dunno...
As far as PF jars colonizing with out air exchange -i guess they can ,but more slowly..My QT jars never have filters but they're only filled half way, so there's enough air for the whole proccess...

[chill]

In general, mycelium likes O2. PF jars have inoculation holes punched in the lids for FAE. Bluehelix added air to his bags.

I'd add it if I could.

[RootsDubJah]

A bit of bad news that I found out tonight with one of my bags. I noticed it losing air when I squeezed it, and I found a small tear near the zipper part of the bag. I wonder if the heat cycles weakened the attachment point of the zipper and it split. But, I'm going to leave it for now and see if I can grow the mycelium w/o any contams. YMMV, but for me I'll probably stop using Ziplocs for now since A small tear like that could waste a whole bag.

On the other hand, I found a local hardware store that sells canning supplies, so I can buy some jars. The whole reason I started playing with bags is I was having a hard time finding jars locally - all the grocery stores only carry them seasonally in the fall.

[golly]

Sorry to hear that...Part of the reason for this thread is for a low budget growing...No jars,PC's or fruiting chambers...

The "Hefty one zip" bags are quite sturdy ,no ruptures so far ,other brands may be less reliable...

[Hippie3]

'fraid the air is required, pf jars are NOT fully sealed
and growth stops when air runs out,
as anyone who ever put tape over the pf jar air holes
eventually discovers.

[golly]

5 of the six bags are near full colo now..I'll remove the filter to case em,as they will need more water to fruit...

[golly]

Quick update...All the steam sterilized ziplock bags are doing great and on the verge of pinning..The two shown here ,with their plastic bag fruiting chambers
are on track with the rest of em...Will post as things develop...

congrats golly! im happy for ya!

[BuckarooBanzai]

Cool stuff, man. Fractional Sterilization kicks much ass!

Also: Archive Material

[Bobcat]

Why do you think the bags that shrunk would be no good? Because you can't manipulate them?

[golly]

Thnx guys...The PC'd ziplock could possibly work but you would have to insure that there was no contact with other bags or melting together of the bag itself,which might cut off air from the filter..Also very limited massaging would be possible...

Doing another RGS steam run today, for some King Oyster spawn...
This time i will have to open them for agar wedge insertion...

[BuckarooBanzai]

Have you considered maybe attaching Tyvek to the bags as a filter?

If you have an Impulse, set it on 2-3 and you can melt/seal Tyvek to Ziploc bags and make a nice seal (nice way to make little print envelopes, too). Just a thought.

Cool ass thread, man. Spawbags for the masses!!!

[RootsDubJah]

I think the small tear in the bag ended up being a good thing. The mycellium is really growing through it now. It initially was grey and looked like spider-webs only. But now it's getting nice and white like I see in all the pics on this site.

Also, I threw some cloned mycellium into my other two bags, and those are holding up better (no rips), and they're at that spider-web stage I saw the first bag go through.

But although I have that one split in a bag, the other two are holding up great so for me I'd use them again.

[golly]

Sounds good Roots..

This is the first steamed Ziplock bag to fruit at day 28 now...This one is the Rye grass seed/verm bag ,that was slowly cut away as the pins formed..

The Rice bags are slower and not as many pins...

you think the rice bags would be good to use as spawn to some verm
or straw?

[Godflesh]

Originally Posted by golly

Sounds good Roots..

This is the first steamed Ziplock bag to fruit at day 28 now...This one is the Rye grass seed/verm bag ,that was slowly cut away as the pins formed..

The Rice bags are slower and not as many pins...

Very nice results thus far Golly! Keep up the great work!

[elfstone]

What strain of cubensis is that, Golly?

Elfstone