SWIM's Extensive Document of His First With B+

[firerat]

SWIM has decided to document this entire grow from start to finish.

SWIM’s spores have arrived from the good spore so it is time to get this ball rolling.



Unfortunately this is going to come in little spurts spaced out over a couple of days due to lack of time.

Any ways, lets start with the set-up:

This is the “drawer” in which SWIM will be first incubating, the fruiting via chronic tek.


On top of this whole cabinet is SWIM’s TV, DVD player, cable box, etc. so the power strip at the bottom doesn’t appear to be out of place. As you can see, this isn’t a drawer at all, just the front that pops off.



Inside is an extension cord with a nightlight and a small fan from one of those glade thingy’s minus the smelly shit. This drawer maintains a pretty consistent 75F. Not exactly prime for incubation, but the heat-bomb that was in here before made it way too hot so SWIM scrapped it.



If you look close in the back, you will see the 2” PVC spacer that will assist with FAE. Not very technical but it’ll do the trick.

This is an example of the plastic jars SWIM will use for his cakes.




It’s hard to see, but that’s a PP5 in a triangle under there. For those who don’t know, PP5 is a type of plastic made to withstand high temps (microwave safe) and they are great for this application.



There are 4 holes drilled in the lids.



Here are the larger plastic containers for fruiting.



4 hole in these lids as well.



This is a 2” PVC spacer to be put into the jar with the cake on top.



SWIM wanted these somewhat mobile so instead of putting the jars themselves on risers, he instead will glue little 1” pieces of PVC to the outside of the lid to elevate the jar.



This is pretty much the set up. It’s simple, easy to maintain, and freaking cheap!!!

[firerat]

Ok. SWIM has to pre-make his cakes because he has little time to make and steam them at the same time.

Here’s the ridiculously huge 22lb. 4 ft. tall bag of vermiculite. Home Depot has nothing smaller!!





And the verm itself.



Our bag of rice. Not the organic stuff but it should do fine.



Into the magic bullet (love that thing).



Then ½ cup verm + ¼ cup ground rice + ¼ cup water. Mix it all up and:



Now to fill the jars. Remember to leave a little space at the top.



Now fill with dry verm.



Wrap with foil.



And into the pot!! The pot has a towel on the bottom and a glass top to a baking dish as spacers so as not to burn our cake.



Now we have to wait till Saturday to steam these bad boys!! Will post later!!

[Freaky]

I like your descriptive documentation!!!!! Very nice set up so far.


Just want to mention, since you are not steaming your jars for a couple days, this may not be a good idea. Basically, you're allowing a time frame for contams to start growing, which might be harder to kill off when you steam them.
My rule of thumb (and of course, it may be wrong, or not apply) is to always steam/pc brf jars or grain jars right after the jars are filled and all made.

Best of luck, and I can't wait to watch the documentary

[Lookyhere]

Good luck. Sending you some good vibes.

[steeq]

I'd put them in the fridge. Nice log, good idea with the towell.

[firerat]

Originally Posted by steeq

I'd put them in the fridge. Nice log, good idea with the towell.

This is what SWIM did. He had asked about this earlier and you actually suggested the same.

Thanks guys and/or gals. Letting these sit a few days isn't what SWIM had planned or wanted to do but circumstances are circumstances.

Thanks for the good vibes!!

[Freaky]

Good to know you put them in the fridge!

When I read that and then saw you were steaming them, I just didn't want you to waste your time, money, energy on it when contams could have a chance of winning while the jars sat waiting.

Best of luck!

[firerat]

Hey thanks Freaky!

I plan on steaming for 90 minutes. Does this sound efficient? (oh to use I instead of SWIM. how liberating)

[steeq]

90 minutes is plenty

[firerat]

Not much to post. Currently steaming my jars.

I keep noticing the water in the pot is kid of foaming up all the way to the top of the pot. Is this normal/ok?
Thanks

[Lookyhere]

WooHoo, today's the day! The most important thing, well I should say one of the most important things, when steaming is that water doesn't get into your jars. You won't really know until you are done.

[firerat]

Ok there done.

On first inspection they appear pretty much the same as before. (I'd take a picture but the missus has the camera.)

If there is water in them, would it look obvious? I don't know if this makes sense.
It doesn't look like there's any water in there but it's hard to tell.

By the way i went with 90 minutes.

[firerat]

Almost forgot about the camera phone!! Isn't technology wonderful!!

Anyways, I know the pics are kind of crappy, but there is no noticeable pooling on the bottom or anything. What do you guys/gals think?

BTW I used 2 layers of foil. Is that a good thing?

Thanks

[Freaky]

Lookin' good Fire! And good call goin' the 90 minutes in the steam.

When I used to steam, I'd just wrap the whole half pinters in foil wasteful, but after I lost a few first batches to being waterlogged, I wasn't fooling around anymore.


Usually you can tell by weight and looking at them if water entered in during cooking.

[firerat]

I decided that I am going to do a liquid culture with my B+ as well.

After I finished steaming my jars, I decided to set up a jar based off of something I read here using earplugs as self healing ports.


I have a bunch of these plugs I get from work:



So I snapped off the cord:



And cut the little melted part where the cord was off.


I used one of these. It’s a container I got from Chinese food wonton soup. Yummy!!


I popped 2 holes in the top. One in the middle and one towards the edge.



I had read a post here about using potato water in my LC, so I cut 3 small potatoes into about 1” cubes, and boiled them in 8 cups of water. I later realized it was kind of overkill, but oh well.




I let them cook for about 20 minutes, removed the big chunks of potatoes (which I made some homemade mash with hehe), and strained through my coffee filter housing placed on top of a water pitcher. Like so:





Per the recipe, I took 4 cups of potato water, mixed with 12 cups of distilled water, the added 10 tbs of corn syrup

I didn’t have Karo so I used this:



Next, I measured out 2 cups of this mix into a microwaveable measuring cup, and after cleaning my microwave as best as possible (used a little trick I learned as a cook taking Clorox bleach wipes and nuking them for a couple minutes till their dry, then wiping the hell out of the mic. Using a fresh wipe), I put the measuring cup and the container in and nuked for 5 minutes.

While these were nuking, I had the lid sitting on a 91% alcohol soaked rag. I kept the rag on bottom and top.


Once done, I quickly opened the mic., poured the mix into the container, and put the top on. It made a cool hissing noise that I would imagine was the vacuum pulling air through the ear plugs.

Next, I filled a bowl with cool water and put the container in it to let it cool down.

Then I smoked a bowl!


While the mix was cooling down, I started scrubbing the bathroom counters down and sanitizing the air with my Oust.

Ok so now it’s cooled down and the room is relatively sanitary.

So I fill a small bowl with alcohol, and soak a paper towel in it.

I light a candle to be used to flame the needle.


Sanitize my hands, put on gloves, and get my syringe.

So I pop the cap off of the syringe needle and wipe it down with alcohol. Then I flame the needle and poke through the ear plug. Well to my dismay, as I push on the plunger, nothing comes out. Apparently, as I passed the hot needle through the plug, it clogged up the needle.

Oh you got to be kidding me!!

I remove the needle, and give a little harder push. Presto!! Out comes a drop!! Back in business!!

So I slide the needle back in (which was really easy because the hot needle burned a freaking hole through the plug!!) and injected my 2cc’s.

Once I took the needle out, I put a little piece of micro pore tape over the plug with the hole in it (the one in the middle of the lid).



So now in the incubator it sits.


Wish me luck ‘Topia! Tomorrow I knock up my jars!!!

[firerat]

Oh yeah, I ended up with an assload of mix leftover. Can I store that for later or is it crap?

[Hippie3]

nice grow log.
you can store briefly but it'll start drying out
so fresh is best.

[Lookyhere]

I think he's talking about storing the potato/corn syrup LC mix. If you are. I would throw it out and just make a much smaller batch fresh next time. That potato recipe for LC must be for a mushroom farm, cause that's a lot of LC. 16 cups.?

[firerat]

Yeah Looky it's a rediculous amount and yes I was refering to the potato/syrup mix.

Yeah considering it's just potatoes, water, and corn syrup, all of which I always have, I'm just gonna toss it and make much less next time.

[firerat]

Ok so today was the day!!!

I knocked up all 8 of my jars with 1cc per jar and 1/4 cc per hole.

Not really much to discuss except I kept getting little pieces of verm stuck in the end of the syringe!!

Other than that, it was simple.

My glovebox had been destroyed (don't ask) so I had to do this in the bathroom.

I turned off the air conditioner about 1/2 hour before doing this to still the air.

Then I went tin the bathroom and sat still for a while letting the air settle. I wiped down the surface I was using with clorox wipes, and sprayed oust everywhere.

I made sure to wipe my needle between holes and flame between jars.

As I said everything wnet well so now the waiting part!!

[Lookyhere]

It's always good to wait about 5 minutes after spraying Oust/Lysol to settle, IMO. Those chemicals will cause (OMG my mind went blank) the thing where funky looking fruits happen and the gills grow weirdly. I can't believe I can't think of the term. I looked for it too, now it's starting to bug me.

[MycoViator]

Rosecomb

[firerat]

Originally Posted by Lookyhere

It's always good to wait about 5 minutes after spraying Oust/Lysol to settle, IMO. Those chemicals will cause (OMG my mind went blank) the thing where funky looking fruits happen and the gills grow weirdly. I can't believe I can't think of the term. I looked for it too, now it's starting to bug me.

Yeah Looky I thought about that. After I sprayed, I just let everything settle as much as possible before proceding.

How long do you think it will be before my LC starts to show signs of growth? I know my BRF jars will be a while but what about the LC?

[Lookyhere]

Originally Posted by MycoViator

Rosecomb

Thanks. That was driving me crazy, I couldn't think of it for the life of me.

How long do you think it will be before my LC starts to show signs of growth? I know my BRF jars will be a while but what about the LC?

A few days for your LC to start, about 18 or so for it to be done. Your jars should be 3 or 4 days and you should signs. I saw signs in as little as a day in my jars. In can take as long as 2 weeks to see signs, but that is rare and unusual.

[firerat]

Originally Posted by MycoViator

Rosecomb

Are your fruits no good if this happens? I know they won't be pretty, but this is an invitro project. Pretty isn't what I'm going for right now.