Bird Seed Flour TEK illustrated (BSF)

I decided to make up some PF jars with wild bird seed flour (BSF) today, so I took pictures for a BSF TEK. I didn't see any in the archive.

The bird seed came from the grocery store in a 1 kilo bag for 99 cents. Its intended for outdoor bird feeders. The bag says 'winter mix'. Lots more about bird seed in the archives if you need it.



The bird seed went into the coffee grinder until it was a fine powder. I don't grind brown rice this fine, but I wanted to really grind up the seeds to ensure sterilization. This picture shows the seeds before and after grinding.



Then I used the bird seed flour (BSF?) in the regular PF TEK, with a 2:1:1 vermiculite:BSF:water substrate. It had the consistency of standard BRF substrate.



A pinch of dry vermiculite is placed in the bottom of the jar for good measure, and the BSF substrate is spooned in.



Then a dry vermiculite layer was added to the top (ala standard PF TEK), the jar lid placed on loosely 'upside down', and a foil cover for the whole deal. The jar was then steamed in the basket of a vegetable steamer for 60 minutes.



VOILA! BSF jar! Inoculate when cooled.

Looking to try something a little different? BSF, one letter better than BRF!

[grave]

im eager to see how well this fairs against the brf approach.
i think its cool that people are trying different variations, such as RR and the coffee grinds approach.
its would be cool to see someone do all three, bsf, brf, coffeegrinds/verm. and compare the grow.

experiments like this are what helps this hobby evolve and become more refined.

nice pics yo'...

[Lazlo]

yeh man, definately keep us posted on the progress. i've givin this some thought and am anxious to see some results.

[tobynutz]

keep us updated! i love seeing new ideas in action

I already did this same thing.
(I used the four-grain kind.)
The dozen birdseed flour jars
have colonized as fast and
as well as the brf jars.
We'll see how fruiting goes.


(Message edited by viraljimmy on January 28, 2005)

I think in my next adventure im going to make some BRF Jars and some BSF jars... and inoc 3 jars of each with 3 different Strains..(Not Chosen yet)... for a total of 18 jars. and we'll see...

Very cool. I love it when folks aren't scared to try something new. That's how we learn.

[skater420]

Nice thread!


Keep us updated!

Birdseed and millet ground up work in the same way. You can also try using a coffee grinder to grind your birdseek, but remember that the coffee grinder is for SMALL amounts of seed (hard way). I think you might find (unless you dunk prior to casing) that the cakes end up on the drier side. I postulate that the reason for this is the freshness of the seed flour prohibits it from absorbing moisture, where the BRF has sat out for a little while. Rectify this situation by adding 1/4 c more water (as in 2/1/1.25 per 10 jars).

The first fruiting is great from this method and produces very robust mushrooms. however, second frutings are minimal; though, this may be because rehydration was not used. This fact lends support to the hypothesis that ground birdseed and millet require slightly more water than ordinary BRF cakes.

Special note: since we try to avoid senescence by varying the substrate, this is an excellent way to increase yeild while improving strain viability.

hiveb

I haven't tried your bird seed flour trip, but experience has shown me that whole seeds don't do well when steamed. Contams prevail; a pressure cooker is mandated.

There are no additional problems with the cakes when ground birdseed flour is introduced. As opposed to whole birdseed, these cakes could be steamed like normal BRF cakes if desired.

hiveb

[recondite]

Can someone fill me in why you don't have to PC WBSF?? I don't see how going with a flour would make it easier to kill the endospores present in the WBS.

(Message edited by recondite on February 03, 2005)

I can't say exactly why it isn't necessary (biologically), but you draw a direct analogy between whole grain brown rice: BRF and whole seed: BSF.

hiveb

[recondite]

True, but I've seen whole grain brown rice, simmered then mixed mixed with vermiculite, and then boiled, not PC'd. It turned out with no contams.

Because the steam doesn't have to actually penetrate the grain when its a flour?

These jars are looking great. Will update with pics soon. 50% colonized. Same speed as BRF jars...will compare the fruit.

i'd say the diff is the hull.
rice, being polished, has no hull
so steam's enough.
same with ground up seeds,
hull has been breached so steam suffices.
whole seeds with intact hulls
need pressure to penetrate the hull
and kill the endospores.

[morthos]

I have to wonder if a bsf mix would be better with a higher proportion of verm & water instead of just a higher water ratio. With more verm, the cake would retain more water after dunking.

[recondite]

I hope it works out, it would be great news for those who don't have a PC and are tired of using BRF. GL

Never thought of putting more verm in because only one flush is usually completed. Though, this would probably be an ok idea. once these cakes dry out, they are rock hard to the point where you almost can't cut into them.

hiveb

UPDATE:

This image shows the WBSF jar on the left, and a BRF jar on the right. The difference is not evident, but the BRF cake has shrunk inwards (as is normal for me), the WBSF cake is 'like a tank' - it is still holding its form with little to no shrinkage. This could be because the WBSF holds less water than BRF, thus less absorption/shrinkage has occurred.

These jars are the same strain, but not clones, thus no conclusion about the growth can be drawn. However, I felt that the rhizo. growth on all the inculcate points of the WBSF jar was more 'finely threaded' than that of the BRF jar.

Next I will fruit these side by side for a general comparison. I'm not sure if I will fruit from the cake, or crumble and case in small tupperware. Any suggestions?

I am also going to use a BRF jar of the same strain to inoculate a roll of toilet paper, a la the oyster mushroom TEK. Haven't seem this done. It may be a waste of a cake, but I'm pretty much done with this strain.

can't really draw any conclusion
other than
it works.

My buddy did this several times. Ground up birdseed, sometimes straight sometimes mixed with BRF.

Although the consistancy of the cakes is a little different when colonized, FOAF didn't notice much if any difference in colonization time or fruiting. They work just fine. Not a bad alternative to BRF if you can get birdseen cheap.

BTW, dont try to grind popcorn in your coffee grinder! FOAF used that too, and while it worked fine in place of BRF it also tore the shit out of the plastic top of the grinder!

[MNL]

Followup:

Pictures of Fruiting WBSF cake.

[~Hippie3]

would you plz re-post your original pix ?
they were lost in the move...

[MNL]

Sorry, I dont have them anymore.

I downloaded them from here when I needed to reproduce them.

MycotopiaNL

[~Hippie3]

bummer.
my bad.
sorry

[Lazlo]

Last week I did some pyrex bowls with wbsf and Karo. So far the growth is pretty much performing like the brf. I'll keep ya updated on them.

[~Hippie3]

looper-
how'd yours turn out ?

[Lazlo]

Pretty good. I've gotten 1'st flushes from all of the bowls. I've got one recased with coir/vermiculite and the other 3 are dunking right now. I'll post picks of the wbsf bowls after I case them all. The pic in my avitar is an Orissa India on wbsf. They were prepared just like the PF formula.

[~Hippie3]

nice avatar

[toad]

I found a mixture of BRF and BSF works better than straight BRF.
50/50 shows good fruiting without excessive drying like 100% BRF.
This was done before I learned the benifit of dunking so who knows now?

Mmmmm... Orissa's

[Lazlo]

Yeah, the mushroom is pretty trippy lookin. Thanks. Toad I think your correct with the observation of wbsf being able to retain H20 better than brf. It must be the ground up shells.

[~Hippie3]

the hulls ?
nah, gotta be the starch.
have you weighed
dry volume versus hydrated volume ?