Subtopic	Posts		Updated
	Archive through June 12, 2001	11		06/15 06:53am

By Oldtimer (Oldtimer) on Tuesday, June 12, 2001 - 04:18 am: Edit

After pressure cooking, place in flow hood or glove box and carefully remove dowels from jar....

By Oldtimer (Oldtimer) on Tuesday, June 12, 2001 - 04:18 am: Edit

By Oldtimer (Oldtimer) on Tuesday, June 12, 2001 - 04:20 am: Edit

Sterilize your Cuisinart by spraying with a 10% sodium hypochlorite (clorox) solution, rinse with distilled water and proceed to grind-up a PF cake which is thoroughly colonized. Place the Cuisinart container in your hood or glovebox and spray again with clorox solution. Allow to sit for 30 minutes or so and then get ready to start work....

By Oldtimer (Oldtimer) on Tuesday, June 12, 2001 - 04:20 am: Edit

By Oldtimer (Oldtimer) on Tuesday, June 12, 2001 - 04:21 am: Edit

After removing dowels from jar place 1-1/2 tablespoons of cake powder into top of open jar. Be sure to flame spoon before touching powder.

By Oldtimer (Oldtimer) on Tuesday, June 12, 2001 - 04:22 am: Edit

By Oldtimer (Oldtimer) on Tuesday, June 12, 2001 - 04:24 am: Edit

Use sterile dowel (one removed from jar) to ram the PF cake powder down into the channels in the substrate (where you removed dowel pieces).

By Oldtimer (Oldtimer) on Tuesday, June 12, 2001 - 04:25 am: Edit

By Oldtimer (Oldtimer) on Tuesday, June 12, 2001 - 04:26 am: Edit

Here is a shot of inoculated jars after ramming with PF cake powder...

By Oldtimer (Oldtimer) on Tuesday, June 12, 2001 - 04:27 am: Edit

Wrap jars in foil (to exclude light) and allow to incubate.... You should see TOTAL colonization of pint jars within 1 to 1-1/2 weeks (not a month as is usual for 1/2 pint jars done the traditional way). Congratulations... you have just turned ONE 1/2 PINT into FOUR 1 PINT jars (an 8 fold increase) as well as helping the fungus to overtake the jars in record speed!

Here is a pic of the same jars exactly 24 hours later.....



You will not believe the rapid growth you can achieve using this method, but remember....You have to have a flow hood or glove box to attempt working with open jars of substrate....

Good luck to you and let us know if this works for you....


OT

By Oldtimer (Oldtimer) on Tuesday, June 12, 2001 - 04:47 am: Edit

Sorry for the numerous posts....but the damn program wouldn't allow me to post text and pics together... hmmm

Oh well... I got it posted, even if it took a million entries...

By Brettiejams (Brettiejams) on Tuesday, June 12, 2001 - 04:53 am: Edit

Thats a bitchin flow hood you got there O.T.!

By Vitticeps (Vitticeps) on Tuesday, June 12, 2001 - 05:05 am: Edit

how exactly does a flow hood work? What kinda setup does it require? Can you post some pics from a distance OT?

By Spaceghost17 (Spaceghost17) on Tuesday, June 12, 2001 - 05:30 am: Edit

OT do you still use verm to top the cakes or does
the polyfill serve the same purpose?
and did you use old cakes like in straw tek?
thx looks good keep feeding our hungry minds
Space

By Sterile (Sterile) on Tuesday, June 12, 2001 - 07:47 am: Edit

This is gooooooood

By Hippie3 (Hippie3) on Tuesday, June 12, 2001 - 11:09 am: Edit

check this out, vitti--

http://mycotopia.yage.net/discus/messages/425/1924.html?991147198

By Hippie3 (Hippie3) on Tuesday, June 12, 2001 - 11:14 am: Edit

also see--
http://www.vengers.com/culture/hood.htm

By Hippie3 (Hippie3) on Tuesday, June 12, 2001 - 11:44 am: Edit

also see--
http://mushrooms.spiritplants.com/archives/new_stuff/Flowhood_DIY.html

By Rochester (Rochester) on Tuesday, June 12, 2001 - 04:58 pm: Edit

Oldtimer I have had the same problems on uploading pics. I found that I cannot do multiple pics at the same time so now I just post one pic at a time and it has been faithfull. Hippie is it maybe looking at combined size of pics instead of each single pic size?

Oldtimer I am impressed with you progress shown here and will be attempting it myself. I have been thinking on the lines of my quart jars of birdseed w/poly top but inserting a tube in the center of seed and then innoculate. After seeing your work I might use a tube from bottom of jar to the hole in lid sticking out 1" or so and after sterilizing just use your ground cake powder with a plunger and then pull tube and plug hole with poly. I have not much experience with this whole thing but I am seeing that my Thailand strain likes birdseed much better than pf tek.

Great job and success to ya Oldtimer!
Roc

By Hippie3 (Hippie3) on Tuesday, June 12, 2001 - 06:44 pm: Edit

it's interesting, but i wonder, since you're using a flowhood, would not it be just as good and even faster and easier to mix and stir the powdered cake into the pre-sterilized substrate before filling jars ? then it could colonize from every speck.

By Rochester (Rochester) on Tuesday, June 12, 2001 - 08:06 pm: Edit

The more heads the better is what they say, right Hippe?

By Resedit83 (Resedit83) on Tuesday, June 12, 2001 - 10:35 pm: Edit

So let me try to recap here, what you are saying (Hippie and OT) is that once your cake is done flushing (after the 5, 6, 7, whatever), it is possible to use that "old" cake for another full batch (12, 24 new jars) of the same type of mushrooms (same species, thai, malay, ect.), and then so on and so on forever? Provided of course that the cakes are not contaminated.

By Fishy1 (Fishy1) on Wednesday, June 13, 2001 - 12:07 am: Edit

I would reccomend only using contaminant free new cakes. Old ones would be risky on fresh substrate.
I have been using PF cakes diced up to innoc. my rye grains in qts. Works every time and no hood or glove box is used. Just the open oven door(sometimes). Be clean! The rye has also been used to innoc new rye jars.
Last night I used the Cuisinart method to innoc some more straw trays. I think OTs point is that the PF cakes blend up into dust, while the rye is in bigger "chunks". The trays I did 20 hrs ago have incredible growth w/ the cake dust- maybe even better than the rye innoculated trays. Cant wait! The rye innoc'ed straw and the coco and worm shit trays done 2 -3 days ago are solid blocks now. Time to case(?), and have fun.
Looks like if all keeps goin well, I will never fruit another cake again! fishy1

By Oldtimer (Oldtimer) on Wednesday, June 13, 2001 - 12:26 am: Edit

Hippie.... you are absolutely correct about mixing powder into jars. The ironic thing is that is what I normally do, but after several nights of deliberating whether to release that method or the "dowel" thing I decided dowels would be a little more foolproof and maybe avoid weeks of reading about contaminated jars from folks doing this without a hood! Like minds??? Actually you can pop open a jar, place a big spoonful of PF Cake powder in the top, chop up and mix with a scalpel to achieve total colonization in about a week. Works great but be forewarned... If you do introduce contams in the jar and then use that jar to start more... you've started a vicious cycle with trich or aspergillis that will drive you mad... As long as you are working under controlled, sterile conditions it works great.

Here's a pic of my homemade hood that I constructed for around $350. The HEPA filter cost me $130....Squirrel cage blower from Grainger for around $125. Easy to build and damn worth the time and money if you are serious about playing with fungus!



OT

By Oldtimer (Oldtimer) on Wednesday, June 13, 2001 - 12:28 am: Edit

Well.... as usual.... the CGI kicked my pic...again

Uploaded separately seems to be the only way for me....

By Ridder (Ridder) on Wednesday, June 13, 2001 - 12:40 am: Edit

hippie, didn't u pay less than that for the one u just bought?

By Hippie3 (Hippie3) on Wednesday, June 13, 2001 - 02:46 am: Edit

no, more.

By Johnseemore (Johnseemore) on Wednesday, June 13, 2001 - 03:06 am: Edit

how strong is the blower how much do you have to feel air coming out of the box. I have a big hepa filter for my room couldent i just duct the air output in to my glove box and have a positive cleen enviroment.

By Brettiejams (Brettiejams) on Wednesday, June 13, 2001 - 04:49 am: Edit

My glove box has a small 10 inch computer fan mounted to it with a hepa filer over the intake.

Essentially what you just suggested.

By Oldtimer (Oldtimer) on Friday, June 15, 2001 - 06:53 am: Edit

Same jars as posted above... Board says Tuesday but I think it was actually Monday, whatever... Here are the jars a few days later after initial inoculation....



Not completely colonized but working on it...

OT

By Oldtimer (Oldtimer) on Friday, June 15, 2001 - 06:56 am: Edit

I sacrificed one for a shot at its insides....

By Vitticeps (Vitticeps) on Friday, June 15, 2001 - 11:07 am: Edit

Took one for the team OT, you're a good man.

By Alt (Alt) on Friday, June 15, 2001 - 07:49 pm: Edit

hmmmm...
this tek is a wonderful idea but seems to be too broad for me

are stuff that are inserted in the pint jars grounded up pre-birth cakes?

there were some other things i was wonder about too, but a main one really is, is this very producutive if you are able to pull it off?

or is this something that's a gamble, OT how reliable is the tek? you're pretty advanced, so i know many others are not up to your par.

By Karna (Karna) on Friday, June 15, 2001 - 08:10 pm: Edit

any tek that leads to an eight fold spawn multiplication is VERY productive.

judging by the fact that he's got almost complete colonization in a few days w/ no contams, i'd have to say it's definitely no gamble.

it is definitely a method for those with a experience using sterile techniques, not beginners.

i would not recommend trying it unless you have a very nice environment and good sterile practices and a great flow hood like ot.

By Fungusflipper (Fungusflipper) on Saturday, June 23, 2001 - 02:28 am: Edit

HEY OT!

Nice new Tek! I have been rolling it around in my shroom catcher for a while, and I have a question for you:

DO you think that one could use agar to grow out a good, solid strain, cut out the sector that he wanted, cut that up into little bits, then take the jars he prepped with the dowels from your tek, pull the dowels, plop a piece or two of the cultured myc down the hole, fill in with some sterile brf/verm mixture? Think it would fire that way? Reason I am asking is that I really wanna try some agar work, but don't have the money to buy a pressure canner for birdseed or rye berries.

What you think, Old MAN?

FF

By Yeg (Yeg) on Sunday, June 24, 2001 - 09:29 am: Edit

I have had success with a similar method. I was cloning for my first time using agar and my pressure cooker broke when my dishes were ready to go. I was very eager so I decided to try brf cakes. I used 1/2 pints, slurpy straws instead of dowel, and put a thin barrier of vermiculate on top of the substrate. Sterilization of the filled jars was done in steam pot. To inoculate it I filled the holes with agar chunks and slightly moistened vermiculate. Each hole had four inoculation points made up of clusters of small agar squares.(I'm gonna try mixing the agar and vermiculate and then dumping it down the holes.) Out of 6 jars only 1 got contaminated. The rest were colonized in 12 days. Needless to say, I don't use rye that much anymore and have graduated to pint jars. This method could be very useful if you want to grow clones with OT's straw tek ;) Anyone else try something like this?

By Fishy1 (Fishy1) on Sunday, June 24, 2001 - 05:59 pm: Edit

Does anyone think that a colonized jar of rye could be put in the food processor, ala OT TEK? My rye is always like a brick..but I am skeptical because blending it will expose (possible) more food from the inside of the rye kernels. Or maybe a gooey mess!
Has anyone tried this? Spanks, fishy1
ps- the long awaited Cambods are awesome! Just spent 3 days up in the mountains w/ a big bag....nice time! The ol noggin is a little soupy today!!!!

By Hippie3 (Hippie3) on Sunday, June 24, 2001 - 10:01 pm: Edit

i've wondered about that myself, but i think you're prolly correct about the kernel insides.
or course, a few tablespoons of colonized rye into a new jar is still quite fast, my b+ quarts looks 50% after only 5 days from grain-to-grain transfer..

By Hippie3 (Hippie3) on Sunday, June 24, 2001 - 10:02 pm: Edit

to the archives with this one...