Growing Mushrooms at Home Using Grains
by: mjones91
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Creating Grain Spawn
Cereal grains such as wheat, rye, millet, maize, amaranth,
quinoa, etc. can be used as a vehicle to expand your substrate mass into bulk
substrates. If you’ve mastered half-pint
jars, making grain spawn is the next logical step. When a jar of grain is completely colonized
it can be used to inoculate other jars of grain using what’s called a grain to grain
transfer. G2G for short. Paul Stamet’s
explains that 1 jar of colonized grain can inoculate 10 more jars of
grain. Each of these jars in turn can
inoculate 10 more jars and finally those can inoculate 10 bags of bulk
substrate each. Do the math and you are
expanding your mycelial mass up to 10,000 times the original jar. (Growing
Gourmet and Medicinal Mushrooms, 2000).
If you would like to create your own Rye
jars, simply follow these instructions and start making your own grain spawn to
experiment with.
There are many lid designs that can be used with your quart
jars. We recommend drilling four ¼”
holes as you normally would in half-pint jar lids. Then drill one larger hole in the
center. This will be filled with a High
Temp Gasket sealer to create a self-healing injection site. If you are using the quart jars for grain to
grain transfers you can leave out the injection site.
Depending on the size of your pressure cooker you will want
to adjust the amount of ingredients to suit how many quart size jars you will
be able to sterilize at one time. For
each quart jar measure out 200g or 250 ml of organically grown rye. You can use the quart jars for
measuring. Simply pour the rye into each
jar to the 250 ml level. We will need to
set a pot large enough to hold enough water to cover all of the rye grains put together.
Fill your pot with enough water and heat to boiling. Immerse your grains in the water and then
lower the heat. Keeping it up high will
cause the grains to break open and this can lead to contamination later
on. We want to steep the grains for one
hour stirring now and then. For my stove
I lower the heat from level 8 to level 3 when putting the grains in and then on
down to level 1 after twenty minutes.
Your stove will be different but I included these settings to show an
example. The grains will start to swell
from absorbing water as time goes on.
After your hour of steeping is up you will want to drain off
the excess water and then pour the grains through a strainer. I usually rinse off the grains before loading
them in the quart jars. Scoop enough grain so that each jar is evenly
filled. Place your lids on loosely and
cover them with a square of aluminum foil to keep water droplets from landing
on the lid and seeping through to the interior.
Load your pressure cooker with the jars and fill the it up
to the desired water level. Now, take
your jars back out and preheat your pressure cooker water to boiling. This will help prohibit more grains from
exploding during the heating process.
After the water has started to boil, load the pressure cooker again and
place the lid on. After the pressure
cooker starts to sizzle at 15 p.s.i., set your timer for 90 minutes.
Allow the pressure cooker to cool to room temperature before
removing the lid. Shake the jars when
removing them to mix up the grains. The
grains on the bottom might be more moist than the rest and will need
redistributed. Allow the jars to cool
for 24 hours before attempting to inoculate them.
When you inoculate your jars, it is best to work in a clean
area to prohibit bacteria from contaminating your substrate. Cleanse the area well and nuke the air with
Lysol. Using a culture syringe, insert
the needle through the self-healing injection site and administer 1 cc of
solution per jar. Shake up the grains to
distribute the solution and incubate at between 82-86 degrees F. After five days, you can shake the jar one
more time to aid in speeding up colonization time. If the jars have not colonized within 14-21
days the jar is most likely contaminated or the temperatures are too low.
Grain to Grain Transfer
When a Quart Rye Jar is fully colonized it can be used to
inoculate up to 10 more jars to expand your mycelium and increase substrate
mass thus increasing yields. Inoculating a grain jar with colonized substrate
is faster than using a Liquid Culture because there is more mycelium to reproduce
and proliferate. The procedure is fairly simple. The main concern is sterility
when opening the uncolonized substrate jars.
First thing. You should wait approximately 1 week after the
jar has colonized to ensure the interior has colonized as well and allow the
mycelium to digest the substrate in preparation for fruiting. A rye jar usually
colonized in about 3-4 weeks. Sometimes this can take longer if the temperature
is not between 82-86 degrees during incubation.
When you are sure colonization is complete you will need to
break up the grain so that you can inoculate your other substrates. Using a
tire is perfect for this. Just make sure there are no cracks in the jar or it
could break. You should also use safety goggles when doing this. After the grains
have broken up, place it back in your incubation area and wait 24 hours. This
will help rule out contaminations. The next day, mycelium should be growing
again. If it has not within 24 hours the jar is considered contaminated by
bacteria and should be thrown out. If you use it then you are potentially
contaminating all of your new substrate jars.
The following day when you are ready to inoculate your jars,
you should clean your work area, table and air with some cleaner. Any automatic
air should be turned off one hour before the procedure. This helps calm the air
and reduce the risk of airborne contaminates entering the jar when you open it.
Ideally, you should be working in front of a Flow Hood but a Sterilized
Glovebox will work as well. If you are using a glovebox, load the jars at this
time.
The Procedure: Reshake the colonized jar to break up the
grains. To inoculate the new rye jars, remove the lid from your colonized jar
and the lid from the fresh substrate jar. Shake some colonized rye grains into
the fresh substrate. There should be enough to divide the 1 colonized jar into
10 new ones.
Continue with the rest of the jars. Remove the lid, quickly
inoculate with rye grain and replace the lid. The less time the lid is off the
better. Incubate your jars the same way you did the first one. After these have
colonized you can do several things with the grain.
• Use each jar to inoculate 10 more jars each
• Fruit the mushrooms right out of the top of the jar
(depending on your species; not all mushrooms fruit directly from grain)
• Use the colonized grain to inoculate any of our 3 lb
Substrate Spawn Bags. In most cases these can be fruited directly using our
grow chambers or a humidity tent.
• Use the colonized grain to inoculate Pasteurized Straw
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