I am very interested in mushrooms, I've been wanting to start growing both psychoactive and regular mushrooms for eating. How do you feel about the online "substrate in a bag all in one kits" they offer I know I'd be paying a premium but is the ease of use worth it to see if it's a long-term thing I'd be interested in?
I also feel very hesitant when buying the spores/cultures. I keep getting recommended sites that look sketchy as all heck and can't really make heads or tails of where the good places are to source things.
I don't care for them- they're VERY overpriced for what you get. If you're looking for a low-investment way to see if you enjoy this, you need the following:
1 can Lysol equivalent
1 large Sterilite-type tub (large enough to turn over atop a table with the edge overhanging, this is a zero-effort "still air box" setup)
1 "spore" syringe- you're actually looking for liquid culture. Much better, you can tell whether or not it's colonized, much more common than a few years ago, much more likely to be clean.
1 lighter, maybe- I don't do flame-sterilization anymore usually
A utility knife or all-metal scissors (need to be able to get really clean- I drop them in alcohol)
For ~every cc in the syringe, 1 bag of "ready rice"- Uncle Ben's is no longer preferred, it's too wet. You're looking for cheap with crappy ratings, because the ideal product would be an absolutely shit eating experience for a human- it should be low in sodium and dry/chewy and taste like cardboard. You also need a clear bottom or at LEAST a window until you're experienced enough to spot contam by "candling" them over a bright light.
1 roll micropore "paper" tape- Target brand is fine, 3M not necessary.
1-2 bricks of
pet bedding branded coco coir (do NOT get garden coco coir, get this from a pet store).
A few (3-5) of those cheap-ass plastic shoeboxes- this is the best shape for beginners.
Optional- a bag of slider-top Ziploc-equivalent baggies, for a little later- I wait for signs of life and then transfer. Oysters you can just do this right away, those things will out-compete almost anything.
ALL of the stuff other than the spore syringe should run you less than one all-in-one bag, and that's assuming you don't already own anything.
Actual technique advice abounds and I long ago moved on to a pressure canner with unicorn bags (buy brand direct from manufacturer in this case unless you like cleaning melted plastic out of your canner when you get a shit batch), but when I left off-
1. Warm the bags up a little bit in some warm water. Not hot, just like, bath water. Softens the rice up a little.
2. Mash/press all the rice down to form a loaf at the bottom. Don't overdo it, the myc needs room to grow, but the original brick form makes contam hard to spot. Go ahead and gently separate the bottom seams. It should be a little rice football with lots of baggie on type, kinda.
3. Let them cool/dry and spray the batch with some Lysol.
4. Clean the room you're planning to use and shut off fans, AC, any of that. A cleaner/smaller room to start with is better. Kitchens and bathrooms are gross, don't even think about it. A small walk in closet is decent. The dining room works fine, though, or your desk if you're not a total mess.
5. Hose down the tabletop with Lysol, move over your bags, hose down the inside of the container, invert over the table/bags leaving a lip you can get your arms up and into- this is the shittiest version of a still air box, but if your vendor for the liquid culture isn't ass, it won't matter.
Now we hit the part that's controversial and you'll just have to figure out what you like- the actual inoculation. Personally, I've been shaking the living hell out of the syringe, attaching a brand-new sterile needle, corner cutting the bags as a batch, squirting a half CC or so directly in with a quick alcohol wipe between, corner taping with the paper tape, and being patient. This is because I'm not in a hurry and I think oversquirting due to getting rice stuck in the needle is just as good a way to ruin a bag, not to mention wasteful. Afterwards, the keywords are patience and acceptance. Put the bags somewhere warm enough (78-84 degrees is nice) and leave them the heck alone for at least ten days. At ten days, inspect them. If it looks wrong, it is- bags should not be wet, any color other than rice or bright white, and you should be able to feel some firmness starting. As a general rule for beginners, if 0% contaminate you got lucky (or are growing Oysters) and if 100% contaminate your syringe was probably shit and you need to start over, but any number in between is more learning. Later you can do stuff to be more sure, like agar.
For cubes: spawning to bulk, if your bags are healthy, is dead simple. You need to hydrate that coco coir- I like 2 parts "field capacity" hydrated coir to 1 part colonized rice, which works out to whatever it says on your coir package plus about 25%. Mushrooms like it wetter than reptiles do. Then I honestly just microwave the living crap out of it in a Corningware casserole dish/lid. If you bought the right coir it smells weirdly good, my husband gets mad at me every single time because he comes downstairs looking for whatever smells so great and it's my stupid fungus crap again. Let this cool back down inside its container inside the oven/microwave/bucket/whatever.
Go ahead and check out some YouTube videos, there are plenty of people who have reasonable advice up to this stage. The next stage is where they want to sell you stuff, so that gets dicier.
All I do is run the shoeboxes through the dishwasher, wash the crap out of my hands (don't forget under your nails), and then squeeze out excess water/drop the coir into the boxes, reserving about 20%. Then dump your rice in and mix it like it's meatloaf then pat down FIRMLY, washing thoroughly again between boxes. For a typical shoebox I use 2 bags and a proportionate amount of coir, so if all your bags make it, that's 5 shoeboxes. Typically I'd say 3 is gonna do you. Once mixed and mooshed, portion out the remaining coir and "ice" the "cake"- pat down firmly and make sure no rice is exposed, wash between boxes. Pop the lids on. Then maybe I'm neurotic but I just run my 1" roll of paper tape all the way around the seal area and leave it for a few days- the cheap shoeboxes have too much airflow at first otherwise. Put them however many separate warm places you have in case some contam got away and wait. I don't bother with vermiculite or gypsum for shoeboxes.
If you make it this far just come post once you're ready for first inspection.
As far as source, last I checked 3ntheo was still solid.
If you do end up enjoying this, there are ABSOLUTELY better ways of getting this done, but it's a good toe-in-the-water technique that had great results for me. The hardest part was getting rid of the oversupply. NEVER tell people you're growing unless you'd die or go to prison for them, because that could happen.
