Grow Mushrooms on the Cheap. [Published]
Totse Anon
Regular
This guide encompasses how to grow mushrooms, either for decorative or cookery uses. The main body of the guide focuses on how to make the substrate the spores will grow on, and the rest os based on a few years of patient growing. Once the white, fully colonised substrate begins to get "pins" on, however, the rate of mushroom sprouting is damn fast and sporadic! A great alternative to growing plants, in my opinion.
Still fancy it?
So to get going you will need, and this is at bare minimum:
Ok so spores. Spores are what type of mushroom you will grow, as you don't need seeds (people have asked me...) but what you do with the liquid and spores which usually come in a syringe, is inject them onto the side of the Flour and Vermiculite substrate, then they grow from there. It can't get any simpler than that.
What kind of spores are there?
There are literally thousands of mushroom spores out there, so do your research! Get a taste and go from there, really.
So after doing some SERIOUS research about whether or not you'd like to cultivate mushrooms and potentially drugs, then read on.
You will need to go shopping or scrounging for your "bare minimum" list. Don't scrimp on a pressure cooker as it is your house you will probably be using it in and may blow up as a result. Basically without a good pressure cooker, you can say hello to all sorts of nasty contaminations and this kills mushrooms which are in the colonisation stage due to them being easily fuck-up-able.
So let's get cracking:
Put your pressure cooker onto a low heat over your stove, put something like a takeaway tin in the bottom of it to put the glass on so it doesn't sit in boiling hot water. and crack.
Now, get the following:
To make the substrate your 'shrooms will grow off you will need to do the following. Mix water, vermiculite and flour in the following ratios:-
2 - Vermiculite
1 - Flour
1 - Water
Now to add the small amount of water..
Mix the vermiculite and flour well, then slowly add the water. The flour is what the mushrooms will end up living off, and once you have mixed it up (shouldn't take long) put it into the glass.
This is what you're looking for. Not too wet, but not too dry. This is what your babies will be living/feeding from.
Now get this ready...
Don't squash it down, and cover the top few centimeters with dry vermiculite to keep contaminants out as a small barrier. After that, cover the top of the glass with 2 LAYERS of foil. One is the layer you'll pierce to innoculate with spores. The other is to cover the holes and keep contamination out.
The first layer of foil, you sellotape down to the glass so you don't accidently take it off, and making it easier when you innoculate.
The second layer is a looser fitting layer of foil, and is there for protective purposes.
You put these into the pressure cooker too, as you need them all to be 100% contaminant free.
These are now known as "cakes".
Once these 2 layers are on, put the glass into the pressure cooker, not in the water, and put the lid on with a 15lbs/sq. inch weight. Leave it for 4-6 hours on a mid-low heat. This is to kill any contaminants, so make sure you leave it for as long as you can to avoid you fucking up your grow. If you eat a contaminated mushroom, you can die.
The 15lbs sq. inch weight you will need.
Ready to cook
Return to the pressure cooker, turning the heat off and slowly releasing the pressure (play around with it first to avoid burning yourself here). Once done, keep it level and place it somewhere to cool off. It will take at least a few hours.
Once it has cooled off sufficiently (it has to otherwise you will kill your spores), grab your rubbing alcohol, spore syringe (and needle), the glasses with substrate in (what we put into the pressure cooker) oh, and lighter. The red dots are where you will put the needle in, all the way, on the edge of the glass, and inject a tiny amount.
Remove the top level foil slightly and wipe the area you intend to innoculate. We will want to be aiming for the side of the glass here, so wipe, get the needle red hot and then innoculate the substrate on the edge of the glass. All you need is a few drops. Then repeat for the other side. Try not to breathe or get anything near the innoculation sites as any kind of dust can also fuck it up. This is the most delicate step of the whole procedure!
You want to be aiming to get a few drops/small pool of spores/liquid down the side of the glass, like so. Honestly, you will need a tiny amount.
Once you have done that, you can cover the bottom layer of foil with the top layer again, then leave them in a dark, slightly warm place for a month or so. Some colonies grow quicker than others.
You will begin to see a white growth, this is the mycelium growing from your injection.
During this time you should get yourself some medium-grade perlite, a deep tupperware box (mine cost £6 from a DIY shop) and a water sprayer (like your Nan has for her plants). The deeper the tupperware box, the better. However, shallowness can be overcome by putting a bag on as a lid, with a couple of holes in for ventilation. Just get one which you think will accommodate for a good 4" of growth on all sides (except the bottom of the cakes, obviously).
How are they? kept them in a dark place? Peeked much?
Well when the entire thing is white, leave it for at least another week so as to strengthen the colony.
After that, put them into the fridge for about 18 hours. Keep it dark and get them cold. This shocks the substrate into fruiting. Remember people shorten the light hours for Ganja to start budding? This is the same, but with temperature.
Make sure your tupperware box is ready. You could also use a bin-shaped container with a plastic bag on top. Just have a few holes for air exchange and perlite on the base of the container.
Get the perlite soaking, and I mean soaking. Put a load into a sieve and run it under cold water (the colder the better) for a minute or so just go get rid of any shit, and to make it wet for your cakes/terrarium.
Put the perlite into your tupperware box and make a flat, even surface. After that, spray it with cold water from your water sprayer you got earlier. Don't make it so it's drowning, but a small amount of water on the bottom of the container isn't going to kill them.
Take the glass out, with the foil and everything still on. Run a cold sink of water and remove the foil. Get the vermiculite on hand and then take the topless glass beaker or jar and bang it on your hand. Do this a few times and the mushroom cake will come out, as it may take a few attempts. This is called "birthing" the cake. Dunk the just-birthed cake into the cold-as-possible water, leave it fully submerged for about 10 seconds (whilst rolling it about) then cover it in Vermiculite to form an even-ish coat by rolling it in the container/bag containing the Vermiculite. You do not need to worry about contaminants as much now, but try to minimise any cross-contamination by keeping your cakes apart in case you find a contamination during this stage.
Either before or when you birth your cakes, check for any blue/green spots/areas (possibly moreso furrier than the rest of the cake) as this indicates the presence of a contamination. If this happens and not all of your cakes have contamination, then isolate and bin it. Make sure to wrap the cake up in a bag. Keep the glass, of course. Just thoroughly wash it out.
Once you are done, place the cakes into the tupperware container, waft some air into it (use the lid and sit there for a good minute wafting), spray a bit of water to moisten up the perlite and voila! Waft and lightly spray twice a day, letting them get about 20 minutes of daylight, and you'll be on a roll.
The fruits of your labour..
Harvest the mushrooms by grabbing the stem as close to the base as you can, and tearing it off. You will see some bruising which is easily mistakable for a contamination, but rest assured it isn't. This means the location on the cake that hosted the mushroom will go blue, and the mushroom stalk will also go somewhat blue, especially near the end.
Dry the mushrooms by leaving them in an empty tissue box, in a dark place, possibly with a silica packet for about a 4-6 days. THey lose up to 90% of their weight, and so 50g of freshly harvested mushrooms will be ~5g when dried.
If you are going on holiday/leaving them for more than a night, then place a small container of water in the tupperware box, on the perlite (maybe slightly bury it for stability) and give them a good wafting just before you leave so they have oxygen while you are gone. Also, leave them in a dark place, or you can set up a light to come on for 20 minutes a day.
Do not leave them for more than 3 days unattended! This is like growing anything. if you cannot find help, then find a way to look after your shrooms, or face them turning into a soggy load of shit when you get back.
If you intend to grow "magic mushrooms" using this guide..
I take no responsibility for what you do with this knowledge. It's not difficult to do and as well as being practically odourless, I can see the temptation. However, with anything mind-expanding, the law frowns upon it, so don't tell anyone, keep it on the low and most of all, don't go selling. I don't understand why people "sell" others into another world. Let people enjoy it for what it is.
Before going any further, read the following pages of experiences:
http://www.erowid.org/experiences/subs/exp_Mushrooms.shtml
Still fancy it?
So to get going you will need, and this is at bare minimum:
- Spores (I will discuss this in greater length later)
- Glass cup that is wider at the top than bottom (about 1/2 pint)
- Rye Flour/Brown Rice Flour
- Vermiculite (fine grade)
- Perlite
- Pressure cooker (must-have)
- Isopropanol/Rubbing Alcohol
- Open flame (Lighter)
- Foil
- Tupperware box big enough for them to grow. Think height, and drill small holes (3-5mm) in the lid.
- Water sprayer.
Ok so spores. Spores are what type of mushroom you will grow, as you don't need seeds (people have asked me...) but what you do with the liquid and spores which usually come in a syringe, is inject them onto the side of the Flour and Vermiculite substrate, then they grow from there. It can't get any simpler than that.
What kind of spores are there?
There are literally thousands of mushroom spores out there, so do your research! Get a taste and go from there, really.
If you intend on using this guide to grow "magic mushrooms" then look for "Psilocybin Cubensis/P. Cubensis spores. Most commonly they come in strains named B+, Golden Teachers, Amazonian, Mexican, Dutch etc. As said before, do research. Plenty of it. They are all essentially the same in effect, however with Indica and Sativa Cannabis, there are ones which colonise (grow) quicker. As for size? Well, let them grow a bit longer and with any mushroom they will get a tad bigger.
So after doing some SERIOUS research about whether or not you'd like to cultivate mushrooms and potentially drugs, then read on.
You will need to go shopping or scrounging for your "bare minimum" list. Don't scrimp on a pressure cooker as it is your house you will probably be using it in and may blow up as a result. Basically without a good pressure cooker, you can say hello to all sorts of nasty contaminations and this kills mushrooms which are in the colonisation stage due to them being easily fuck-up-able.
So let's get cracking:
Put your pressure cooker onto a low heat over your stove, put something like a takeaway tin in the bottom of it to put the glass on so it doesn't sit in boiling hot water. and crack.
Now, get the following:
To make the substrate your 'shrooms will grow off you will need to do the following. Mix water, vermiculite and flour in the following ratios:-
2 - Vermiculite
1 - Flour
1 - Water
Now to add the small amount of water..
Mix the vermiculite and flour well, then slowly add the water. The flour is what the mushrooms will end up living off, and once you have mixed it up (shouldn't take long) put it into the glass.
This is what you're looking for. Not too wet, but not too dry. This is what your babies will be living/feeding from.
Now get this ready...
Don't squash it down, and cover the top few centimeters with dry vermiculite to keep contaminants out as a small barrier. After that, cover the top of the glass with 2 LAYERS of foil. One is the layer you'll pierce to innoculate with spores. The other is to cover the holes and keep contamination out.
The first layer of foil, you sellotape down to the glass so you don't accidently take it off, and making it easier when you innoculate.
The second layer is a looser fitting layer of foil, and is there for protective purposes.
You put these into the pressure cooker too, as you need them all to be 100% contaminant free.
These are now known as "cakes".
Once these 2 layers are on, put the glass into the pressure cooker, not in the water, and put the lid on with a 15lbs/sq. inch weight. Leave it for 4-6 hours on a mid-low heat. This is to kill any contaminants, so make sure you leave it for as long as you can to avoid you fucking up your grow. If you eat a contaminated mushroom, you can die.
The 15lbs sq. inch weight you will need.
Ready to cook
Return to the pressure cooker, turning the heat off and slowly releasing the pressure (play around with it first to avoid burning yourself here). Once done, keep it level and place it somewhere to cool off. It will take at least a few hours.
Once it has cooled off sufficiently (it has to otherwise you will kill your spores), grab your rubbing alcohol, spore syringe (and needle), the glasses with substrate in (what we put into the pressure cooker) oh, and lighter. The red dots are where you will put the needle in, all the way, on the edge of the glass, and inject a tiny amount.
Remove the top level foil slightly and wipe the area you intend to innoculate. We will want to be aiming for the side of the glass here, so wipe, get the needle red hot and then innoculate the substrate on the edge of the glass. All you need is a few drops. Then repeat for the other side. Try not to breathe or get anything near the innoculation sites as any kind of dust can also fuck it up. This is the most delicate step of the whole procedure!
You want to be aiming to get a few drops/small pool of spores/liquid down the side of the glass, like so. Honestly, you will need a tiny amount.
Once you have done that, you can cover the bottom layer of foil with the top layer again, then leave them in a dark, slightly warm place for a month or so. Some colonies grow quicker than others.
***AFTER 1-2 WEEKs***
You will begin to see a white growth, this is the mycelium growing from your injection.
During this time you should get yourself some medium-grade perlite, a deep tupperware box (mine cost £6 from a DIY shop) and a water sprayer (like your Nan has for her plants). The deeper the tupperware box, the better. However, shallowness can be overcome by putting a bag on as a lid, with a couple of holes in for ventilation. Just get one which you think will accommodate for a good 4" of growth on all sides (except the bottom of the cakes, obviously).
***AFTER 4-6 WEEKS***
How are they? kept them in a dark place? Peeked much?
Well when the entire thing is white, leave it for at least another week so as to strengthen the colony.
After that, put them into the fridge for about 18 hours. Keep it dark and get them cold. This shocks the substrate into fruiting. Remember people shorten the light hours for Ganja to start budding? This is the same, but with temperature.
***AFTER 4-6 WEEKS +18 OR SO HOURS***
Make sure your tupperware box is ready. You could also use a bin-shaped container with a plastic bag on top. Just have a few holes for air exchange and perlite on the base of the container.
Get the perlite soaking, and I mean soaking. Put a load into a sieve and run it under cold water (the colder the better) for a minute or so just go get rid of any shit, and to make it wet for your cakes/terrarium.
Put the perlite into your tupperware box and make a flat, even surface. After that, spray it with cold water from your water sprayer you got earlier. Don't make it so it's drowning, but a small amount of water on the bottom of the container isn't going to kill them.
Take the glass out, with the foil and everything still on. Run a cold sink of water and remove the foil. Get the vermiculite on hand and then take the topless glass beaker or jar and bang it on your hand. Do this a few times and the mushroom cake will come out, as it may take a few attempts. This is called "birthing" the cake. Dunk the just-birthed cake into the cold-as-possible water, leave it fully submerged for about 10 seconds (whilst rolling it about) then cover it in Vermiculite to form an even-ish coat by rolling it in the container/bag containing the Vermiculite. You do not need to worry about contaminants as much now, but try to minimise any cross-contamination by keeping your cakes apart in case you find a contamination during this stage.
Either before or when you birth your cakes, check for any blue/green spots/areas (possibly moreso furrier than the rest of the cake) as this indicates the presence of a contamination. If this happens and not all of your cakes have contamination, then isolate and bin it. Make sure to wrap the cake up in a bag. Keep the glass, of course. Just thoroughly wash it out.
Once you are done, place the cakes into the tupperware container, waft some air into it (use the lid and sit there for a good minute wafting), spray a bit of water to moisten up the perlite and voila! Waft and lightly spray twice a day, letting them get about 20 minutes of daylight, and you'll be on a roll.
The fruits of your labour..
Harvest the mushrooms by grabbing the stem as close to the base as you can, and tearing it off. You will see some bruising which is easily mistakable for a contamination, but rest assured it isn't. This means the location on the cake that hosted the mushroom will go blue, and the mushroom stalk will also go somewhat blue, especially near the end.
Dry the mushrooms by leaving them in an empty tissue box, in a dark place, possibly with a silica packet for about a 4-6 days. THey lose up to 90% of their weight, and so 50g of freshly harvested mushrooms will be ~5g when dried.
If you are going on holiday/leaving them for more than a night, then place a small container of water in the tupperware box, on the perlite (maybe slightly bury it for stability) and give them a good wafting just before you leave so they have oxygen while you are gone. Also, leave them in a dark place, or you can set up a light to come on for 20 minutes a day.
Do not leave them for more than 3 days unattended! This is like growing anything. if you cannot find help, then find a way to look after your shrooms, or face them turning into a soggy load of shit when you get back.
If you intend to grow "magic mushrooms" using this guide..
I take no responsibility for what you do with this knowledge. It's not difficult to do and as well as being practically odourless, I can see the temptation. However, with anything mind-expanding, the law frowns upon it, so don't tell anyone, keep it on the low and most of all, don't go selling. I don't understand why people "sell" others into another world. Let people enjoy it for what it is.
Before going any further, read the following pages of experiences:
http://www.erowid.org/experiences/subs/exp_Mushrooms.shtml
Comments
Also in California, Georgia, and Idaho it is illegal to possess and/or import spores.
Too wet/damp.
Commonly this can be seen through a darker stem and the mushroom itself wilting. The difference between wilting and just growing in a twisted fashion can be seen in the colour.
You can see on the bottom left and the mushroom closest to the camera where the bend near the cap is a darker colour than other mushrooms.
A good way to solve this is to drain out the excess water in the bottom of your setup, or to air out the mushrooms more often. Leave the lid off for 15 minutes or so.
Too dry.
Totally the opposite to above. Usually this means the mushroom cakes (what they are growing on) is too dry and/or not in contact with the damp perlite. The dry areas can be seen in the yellowish parts of the stems of the mushrooms.
An easy way to overcome this is to give a couple of light sprays throughout the day, every few hours. Don't forget to air the mushrooms out, but a good even spray of cold water.
And just for fun.
To show that mushrooms can grow anywhere, this piece of mycelium broke off a few weeks ago. Now look