* 1 part rolled oats
* 1 part wild bird seed (millet or finch seed works great also)
* 1/4 part vermiculite (optional)
* 1/4 part brown rice flour (optional)
* 1/12 peptone (optional)
Lots of people like soaking their grain for 24 hours before using. Some people like cooking their grain in a large pot at a low simmer for 45 minutes or so. People have done both (let soak for a day then drained, replace fresh water then cook at a simmer for 45 minutes). You can rinse your grain before you soak/cook or after you soak/cook. This is up to you.
So place your grain in a pot. With this recipe you place the rolled oats and wild bird seed in the large pot and cover with water. As you simmer the grain and stir occasionally the sunflower seeds from the wild bird seed will float to the surface. Simply skim these off with a spoon or something and discard. Actually, I skim whatever floats to the top off and discard it.
Note:
You may need to add more water to you grain when cooking. It soaks up allot so be sure to watch your levels carefully.
After 45 minutes or so take off the heat and strain your grain as best you can. Rinsing is optional at this point depending on whether you rinsed before you cooked or soaked it.
Now you want to mix in your brown rice flower and vermiculite dry. Mixing this up with dry soaks up a bit of the excess water from the soaking/cooking of the grain.
Now fill up you bags or jars. You can usually fill them up a bit more than usual because the grain has already expanded from the soaking/cooking. This is also where you would add the peptone or other optional supplement.
For jars just a knife tip full and for medium to large bags about 1/4 of a teaspoon.
You don't have to add any water to it either because of this. The saturation level should be perfect from the previous soaking or cooking.
Pressure cook jars at 15 psi for 1 1/2 hours. 2 hours if you are using bags or 1/2 gallon jars.
Note:
After pressure cooking your jars and the pressure reaches zero, you may want to grab a couple of oven mitts and open your pressure cooker to shake your jars. Doing this prevents them for clumping together and forming a brick. Simply screw the lid down tight and shake/beat the jar on your hand. After, unscrew the lid and just barely leave it on and place it back into your pressure cooker to cool down. Another shake before and after inoculation isn't necessary but helps allot in later colonizing/shakings.
Inoculate your jars or bags via spore syringe, mycelia syringe or culture slush. Or you can grain to grain inoculate.
Bulk Substrate
* 1 part Wheat Straw
* 1 part Cow, horse or sheep manure (leached)
* 1 part Peat (sifted)
* 1/6 part Vermiculite (optional)
* 1/8 part Crushed oyster shell or crushed eggshell
* 1/20 part Spawn mate (optional)
Pasteurizing:
Temperature must be kept between 170 and 180 degrees Fahrenheit for 1 1/2 to 2 hours. The time will vary on the longer end if pasteurizing casing or bulk substrate like manure in the oven. It takes time to get the core temperature up.
One could pasteurize straw in a large pot cover with water at 170 degrees Fahrenheit for 1 1/2 hours. Everything else is pasteurize in the oven presoaked to capacity. Manure is placed in an aluminum cake/turkey pan an covered with aluminum foil. Preheat the oven to 400 and place it in there. After about an hour take the heat down to 200 and check the core temp with the appropriate thermometer. The manure is usually in the oven for a total of 4 hours or so.
Here are a few other ways also.
Note:
You should save the water from your straw and your manure. Use this to precook your next grain, to pasteurize your straw and manure, to pasteurize your casing.
You can use the cooler technique to do straw and manure. Place them both or separately into an old pillow case and tie up. Place it into a large cooler and put a weight or large rock on it/them to hold it down. Keep bringing pots of water to a boil on the stove and pouring them into the cooler until you have completely covered the pillow cases.
Close the lid and let it sit for a day.
Next pull the pillow cases out and strain them saving all the liquid that's left in the cooler and what comes from the pillow cases. Put the saved liquid in old cleaned milk jugs or other containers for usage later (like stated above). Let the pillow cases) hang and drain until no more water comes out. Squeeze it with everything you got.
The next time you cook your grain or pasteurize casing use that liquid instead of water. There are still allot of nutrients in there.
After you have pasteurized your straw and manure and in my case peat, crushed oyster shell and vermiculite as well (vermiculite is nice to use but hard to find and I will probably only use in the casing recipe from now on because of this) get a big tub and dump it all there. When it is cool enough to work with you need to dump your colonized grain from your jars/bags into the tub with your pasteurized bulk substrate. A good ratio of grain to spawn is about 1:4 but can vary. Break the grain up as much as possible and mix it thoroughly throughout the bulk substrate. When this is done you can do a few different things.
* Pack into trays and cover with a lid or foil.
* Pack into another smaller tub so that the substrate is 2 - 5 inches deep and cover the tub.
Let this spawn run go until it is fully colonized. Keep in complete darkness and around 80 degrees Fahrenheit. Minimal fresh air exchange is necessary during the spawn run.
When fully colonized you can either case it or not case it.
Casing:
* 1 part Peat (sifted) or coir
* 1 part Vermiculite
* 1/2 part manure (optional)
* 1/20 part crushed oyster shell, crushed limestone or crushed eggshell
Now use your straw and manure tea to pasteurize your casing. Soak all materials to maximum capacity then cook it in the oven as I stated above for the bulk substrate for the same amount of time. Squeeze a hand full when its cool to check saturation capacity. If its a little dry that fine you can mist it later. If too much water is coming out after you cook it then squeeze each hand full you use until only a drop or two comes out. Remember to save all liquids they can be reused.
The key to heavy and even pin set is even and complete colonization of the bulk substrate and even placement of the casing. A general rule of thumb is to case a 1/2 inch for every 2 inches of substrate. Make sure the casing is as even as possible.
When you have placed your casing on the bulk substrate, place the lid or cover back on it and place back into your incubation spot where it is dark and around 80 degrees Fahrenheit. Check on them once a day or so to make sure your casing isn't drying out. Leave it here for a couple days until you notice mycelia poking through the casing layer. When this begins to happen you can move your trays/tubs to your fruiting chamber/room.
This is the time to introduce light and fresh air. Humidity should be kept above 85% and the temperature should be lowered between 70 - 78 degrees Fahrenheit for fruiting. Fresh air exchange is essential. A constant supply of fresh air is best but only if you can efficiently keep the humidity above 85%. If not, frequent fanning's will suffice. Mistings and an increase in humidity may be necessary when fruits begin to appear. They tend to suck allot of water from the substrate and casing. Keep a close eye on things.
Preparing a Bed for Outdoors:
Whoever is reading this knows how to prepare and colonize bulk substrate. (See above)
Before preparing your bed make sure you have a tub or few trays of already colonized bulk substrate.
Having a compost pile is a good idea as this can be used to case or supplement your beds once they are established. Layering your beds with compost and manure at the end of the season will help to "save" the mycelia and hopefully keep you from starting all over the next season.
Pick a nice spot out. A well shaded area is the best. Having other plants like vegetables and shrubbery is nice as well as it will provide shade and keep moisture in. Raised beds are a good idea also. This helps in promoting air circulation and keeping pests at bay.
After you have chosen a spot take some finally shredded wheat straw that has been soaking in water for a day or so and cover the area. An inch or two will suffice. Next take some un-shredded straw and bundle it up into rolls. A handfuls worth tied in the middle with a twisty tie works great. Make a few of these for each bed and place them around the perimeter of the bed and a couple in the middle for support. This should be placed on top of the wheat straw that you just put down. This will let air flow into and under your main substrate.
Next lay down your colonized bulk substrate on top of the bundles. Here you can either just leave it fully intact or break it up by hand and make a mound. For faster pinning laying the bulk substrate down as one piece works faster.
Cover the bulk substrate with some more soaked shredded straw. Just enough to cover it. Don't overdue it.
Let that go for a couple days. While you are waiting, leach some manure. Bagged manure works great also. Mix up the casing layer and wet to capacity.
* 1 part Peat
* 1 part Manure
* a few handfuls Rye Grass Seed/Rolled? Oats (this provides grass that will help lock in humidity)
* a few handfuls Crushed Oyster shell
* a cup or 2 Lime
Place casing layer on the substrate 1 - 3 inches deep depending on how thick your substrate is. Keep the sides of the bed as open as possible for airflow. Sprinkle some more finely shredded straw on top of your casing. Not enough to cover it completely just a handful or two. Water daily or as needed. Be careful though, watering too much will waterlog the bed and cause it to compost and kill your mycelia.
When the bed has flushed a few times you may want to add some more manure and soaked shredded straw and mix it up/turn it. This will help promote new mycelia growth and supply the bed with more nutrients to use. When you see new mycelia colonizing the top use some compost or more casing to case it. Casing isn't necessary but its a good idea if you can't water it regularly.
If it starts getting too cold to fruit then cover your beds with a layer of manure or compost. This will protect your bed through the winter.
That's about it. You can improve on it as you see fit for whatever suits your needs.
Good luck, I hope this helps some of you out.