The white mold you were talking about. Could this be it? I thought it was just mycelium....

A lot of my bigger shrooms have that. It seems to disappear after drying though.

Probably not. That looks like it's soft and fluffy, so it's probably just mycelium. It's no big deal. More fresh air might get rid of it, but it's probably causes by high humidity. My mushrooms have pretty much always grown mycelium like that on the base. It's actually kind of cool. Sometimes it can even get rhizomorphic growth, and look all fractaly.

It's really rare for mold to grow on a live fruit body, or on heavily colonized substrate. Spores are sure to land on it, but they won't germinate because the mushroom has its own defenses, and there wouldn't be enough available nutrients to germinate mold.

Thanks peabody that's great news. I've been plucking greenish mushrooms (5) off my cakes I hate the destruction of this organism that carries so much potential.

Woooooot.

Now I dunk. Do I reroll?

no reroll

Nice haul!! I'm jealous, all of my cubie spores seem to be no good any more. Guess I'll have to order some more....

I only took 2 spore prints but I think I can make like 10 more jars off that. Would the spores last till summer?

From what I hear spore prints should last at least a year or two if you keep them right.

You should be able to make 8-10 10cc syringes with 2 decent spore prints

Where could I find silica gel besides online. I tried ACE hardware...idk what store would sell that. I might go to a clothing store and just look for some in shoes haha

silica gel cat liter...

got mine at wally world

Nice. Should I take all the pins off before dunking? Obviously the dead ones but there are still some very healthy guys left from the late blooming cake

Yeah so should I take off the good pins or will they survive the dunk?

Dang! Look at those bad boys in the jars! Just make absolutely certain they are completely dry. I've learned this the hard way, so hopefully you won't have to. Use a desiccant like dryZair.

If the pins are big enough to pull, it's up to you. They might survive, they might not. If they don't you could always pick them then. I've had plenty survive a dunkin'!

I can't get theme cracker dry. I've layer them out overnight. I've put them in the oven for an hour, that helped a lot but they aren't hard. I put them in a jar with desiccant. Maybe mine just can't get hard? They look pretty dry and are getting really bruised from all the types of drying. The oven made em pretty dark

I'm worried now. Right after picking I set them on a hand towel to air dry overnight. They were still soft. Then I left them in a bin with desiccant, but the bin wasn't airtight. Then today I put them in the oven and that helped. I finally got smart and put them in an airtight jar with desiccant. But they look very bad. They may be bruised or oxidized. But could they have gone bad? Shrooms usually smell a little gnarly dried anyway so I really can't tell. Could they have all rotted overnight?

You better try. Not being cracker dry means that there is still some water inside them, and this can become a problem in a longer run. I can´t see all the details in the picture, but your mushies don´t look like my mushies when they are completely dry (yours don´t look too shrinked etc...). Just try breaking the biggest mushroom´s head in half and examine the inside... if not totally dry, then do it ASAP

For drying, I recommend food dehydrator set on low temperature - I haven´t noticed any decrease in potency + it shortens the time of the Mushrooms´ exposure to oxygen.

I think in my rush to dry them, since I left them out overnight on a towel and they were still not dry. Then I left them in a bin with desiccant and they still weren't dry. I wanted to dry them fast so they wouldn't go bad. I picked them 2 days ago....

So I dried them in the oven and then put them in an airtight jar with desiccant. That will work. But my ovens lowest temp was 170F. I turn it off every 10 minutes then turned it back on after 10. For about an hour. Maybe the extremely high temp caused the discoloration? I think they have probably lost some potency, but I just don't want them all to spoil! I am going to upload a picture in about an hour after I take them out of the jar