Damn I can't believe how many people here use brf cakes. They are a completely shitty way to grow. Spore syringe --> Karo LC --> WBS --> Hpoo =

My first grow was with BRF cakes and I was very dissapointed. My yield was very small (enough for me and a friend to trip once), and the shrooms weren't very potent. Some people have good luck with them but I didn't. So i went straight to horse shit and have never looked back. From 5 quarts of fully colonized wbs and 10lbs of pasturized hpoo+straw I have obtained yields as high as 6 ounces dry from the first flush. Flush that sucker three times and you easily have almost a pound. And it only takes about 60 dollars to do.

I will put up some pics when I get home tomorrow. I actually haven't grown in about 6 months and just started back up last week. My WBS jars are about ready to be spawned.

Oh yeah and one more thing. SCREW the Greenhouse thing. They are costly and require too much maintenance. I had a greenhouse for a few months, but my damn coolmist kept going out every month. Plus I hate having to add water and shit everyday. If using a monotub there is no maintenance what so ever. Throw everything in there and let it sit in the dark for a couple weeks. Case and throw it in some light.

Like I said I will post some pics tomorrow and you guys will be

~Peace Out

oh wow you sound convincing
shroom cultivation is something i have wanted to get into for some time... space limited and i know how horse poo smells so i am just trying to learn now till i have a better space...... but i am interested ..... that sounds like a hell of a yield..

btw welcome to the forum!

thanks for the welcome

The great thing about growing mushrooms like I do is you don't need space. All you need is somewhere to sit a decent size rubbermaid tub. The only problem is that it does look pretty obvious so it isn't something that you could do in a dorm room, or if you have to share a room with someone that can't know.

A lot of people are cautious of hpoo because they believe that it smells. Hpoo needs to be leeched really well to get all of the urine out of it. It decomposes pretty well too. So by the time you get it in your house it smells more like dirt. Depending on how long it has aged it might have a small poo smell to it, but it isn't something that will stink up your whole house.

I just skip all of that bullshit and buy my hpoo prepasturized. I don't have the time to mess with doing it myself. So I just buy it. There are plenty of vendors out there. 10lbs pre-pasturized ran me about 45 inlcuding shipping a few days ago. It is totally worth it. I do have a little write up of how I do my mushrooms. I might have to start adding some of it here.

I like rye, wbs seems like alot of bullshit with picking out sunflower seeds and such, as where it only takes me a few mins to wash rye off.
I agree with you on the cake thing as ive never even liked the idea of cakes.

Also, yes Hpoo needs to be field aged and leeched and not green or from the stables. Bulk spawn is most deff a great way to go, I just learned about it myself and cant wait to try it.

I dont really find greenhouse much maintance and adding water isnt a big deal if you mod it with a tub on the side, which took all of an hour to do. It only needs to be filled once every few days and a little 10 dollar fish pump pumping air into your cool mist will keep it from going out, also you need to have an adequate pressure release holes in it otherwise yes it will back up.

I dont see why its so hard to find the area of the output hole on the humidifier and mod it accordingly.

Ah the 'ol PF tek aint that bad. I find that grinding my own chunky BRF makes quite a difference to the yield. I'd try a monotub, but I dont like the idea of having all my eggs in one basket.

not amazing yeilds but swim was babystitting swiys casings while swiy was away - this is third flush tk. 1 cake cased in a 2l container. verm and coir.+

Yeah I have always wanted to try rye, but WBS is just so easy to come by and super cheap. The sunflower seeds aren't too bad to get out either. They float so all you need to do is fill with water and dumb the seeds out.

As I promised here are some pics to show off the monotub concept. The last one is my first monotub ever a few years ago, and the rest are off of a monotub that turned out really well.

Once getting a nack for cakes. SWIM has produced nice yields, and meaty fruits using them.

The first batch SWIM grew were Lipa's and let me tell you. THEY WERE POTENT! SWIM and a friend did 2 grams a piece and for 6-7 good hours had an outstanding experience. Vivid coloration change, extreme CEVs to the point SWIM would just concentrate on becoming "one" or "nothing" and it felt just like DMT in the respect that you kind of just dissolve into the area you are and spread out, kind of a nonlocality type deal. And the laughter and euphoria was uncontrollable. It was the most amazing time SWIM has ever had on mushies! So POTENT SHROOMS CAN be grown on brf cakes, but I do agree with you kung in the respect that the casing method produces much higher yields.

SWIM will be doing 6 cambo cakes crumbled and cases with the 60/40 mix of coco coir/verm with some crushed limestone. It should be a good day in the neighborhood once that gets on way!

SWIM's getting quite frustrated. He's been using the "Let's Grow Mushrooms: Guide to Perfect Grain Spawn" video as his reference. At first, everything was working great, he had three trays producing en masse. He's down to two because of green, but those are nearing their last flushes. The casing hasn't been the problem though, he's been losing jars to wet-spot bacteria.

The first time it happened, he suspected it was because he had the incubation temperature way too high for too long by mistake. He lost a lot of grain transfered jars because of that. He recently made some new jars with a new syringe, and they were colonizing, but now they seem be developing the same infection and more quickly, though he's been far more careful with the heat.

It seemed that the jars colonized much more smoothly when he was mistakenly only soaking his rye for a few hours, but now he soaks for 12-24 hours as the video directs. Not sure if this could be the reason...excess moisture?

He always washes his jars with bleach, and he uses a glove box for transfers and inoculation. His first run at growing, last Fall, was plagued with green in the casing phases (he knows exactlty why though), and he never had much luck with cakes, but this is so much worse! He tasted success briefly, and now he can't seem to grow a thing. He's thinking of scrapping all his current projects and starting from scratch. Any advice?

It is best to keep your jars somewhere where your temp doesn't exceed 85 or so. Anything higher can screw your shit up. Also if you ever get any kind of contaminate in a jar it is best to just throw them away. Opening them brings bad spores into your house and I don't like taking chances. It seems bleaching them usually gets everything, but they are cheap.

I know what it is like to be frustrated. I haven't grown in 6 months because of that frustration. I grew for over 2 years without a single contamination, but then for some reason I had a monotub get the mean green. Ever since that tub I have not had a successful grow. I will be mixing spawn this weekend, and hopefully this one works out. I miss my little friends. They are so much fun to watch grow. I have cleaned everything over and over again and it still happens. I have even tried getting all new tubs and everything. I am in a new house now and I have a little room to keep them in.

The fruiting and incubating area are the same, but the incubators are on shelf while the terrarium is on the floor. SWIM uses a space heater to regulate temperature, and has a digital therm/hygrometer in the terrarium with a secondary sensor tied to the shelf. He'll just have to keep a lower temp than he has been. He'll probably clean everything out and get everything nice and sterile and start over.

Is there any advantage to wrapping an incubation tote in a garbage bag if it's already in a fairly sterile area? Or could that be causing problems as well. SWIM used to do that because he was incubating above the fridge, but perhaps he doesn't need that anymore.

SWIM's mainly frustrated, because he was hoping to have a good grow going for the Summer. It's probably not too late for that though.

Once he get's his incubation problems straightened out, he'd like to move on to monotubbing. Was it SWIY's that had the three monotubs set up in a larger tub with water in the bottom?

Your best bet for incubation would be a TiT. Get two tubs, put water in one with a submersible aquarium heater in the water. Make sure to weigh it down if it doesn't come with a suction cup thing. Also make sure that no part of the heater is touching your tote. Put the other tote on top of that. So they slide together. Put a thermometer in your tub and adjust the heater until the tub stays between 80-84. It is easy to keep sterile and cheap. Oh and make sure to put a small amount of bleach in the water so it doesn't get nasty. I have had the same water for 3 years and it is still perfectly clean.

You also shouldn't keep your fruiting area on the floor. Floors are dirty and it is best to keep them at lest 6" of the ground. I like to set my tubs up on a desk or something.

I am also wondering how your jars are setup. what are you using on the top of the jar for a filter. I use a piece of tyvek then the lid with a hole stuffed with polyfill.

Hope this helps. Goodluck!!!!!1

~Peace Out

SWIM's using tyvek over a lid with four holes. SWIM's space is too limited to raise the fruiting chamber much higher, but the area is easy to keep clean.

SWIM loves the idea of using water heating to heat the incubation chamber! SWIM imagines that this would be desirable for a fruiting chamber (monotubs suspended over heated water in a larger tub) as well, but at a lower temp? This seems like it would be a far more precise way of maintaining proper temperatures, especially in the winter.

Man, SWIM got screwed by the mail. Since he lives in cali, he had to have a print sent to his friend in Oregon. When SWIM's friend got it the envelope had been cut open down the side. Then SWIM friend took a trip to california and sent the print to SWIM from WITHIN california. Well, SWIM never got the print.

My Blue Bear is working on some P. Cubensis himself. This puppy is about ready to be birthed he thinks.

WEll guys, SWIM will get pics up soon. SWIMs friend has his camera right now.

But SWIM currently started fruiting 6 BRF cakes dunk n' rolled. SWIM knows cakes arent the best rout but one of SWIMs cakes just completed the first flush and yielded 68 grams. Just off the first flush and there was only 3 mushrooms on the cake! lol. The strain is Koh Samui.

These shrooms are massive! lol

Sorry for the update with no pics but theey will be up soon!

SWIMs very excited!

Argh! SWIM's getting really sick of the bigwigs on the shroomery telling people not to TIT incubate terrariums, because "room temp is sufficient." As if they all happen to live in warm climates. Even at this time of the year, SWIM's fruiting chamber will drop to 60F or lower, and of course, the winter's unbearable. SWIM cannot use a space-heater any longer, he's scrapping his entire setup.

His plan is to use tubs w/ polyfill stuffed holes for gas exchange, suspended over a tub of water heated with an aquarium heater. He'll decide whether to stick with perilite and trays or use monotubs when the time comes (he'll be able to switch whenever he likes anyway). For now, he'll just set up a TIT for incubation. A few questions though: With a setup like this, would putting bleach in the heated water harm the fruiting at all (as in with vapors getting into the terrarium)?