Unless you live in relatively humid climate, I wouldn't bother with the desiccant chamber. I put a bunch of harvested fruit bodies in a desiccant chamber once when they were still pretty wet and they turned almost completely black and blue- exactly the way they do when they bruise. Cold temperatures will also bruise them, so I would be willing to bet that it is a combination of the two. I have always fan-dried for >24 hours, and they are usually cracker-dry by then (it's worth mentioning that I live in a pretty dry climate). Then maybe throw them in a desiccant chamber for a while just to be safe.

Mycelium bruises blue like the fruit bodies do. The cakes in the picture look blue to me, so that's probably all it is. As far as I know, green is the color to really watch out for and usually if the cakes are contaminated mushrooms will cease to grow.

Maybe the friend that was watching them for you handled some of the cakes? That would explain the bruising that Entheo spoke of.

Hi Niles,

I absolutely love the process. I most certainly will be doing it again. It most certainly requires a certain level of discipline to which end I am now starting my foray into the art of Bonsai.

In terms of your jars, in about 3-4 days, provided moisture content and temperature are correct, you will begin to see mycelial growth. Make sure to set your room temp for the jars to approximately 77-78 degrees and no higher if at all possible, and don't hesitate to comb through all of my posts and pics. If you are using the PF brown rice cake method, your progress should be similar.

My next adventure in shrooming will likely involve rye berries in longer rectangular Tupperware containers. I think I don't want to have so many individual cakes next time. In addition, the years of research have always pointed to rye as the most nutritious substrate for cubensis.

I wish you the best of luck.

Entheo, my main man,

I agree with you completely. When I had the fan on the for 3-4 hours they were drying out quite lovely. My honest thought and direction was to purchase a $40.00 food dehydrator from Target. Your thoughts...?

I already have a vacuum sealer.

G&B,
I appreciate both of your posts. It is most certainly a possibility that he handled them. Then again, I've handled the a s we'll, just bruising would be ideal. I'm going to let them keep running and start dunking too.

Thanks again bud.

hey there.

To dry them, try to avoid using descants, they can be problematic. The easiest way to dry shrooms is just buy a commercial fruit dehydrator like this food dehydrator in ebay, they are cool enough to not damage the active ingredients but warm enough to get your shrooms cracker dry.

---

the way to tell if your cakes are just showing blueing from bruising or if its trich is the texture, blueing looks like a bluish tint on the surface of the mycelius, but other than looking like dry mycelium, it has the same texture as a healthy cake.

Trich has a very grainy texture, it is white with a green hue, a very distinct green, and the texture is very distinct.

Also if you do have trich it will spread on a cake like crazy, on day you will see a bit then in 2 days most of the cakes will have what looks like new growth, white very soft and easy to disturb mycelium that will turn green.

Also if you want to do a bleach or peroxide dunk, be carefully, only use a bit of bleach or peroxide and only dunk for about an hour max then dunk in pure water for an hour, then take out and replace the water then dunk in the fresh water for 12 - 24 hours.

Bleach and peroxide will kill spores on cakes but it can also damage the mycelium, a bleach / peroxide dunk is useless for contaminated cakes, the contam will recover quicker than the healthy mycelium and then take over the cake easier as the cubensis mycelium will be damaged and put up less of a fight.

So my rule of thumb is only do a bleach / peroxide dunk on healthy cakes.

Peace

Food dehydrators work wonderfully, I would recommend that route. The commercial ones are usually cool enough, but to be sure you'd be best off either buying one with an adjustable temperature (slightly more expensive), or buying a cheap one and sticking a thermometer in it. Then before putting any mushrooms in it, run it for a few hours with an oven thermometer inside and check to make sure it doesn't get too hot. >150°F is usually a safe range for drying mushrooms without destroying the actives, if they will only be at that temperature for a couple of hours. Lower temperatures certainly won't hurt, but I think most food dehydrators typically run at about 150°F.

Did you guys see this post I made? Alton Brown makes a dehydrator out of a box fan and cellulose furnace filters. How do you think this would work for mushrooms?

It would probably work fine, unless one is in a really humid climate. It would most likely be a little bit faster than regular fan-drying, and a little bit slower than using a commercial dehydrator with a built-in heat source.

What does everyone think of this one?

http://www.bedbathandbey...jK_pDw_rwCFU4aOgodWEcAvQ

Looks fine to me.

that will do nicely

I love you guys.

Right back at ya

Guys, on 2nd and 3rd flushes. After dunk do I need to re-roll in vermiculite???

I've heard that you only roll after the first dunk. I'm 99% sure.

Yes, That's what I picked up last night off "Shroomery"

So that's what I wound up doing!

Thanks Niles!

Hey there

hrm, its optional but should be avoided.... You could roll again after a dunk BUT there is the issue of increasing the possibility of contaminating your cakes.

As your cakes sit in your FC, with you spraying and fanning them several times daily, they are being exposed to all kinds of contaminants, now if a say trich spore lands on a fully colonized cake, then there is little available food for the spore to eat, so it just sits on the outside of the cake, with all the spraying it is getting it will probably germinate, but it will have no food and the outside of the cakes dry out somewhat between sprays, along with the contam resistant immune system your cubensis mycelium has, the trich spore / growth will likely die a premature death, without colonizing your cake/s.

If you roll again, you will put new verm on the cake providing better water retention, and more potential pinning points, but you run the risk of trapping any foreign spores that have fell on the cakes, between the cakes and the new vermiculite you just rolled your cake/s in. This creates a micro environment for contams to potentially take hold of your cakes.

Usually one good roll when you have dunked them after birthing, is all that is usually needed, if you ensure that your cakes are fully covered in DRY verm and then left for say 10 mins before you spray them, then usually this verm will stay with the cakes and they should not need re-rolling.

But if you are curious why not try re-rolling just one cake, see how it goes?

Peace

Infinity,
You are a wealth of information... I've learned more from your several posts than from reading at least 5 books on the subject, half of shroomery, the RR complete video set and some of what we have here on the Nexus.

You are an invaluable resource to the community and I just wanted to reach out and say thank you for all of your comments - they're always welcome here on any of my posts and encouraged.

Thank you.

How is it turning out?