Hello fellow Nexians

I am always eager to find a reason to reach out to all of you lovely souls and I finally have one again!

I started my first mono-tub and decided to go with Penis Envy's mostly for the potency. I probably would have chosen a more "First timer friendly" strain in hindsight but I have been enjoying the slow slow progress.

Started the inoculation from syringe to sterilized bag of millet seed with injection port. That sat in my laundry room closet for quite some time until I was able to shake it and accelerate the process a bit. Made up the mono-tub, then layered the bulk sub (manure/coco) and the magical millet until there was none left.

After a lot of random information read online about fanning the tub multiple times daily, misting the case, loosening the poly-fill etc. I decided to go with a common technique I found called "Set it and forget it" since the tub was looking happy enough with great moisture beads on the mycelium and tub itself.

Anyway, I must have finally initiated pinning the other day when I decided to open the tub for the first time since closing it. A two day late birthday gift is presented to me this morning when I do my daily check and see little knots forming all over the surface.

Now my question to the nexus which I admit I could probably find if I dig around a bit but I love conversation is....

Casing layer...

Is this necessary? At what point do you do this? Before pinning? After Pinning?

If knots are forming and mushrooms are on they're way is this something you NEED to do?

From what I understand it helps with keeping the climate where it needs to be if you're opening your case a lot by retaining that moisture.

I have a bag of black gold CoCo coir, which I've recently read that bagged coco may greatly increase chance of contams. I also have a dense brick of coco that I've never used and read that those are better as they usually get decontaminated from the bricking process.

I just want to make sure these mushrooms get all the love they deserve. I've been responsibly negligent but I'm thinking now is the time for a bit more involvement. Ill post some pictures.

https://imgur.com/a/2wQO4O8

The last picture you will see the little infant knots and one that really already starting to rise above the rest.

What do you all think? Should I just let it ride? Monitoring humidity or should I do the casing layer?

Also when it comes to dunking... is this in tap water or distilled water? Do you literally submerge the entire tub in the water? These two subjects information seems to be all over the place when I read other forums.

I already recognize that I may have goofed in side pinning preventative. I did not know that was a thing going into this.

On a side note,

Does anyone have any good reading material for starting an outdoor bed of Psilocybe azurescens? That's going to be my next project.

Thank you all for your continued positive attitudes and knowledge. without the nexus I would not be who I am today. FACT.

I am in the first week of my first monotub as well

From what i've read, and from previous experiences with different methods, you do not need a casing layer. I'd even assume that once pinning has started would be a bad time to apply one. If it were mine, i'd just let it ride.

I didn't case my tub. I once grew on jars of grain directly, there i applied a casing after full colonization, to induce pinning.

The side pins won't give beautiful mushrooms because there's no space, they'll look squeezed but they're edible and as strong as the rest. Maybe preventative measures work for the second flush?

https://gluckspilze.com/...0a%20mushroom%20bed.pdf is a nice writeup of how to make woodlover beds.

I don't know the answer to your dunking question, i had planned to fill destilled water into the tub and pour it off next day. Now that you asked the question, maybe someone has better ideas/experience and i can adjust my plans

I'm also starting out with tubs and I just applied a casing layer to my PE a few days ago. I've read about a few different approaches to casings but the "late casing" method seems to be the most recommended, which is when you apply the casing just as the mycelium starts to form knots and then you put it straight into fruiting conditions. This thread on the shroomery goes into detail about the method.

Homo Trypens may be right that you'll be fine without it, but most of what I've read all says that PE is the one variety that casing makes a difference for. I haven't cased any of my other tubs and they're doing great. The reason people recommend casing for PE is because supposedly it will grow in unruly blobs without it, which affects your yield and produces less attractive fruits. But like I said I'm also just starting out, so I'm not speaking from experience. I'm expecting mine to fruit anytime over the next few days here so I can update you to let you know if they like it or not.

As for the dunk, I just use tap water and haven't had any problems. If your tap isnt all that clean I'd suggest using spring water over distilled. When I dunk my subs I've experimented with letting some just float in the water and with others I've filled a second smaller tub with water and then placed it on top of the sub so the weight submerges it during the soak (obviously being careful to sterilize the smaller tub as much as possible). The sub seems to hydrate itself fine either way and hasn't made a difference.

PE May blob on first flush without a casing layer, but it is optional. Blobs dry fine and are potent also.

If your tub takes off make sure you get the PE dried well........those big stems need to be filleted usually to achieve cracker dry throughout. It’s stronger, but all things considered I don’t think PE is worth the extra time and effort because with time adds potential for contamination. It is fun to see and grow, if you have the patience you may be rewarded with some monsters

Most first timers can’t leave it alone and end up with contamination before things take off........

I wish you well on your tub adventure! Let me know how it goes and thank you kindly for the info on the outdoor bed. Seems easy enough



Thank you for that shroomery link, I read every page Good information. I decided that this time around I am going to skip the casing and just see how things go. Has there been any progress with your tub? any fruits? As of right now mine has tons of little caps on the surface, ones reaching up about an inch or so tall already. Super exciting to watch!



Those really are some monster mushrooms looking forward to seeing how these end up growing out. So far so good, I've only ever opened the tub once but the urge is growing as I want to take more and more pictures. Ill definitely throw some pictures up here to update as they grow.

For me it looks like the mycelium is just aggressively colonizing the casing layer. Which is fine by me, but no pins yet so I think I just added extra time before being able to harvest lol. Next time I'll probably skip the casing as well