Lacto Ferment Attempt #2 - Some Success! Mushroom Grain Spawn Without a Pressure Cooker Using Rye
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 24 มิ.ย. 2024
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Attempt #2 of the lactic acid fermented grain spawn has finally wrapped up, with some limited positive results! In addition to the lacto ferment, I also did a pressure cooker-free grain spawn experiment, which actually turned out quite well, much to my surprise.
Given the results of this experiment, I'm starting to lose some steam for the lacto ferment idea, but I'm not quite done yet. Even though it's seeming like the juice may not be worth the squeeze, I'm going to give this one last shot before retiring this idea.
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Great to watch you trying out different methods AND sharing the failed ones. Good job!
It's not that these techniques can't work it's more about the chance they have of working, you can potentially just throw a mushroom on some wet sawdust and have it colonise well but the chances of this working are so low it's not worth the trouble, the boiling can work very consistently but you would need to do it for many hours! i steam cook my grain in the same drum as my substrate and get practically no contamination but i cook it for 18-24 hs because there is barely any pressure so the temps can't get as high as a PC so i need a lot more time.
For future experiments i think you should use the same species and strain of mushrooms, btw great video, really interesting.
Thanks for watching! Yeah, I agree that I should stick with the same variety and strain next time. I wasn't very scientific in this experiment, and was trying to accomplish a couple things at once...I needed some more spawn for both varieties.
And yeah, it's all about beating out the competing organisms. I'm trying to find that line where I can get away with not using a P.C. and still have a relatively high success rate.
I steam sterilize and cover the steam holes on the pot's lid. Stick a cooking thermometer in one hole an I get almost 100c and only run the jarred grain for 20 minutes +/-. It only needs to hit top temps all over for a short time, mainly the time is taken to reach everywhere with an even high temp. I added a comment of what my process is.
But take it with a grain of mycelium, I only started Feb 20 2021 ;)
The only contam I got was when I did an open air grain to grain, knowing the risk but you never know for sure without trying ;)
4 of 19 petri from bought agar was contam lol the 6 MSS... well the MSS was terribly contaminated :'( But letting them over grow and see if I can take some of the fluff that is away from the contam but I have heard once some contam and mycelium are together that the mycelium owns the contaminant... You would need fruiting body to remove it but if you can't get a fruiting body... Going to try though lol why not #mycologyfun
Grower love
@@mtndan6969 You can separate contam from mycelium but it might take many transfers, sometimes i get the top of the mycelium fluff as to not get potencial contam under it. I think bacteria can coexist with mycelium but the real threat to the mycelium is mold like trichoderma, never had any real problems with bacteria or yeast.
I love these experiments! I'd love to see you experiment with using an instant pot which has quickly become a household staple but only gets up to about 10psi (so way better than just boiling but not quite the 15 psi of pressure cooker) They are far less intimidating and available than PC also. Appreciate your sharing your wealth of knowledge!!
Don't use an instant pot, it does not build enough pressure to properly sterilize. You need pressure to get to 15psi. Some have used their ip and extended the time with mixed results, and it winds up costing them more in time, , grain and materials that it just isn't worth it, as a proper pc is SO much more efficient. A proper pc can be had for about 50 bucks from amazon, (or used on craigslist / ebay --- just be sure the seal is good) with all you invest in a gourmet grow, why not get a proper pressure cooker. Use your instant pot for short ribs, it does a great job on tough beef. Cheers!
If you use an instant pot just pressure cook for about 4 hours. It is not as good you might be able to get by with it. Honestly if you're going to get contamination it's coming from your grain so there's no reason the cut corners here.
Thank you for sharing your results!
You're welcome! Thanks for watching!
I love your experiment videos. Most of the times its things I have wondered about. You sure save me a lot of head aches.
You’re awesome. Im only 2 minutes into you’re video, but... yea. I just got my PC delivered, and I’m about to start fruiting out some oyster and lionsmane. Totally new to mycology but I’m going to try needle biopsy cloning to liquid culture then to grain spawn... I’ve been doing bokashi pre-fermenting to compost this year, and using LAB (Korean Natural Farming’s name for lactobascillus) in watering of plants. Mushrooms starting popping up from my mulch in a couple of containers since the LAB and there was a crazy amount of either actinomycetes or mycelium in my compost post bokashi ferment so biology has been on my mind. So anyway... i really like the idea of out competing contaminants rather than going sterile, for what becomes possible if it’s a viable solution... alright. I’m going to go back to watching the rest of your video now. Thanks for doing what you do.
Thanks for watching and for your feedback! I really appreciate it! Sounds like you have some pretty cool plans, I'd love to hear how they go...feel free to hit me up on IG!
good experiments - I tried three boils (one boil per day) in the microwave. It worked. I've also had a PC jar die after a shake - it was wet-ish too. From other contam I've noticed the contam seems to feed on the good stuff - so it looks good, then Wham! Contam. BTW - PCs got real scarce over the summer, now I've seen some off brand PCs are show up in the Rural King stores here in TN.
I don't have a microwave, but I imagine that would work pretty well. Microwaves penetrate the grain quickly, whereas a stovetop boil is going to take a while to actually heat the grain throughout. Your process makes sense though, and if I come across a cheap microwave I'll have to give it a try! Thanks for the idea, it may actually be something thats more viable of an option than the lactoferment idea.
And yeah, PCs are getting really hard to find!
I dont recommend skipping the pressure cooking, My first year into mycology I used both stove top with boiling water as well as the oven to try to sterilize because I didn't want to spend the money on a pressure cooker. It is not worth the headache and the tremendous amounts of contams you will face. Originally, my success rate was incredibly low. Probably only about 20% of my jars would even make it to full colonization, its not worth the wasted time or wasted materials to go this route. Again, I tried these methods for close to a year with very steady results and I've seen molds of every color imaginable doing it this way. Since switching to the pressure cooker My success rate has drastically increased, now I'm standing at about 99% of my jars making it to full colonization. (3 weeks after inoculation: iv only lost 1 out of 80 jars and it wasn't even because of contams, it just stalled out after the 2nd shake.) I also found that it drastically raised my success rate by (1) reducing pasteurization time of grain, just bring your pot to a hard boil w/ the grain in the pot. Once you have a rolling boil turn the heat off and let the grain simmer for 40 minutes and (2) Even more important than not over pasteurizing is make sure you're drying your grains enough. I suggest letting them sit and air dry for 24 hours before jarring them. These few things have completely changed the game for me.
I am fortunate enough to have access to an Instapot, which I use to sterilize pint jars at 120min- I have had great success with this however I have read that when one only has access to a pot to boil for sterilization, one must do this for at least 2.5 hrs and I would imagine the longer the better. This is a great vid, its important for people to keep experimenting and pushing the boundaries of what is successful. Also, we mycologists must avoid falling into ruts where one methodology is taken as gospel and all else falls inferior, there's always possibilities for new things and techniques!
Really interesting experiment. Since I already have a pressure cooker, Im just going to stick with proven tech. But I really appreciate your experiments.👍
I love experiments
Me too! I'm working towards figuring out a technique to grow without single use plastics or pressure cooker, it's going to take a lot of experimenting!
@@OneEarthMushrooms could you revisit this
Thanks for being so open to experimentation and failure, it helps all of us. Was there any luck with Jar 3 in terms of growing? and further colonization of the pressure cooked jars? I'm looking of a way to sterilize without a pressure cooker.
so 100℃ can also give acceptable result, which's good news for someone who doesn't have a pressure cooker
Nice brother..goodjob..
New friends 🙏🙏
Thank you my friend! I appreciate you!
i think that having ideal moisture content in lacto fermented spawn is crucial here. too much moisture and mycelium will have a hard time growing, too little and the grain's outside becomes too neutral to retard mould growth. leaning towards the moister side of things to be safe might be the best approach. preparing these experiments takes alot of time but i'd enjoy to see this series continued
Thank you for watching! Yes, I agree with you. Finding a method to dry the grain without over drying is going to be key. I think I'll try the oven method next time (although, this will probably make the house smell pretty bad), and brain storm up a few other ideas in the meantime.
@@OneEarthMushroomsI couldn't help but laugh when you said put it in front of a fan for hours. Consider adding dry vermiculite to control excess moisture, either to the bottom of the jar or mixed with the grains before boiling. Looks like a few spoonfuls would absorb enough.
Also a little lime to raise the pH closer to neutral might help and also tie up some moisture and supply calcium. Just a thought if you try this again. I wouldn't bother with this technique but it's interesting.
nic experiment bro #impressive
Thanks! It was a fun experiment, but ultimately didn't work as well as I hoped.
Of course the name of this game is proper sterile technique. The amount of stuff around us in the air is huge. An instant of exposer is lethal to a batch. Early on I’ve done some of your experiments with the same results… failures. My best success has been with oven sterilization and ozone saturated water. Good Luck!
Thanks!
You're welcome! Thanks for watching!
my next experiment = cold pasteurization.
double boiled tap water (jared & cooled), masters mix with a 5% wheat germ addition, as soon as its at field capacity pour in some liquid culture, seal the bags & see what the results will be.
this way I can skip the grain process, may start making my liquid cultures from needle extraction of live culture samples to skip the agar process.
will save the agar plates for quality control and/or cleaning up wild mushroom samples.
Great Videos !!
I have been rinsing clean and soaking for 24hr to germinate any bad contaminants. Boil for 15-25 min (corn longer) or until you can squish one in your fingers with a good amount of pressure (to soft isn't good from what I understand) Then I toss them in a colander and toss them every few minutes to allow evap, they should almost be dry to the touch and leave next to no water on a paper towel. Once in the jars I steam sterilize for 1-2 hrs. This will soften the grain further so keep that in mind. From there, SAB to inoculate safely.
I want to say you used to much liquid culture, 1 cc would have been plenty imo and the grain was already quite wet and along with the acidity... I used 0.7 cc of a MSS on one petri dish lmao Neve tried this tek though I might now with my own liquid, agar and grain.
But the main thing with what I do, you still need a sab since the grain is susceptible to contam in open air grain to grain. without that acidic pH holing off contamination. That being said makes me wonder (the one jar finally took off) if You do grain to grain in open air with Lacto Tek that the pH needs to climb before activity can even start (and rinsing them as well will help that) which is counter productive to saving the time of a PC(?).
Guess I need to find the next video or finish watching before commenting lol
Thanks Dan! Great thoughts, and things to keep in mind for my next attempt.
Do we need to filter out the water after soaking for 12 hours ??
I like what you are trying to do with the lacto-ferment. I have an idea that might work but, this is your baby. I have a pressure cooker. I do understand that it really is the single most expensive barrier to entry for many people who otherwise might be able to help feed their families with inexpensive nutritional mushroom cultivation. I was thinking maybe you could take the jar of the undrained lacto fermented grains to a still air box with a clean habit routine and take off the lid and put a alcohol sterilized coffee filter in the lid ring and screw it on and drain it overnight into a container then get a boiled clean jar twice its size and fill it one third with vermiculite and then pour the lacto fermented grain into it and add your myceliated agar and seal it with a micropore taped lid maybe this would get enough moisture out and allow the rest to settle into the vermiculite away from the bottom of the grain and possibly work.
Have u tried drying with a screen?
cool dude!
Thank you!
I would try using a Bokashi bran to ferment the grain in a sealed container for two weeks after boiling or mist the grain with Em1 or make your own LABs form rice and milk. You use the rice water to collect bacteria and yeast but when you add it to milk your feeding only the lactic acid bacteria. You could also use some of the clear liquid from plain Greek yogurt. I know when making bokashi compost and food fermentation air is bad during the fermentation process.
do a over night soak and boil in a 15% vinegar and water mix and then inoculate and skip the long fermentation im just starting out and find this very interesting
and if it works it will save me some money on a very expensive pressure cooker
Very interesting video! My only issue with this experiment is your jars. You should use all the same jars, and use fresh new jars to assure there are no other variables being introduced. scratches from say a fork going for a pickle that might hide a contaminate. I was glad to see you did a control group, most you tubers would not bother.
Can you do a video about spawn? When to transfer, how to transfer safely? Identifying contamination in the spawn?
Thank you for the suggestion Nikki! I've added these topics to my running list of ideas.
Has anyone tried to sterilise grain spawn jars with a microwave oven I wondered if it would work I forgot to say great video by the way cheers
With jars 5 and 6 . I would think the likely reason for them failing to grow . would have been the temperature of the grain when it was injected . Too much heat is one of the things that will quickly kill spawn
I've been trying to find other uses for the pressure cooker, like sterilising polyfill in jars (trying to reduce waste like brown-water, plastic, paper, cleaning fluid is my goal currently). But The lactic acid method is really cool anyways, I bet you can find an optimal fluid usage to cut back on drying/liquid problems...
Well, if I had another Jared helping me on the project, I'm sure we could figure it out in no time at all!
Thank you for doing these experiments! I have a chronic illness and will never own a pressure cooker, and neither will our mushroom growing friends in countries where such things are just not viable for people who would benefit greatly for starting a mushroom farm.
I have a few notes, but first this link that you’ll want to read about someone’s experience with open air grain to grain: medium.com/invironment/in-search-of-non-sterile-mushroom-cultivation-tek-fc09546d373d
- Try and keep your used type of mushroom consistent. King oyster is less vigorous in colonizing than a pink (which some people even grow on unpasteurized straw since it grows so fast).
- Boil the jars for longer than you would pressure cook. You might want to just leave it for 4 hours to start and up in hour increments until you see a noticeable difference in succes rate.
- You could use smaller jars to decrease grain cost, then if something looks promising test it with the larger jars.
- I don’t know much about grains but logic would say that some grains are more contam resistent than others. Brown rice is used in brf tek for this reason I think? Might be worthwile to investigate this!
Thanks again for doing this and I hope you will keep on trying!
Sounds like you’re right with the drying process. www.shroomery.org/forums/showflat.php/Number/8729280/fpart/all/vc/1 according to this guy’s experience, being able to break up the grain is not to be expected which says to me “soupy” or wet. Good luck. I hope you’ll keep experimenting. Once I’ve grown something standard I’ll probably try too.
That's the post I started with!
OneEarth Mushrooms so I thought about it last night. Bokashi is using a lactobascillus bran or spray inoculum in an air tight container with some type of drainage in order to separate the liquid of food breaking down. Sealed up for 2 weeks gives the chance for everything to pickle. I’m wondering if taking all your grains and spraying them with LAB/Lacto and then putting them in a or container with some type of strainer could work better. This site has an image of a diagram: deepgreenpermaculture.com/diy-instructions/bokashi-composting-how-to-process-waste-that-cant-go-in-your-compost-or-worm-farm/ but it would essentially give you back that last half inch that you lost in the popcorn experiment. I do bokashi with a 5gal bucket and a “grit trap” that people who use buckets to wash cars use. And I have an Italian bottling spigot on the bottom. www.mushroom.guide/tutorial/shiitake/6-replacing-single-use-plastic/ this guy has a way he is using pantry containers instead of bags... I wonder if some kind of grate or filter could be fit to the bottom of one and then a spigot applied to allow liquid out... you’d ferment air tight for two weeks or more and then colonize... just a thought on getting you away from the soup, but building on the ph shift that the original poster was talking about.
Have you considered three day method
I've heard of it, but haven't tried it myself yet. Can you briefly explain your version of that method?
@@OneEarthMushrooms substrate is heated in a steam bath for 30 minutes, 3 days in a row. Between steam treatments, the jars are kept warm (85-98°F [30-37°C] is ideal, but room temperature will work). This heating and incubating process germinates heat-resistant endospore bacterium, making them vulnerable to latter heating stages.
Have you read "Growing Mushrooms the Easy Way"? It focuses on using Hydrogen Peroxide. I've been reading it, but would like to see what someone with more experience than me thinks of the techniques.
I haven't, but a few others have mentioned hydrogen peroxide too. Might be worth giving a shot!
Oh nah I just soaked my millet a day to long, now it smells cheesy and slightly fermented so I'm wondering if it's still going to work 🤣 Anyway, it's in the PC so I guess I'll find out
How'd it turn out? The PC should have killed everything off.
You should watch some vids from Thirdy's World on YT. He is from Sri Lanka but the vids are subbed in English. Its amazing how he grows quite well with no pc. Love ur vids.
Um dude, this guy is amazing! Thank you for the recommendation! Definitely going to spend some time on his channel:)
Wow, I don't think my last post was a good enough or outside the box enough to solve this problem soooo maybe you really shouldnt even boil the grains using the lactoferment process as it softens them to much the lacto process itself will probably get enough water into the grain then the draining process i mentioned earlier might work. Keep up the good work , it could happen. :) I mean if the mushroom mycelium coexist with the lacto bacillus as it destroys all it's competitors then boiling the grain should be irrelevant.
but if you didn boil it will germinate right?
edit : or just let it under water for a week more?
How can we cure green mold disease? chemical
Naa I don't like to use chemicals/antibiotics. This was just a fun experiment.
Hey watch philly golden teacher. Broke boi tek series. Easy no pressure cooker no drilling holes in anything. Working great
If my understanding of this process is correct, the aerobic bacteria is killed off by the lack of oxygen, so I would guess that each time you opened your containers to check the progress and scoop out the crap, you are introducing oxygen back into your containers long before the process has had time to finish. That would to me be a huge mistake, but again this is just my assumption. After the aerobic bacteria has been killed the remaining anaerobic bacteria can be killed by exposure to air, leaving your contents bacteria-free.
Why not wash with bleach..then water...
no offense but isn't it kind of silly to boil the jar for only 30minutes when you pressure cook for 90minutes?I think it would make since to try and boil the jars for a longer time but that's just what I think
No offense taken! Excellent point...very much common sense that I missed. I'll try this method again and use 90 mins for the boil. Thanks for watching!
Boil for 8 hours. 30 min is too short.