The PF Tek can be used to grow a variety of species of psilocybin mushroomsor you can try edible species such as oyster mushrooms or lions mane. In time the mushrooms will grow largerwhen the caps open, the annulus (the skirt) drops, and you can see the gills, they are ready to harvest. You could eat it from the bag with a fork if you wanted to. I like using unmodified monotubs, 4-6 quarts in size. It comes in multiple flavors but the one you want is just plain brown rice.. Place an entire brick of coco coir into the bucket. You dont want to fully seal it closed with tape. Two of the most popular teks if youre new to growing mushrooms are the PF Tek and the Spiderman Tek (i.e. uncle ben tek colonization time. Generally speaking, a good beginner strain is any strain that's easy to find, has fast colonization rates, is less prone to aborts, and is tolerant to underoptimized fruiting conditions. Once colonized, you can start growing your mushrooms. You could fruit them in your bathroom, but it is best to fruit them in a stable environment such as a Shotgun Fruiting Chamber (SGFC). Many people cut holes and stuff with polyfill, or cover with micropore tape. I squeeze my coco to field capacity over my bucket, then add each handful at a time. Use the Chip clip method to hold your top of your bag separate. The Top 5 Mushroom Grow Kits (That We've Vetted & Recommend) - Third Wave with two holes cut for armholes. A lot of the older growing guides, including those by Stamets, required a medium skill level, a good lab technique, some homemade lab gear, and excellent working knowledge of agar and growing from grains. Now, its just a waiting game. The ideal temperature for colonization is around 78 F. Check your bags every couple of days for signs of contamination. The tek is straightforwardyou inoculate satchels of pre-cooked rice (conveniently pre-sterilized) using a spore syringe. Then, once the spores have germinated and the mycelium has fully colonized the substrate (youll know because it will turn into a white mass), you migrate the colonized mycelium cakes into your fruiting chamber for the mushrooms to grow. The plastic in many of these types of boxes are quite brittle, so the step drill allows a slow increase in sizestandard drill attachments have a tendency to cause the plastic to fracture. Heres my closet. We are basically doing just that. This is the beauty of Uncle Bens. By adding more liquid you throw off the amount of moisture. Congrats! b. Be careful only to add as much water as can be absorbed by the vermiculite. If you add extra coffee grounds, manure, or potting soil to your substrate, I believe you are asking for contaminants. Here are some mistakes that we made when we first started mushroom growing. THEY WILL GROW EXTREMELY FAST at this point, so be attentive! The Substrate. Wipe your surfaces with ISO and Lysol the air. Alcohol/Isopropyl alcohol/methylated spirits (we like 70% like this one), Water Spray Bottle for 70% alcohol/methylated spirits, Still Air Box (SAB) & Shotgun Fruiting Container (SGFC), **Note a SAB is optional and there are also many kinds of fruiting chambers, but we choose to teach SGFC in this guide**, Drill and a 4-12 mm step Drill Bit or Soldering Iron, Heating mat for reptile closure / Horticulture. Keep in mind you wont get as many mushrooms, and you may start to notice contamination at this point as the mycelium may have consumed the available nutrients. In addition to this guide, we have tons of free videos on our YouTube on mushroom growing. Flick, shake, and spin your closed spore syringe. Sanitize everything. Depending on how you made the hole seal it with micropore tape. When the substrate is fully myceliated you dont need to be as concerned about contamination as there is little space for contamination to take hold, and the mycelium will be busy defending itself. If its contamd, throw that shit out and sanitize everything again. By using a dehydratorthe same kind used to dry fruitor by leaving the mushrooms on a rack in a part of the house that is warm and dry. Its essentially a plastic tub that has tons of holes in it as though someone shot it a lot of times with shotgun pellets, hence the name. UPDATE: Many users find that brand-name Uncle Bens bags are already too wet, **so for brand-name or already-moist bags, I definitely recommend no more than 0.5cc per bag. Once it recovers, it will explode in growth and will likely 100% colonize within days. Uncle Ben's Drops Imagery And Name Steeped In Racial Stereotypes - NPR -------------------- Let the air stop moving entirely in your house/apartment. Uncle Ben's Tek Shopping List (Printable) - High Vibration Station *A Still Air Box (SAB), or glovebox, is a sealed container that some people use to help limit air movement and keep contamination out of their grows. You won't lose them to "wet rot" or contamination, and you'll be much happier. Monotubs: At least 2-4 tubs. It is essential to mist and aerate on a regular daily basis. Tape over it with a micropore tape, and youre almost done. A good sized pressure cooker between 7 to 10 litres is recommended for average use. Once inoculated, you need to keep the jars warm while the mycelium growsskip forward to the mushroom incubation section for more information. Initially, the PF tek used organic rye berries (rye seeds) but later simplified to use brown rice flour and vermiculite. If you feel passionate about your interest and feel you are going to be doing a lot you could invest in a 22 litre Hawkins Big Boy, or lab grade autoclave. You want your surface as uniform as possible. Fill the tub with perlite so that it is approximately 5 cm deepsitting just below the lowest holesand add enough water so the perlite becomes moist, but does not float on a layer of water. colonize somewhere out of the way and about room-temperature (colonization will be slower than for jars incubated in . The mycelium will colonize from the top of the satchel, where you injected the spores, down through the rice. You dont want flavors, you just want the pure Uncle Bens brown rice. Break it apart as finely as you can. Most importantly, you want fast and health mycelium growth, so it can outcompete any potential contams inside the bag. But, if you want the best growth, you should consider finding a way to incubate your bags: Some people use heat mats, but many find them to be overkill or poorly distribute the heat. It is important to note that humidity of greater than 80% is necessary for mushrooms to grow. Need Access to Shrooms? wipe down the outside of your rice bags with alcohol or another disinfectant. This will usually take between two to four weeks, but sometimes can take even longer. Yield varies greatly, with some growers reporting huge harvests and others getting nothing at all. The increased surface area of the bulk layer allows for more primordia formation and hence more mushrooms. Heres the timer I use. Most SABs are made from large clear plastic storage boxes (although my first SAB was a cardboard box with a cling wrap window!) You are more likely to succeed by shooting the spores directly into a trash can full of dirty diapers. Expect to have a few losses to contamination, especially for your first time. To be clear, whether you choose the PF Tek or Uncle Bens Tek will affect the first stage of the process: inoculation. The name of the game is inoculation. You can also dry out your bags with extra heat, especially if you have massive gas exchange micropore holes. Sterilize the jars, run the pressure cooker for 45 minutes or the pot for 90 minutes and let cool. Fluctuations in temperature will slow down growth and give contams a chance to beat the mycelium. Proper micropore tape only allows Oxygen and CO2 to pass through, but not much water and definitely doesnt allow contams through. Pick by pulling gently from the substrate, being careful not to pull up too much of the substrate or mycelium. Use the shotgun fruiting chamber to fruit the mushrooms when using this method. A really quick but toxic alternative is to use a soldering iron to melt the holes. The tek is straightforwardyou inoculate satchels of pre-cooked rice (conveniently pre-sterilized) using a spore syringe. Above 79/80 degrees, and it may be too hot and will contaminate as mycelium cant grow in that heat, but bacteria can. This started to change with the introduction of the PF Tek, a simple technique which allowed people with minimal skills and no knowledge of lab technique to grow mushrooms at home easily. Bruising may occur, but it will recover and growth will explode. Also, when deciding how many bags to do, check how big the bags are (it will say so on the front) and how much spawn youll need for the second-stage method youll be using. Break up the rice through the bag (trust me, I learned the hard way! Stick your sterilized syringe into the cut corner of the bag, only as far as the needle reaches inside, and squirt 0.5cc (half of one mL) of the shaken spore solution. So supporters usually talk up Uncle Bens ease and simplicity, suggesting it particularly to beginners who might not be ready for all the intricate steps of a more advanced tek. At the bottom of each post will be a summary in bold. There are two choices here: some teks recommend snipping off the top corner of the rice satchel, injecting the spores through the hole, and then sealing the hole with the micropore tape. The Uncle Bens Tek[i] is not a technique belonging to Uncle Ben (Now known as Bens Original). For more information, please see our Break up the brick as much as possible. Shroom cultivation has been around for a while, and there are many methods (known as Teks) for creating colonized spawn grains. Dont worry about hurting the mycelium as picking the mushroom helps encourage new growth. Essentially, you bulk out your spawn to increase your yield. [CLICK HERE for PART 3: Spawning to Bulk]. But once your mycelium cakes have colonized and you transfer them to the shotgun fruiting chamber, the technique is the same. Mushrooms need regular fresh air, so remember to use the lid to fan the container at least twice a day. Micropore tape is a tape that has pores smaller than 2 nm (nanometres) which allow air movement but limits larger sized particles. Uncle Bens Tek Spawn To Bulk For Monotubs Shoeboxes S2 Ep1 The substrate. Heres an example of a corner that was cut too much, you should break up the mycelium chunk and shake vigorously to redistribute your mycelium. Fruiting chambers can get complicated, with humidity sensors, fans, humidifiers, piping, and timers, but you can start simple with a shotgun fruiting chamber. This method has worked much better for me. ), Part 2: How to Inoculate Uncle Bens Bags (Inoculation & Colonization), Part 4: How to Harvest, Dry, and Prepare for next flush, (There will also be a TL;DR at the bottom of Part 4), -------------------------------------------------------. Now, you need the colonization to happen. After mixing, check your substrate depth. With that being said, Uncle Bens Tek is a fantastic way to start, and I grew 3 dry ounces from $12 of Uncle Bens and knockoff brand rice bags. I ended up soldering my own LED strips into fixtures for my closet. Contamination is the lead cause of failure when growing mushroom. Put on your cleanest clothes, and wear a hat or a hairnet. There are more than 100 different kinds of psilocybin mushrooms, but the most popular ones for growing are B+, Penis Envy, and Golden Teachers. Use the Capri-Sun method to inoculate your bag by sticking a hot-tipped needle into the middle of your bag and inserting 0.5cc of solution, then covering that hole with micropore tape. At this point, I cracked the lid. You will need at least a 4-quart (1 gallon) plastic tub. Colonization time depends on what strain you're growing, but expect it to take a little longer than with PF Tek because of the cooler incubation conditions. The essential items for this tek are the satchels of pre-cooked rice, spore syringe, 70 percent alcohol, micropore tape, the flame lighter, and optionally, a Still Air Box. I would not recommend. If you dont have an area with a stable temperature, say on top of your fridge or near a heater where it is always warm, you may need an incubator.