Mushrooms & Me

Syringe prep. Pull the spore syringe from the fridge 2 hours before inoculation and let it reach room temperature. Shake vigorously for a full minute — this breaks up spore clumps and distributes them evenly. Skipping this step means uneven inoculation.

Injection. I use 4cc per 1lb grain bag — not 10cc. More solution means more moisture, which means more contamination risk. I flame-sterilize the needle between each bag, then inject through the self-healing port. If the port clogs (TW-01 had this happen), I estimate what got in, note it, and proceed. Some makes it through.

Label immediately. Dot sticker on the bag matching the syringe color. Write the date. This is your chain of custody from here forward. Don't do it later — you will forget.

Environment. Colonization tent — 68–74°F, complete darkness, no air exchange needed at this stage. The mycelium is consuming the grain and doesn't need fresh air yet.

Don't touch it. Seriously. No peeking for at least 2 weeks. Every time you open the tent you introduce contamination risk. First check at day 14–21, then weekly after that. The urge to check is strong. Resist it.

What healthy looks like. Bright white, ropey, fuzzy growth spreading from the injection point. Any green, black, orange, or pink is contamination — isolate the bag immediately and move it outside. Don't open it inside.

Timeline. Most cubensis strains: 30–60 days. B+-01 took 101 days because the grain bag was about a year old at inoculation. Yeti and TW are tracking around 60 days. Slow isn't bad — slow and white is healthy. Fast and green is not.

No break and shake. This is an intentional choice. Some growers break up the grain and shake it to speed colonization. I don't. The risk of introducing contamination through micro-tears in the bag isn't worth the few days saved. Tested across APE, B+, Yeti, and TW — all colonized fine without it.

Sterilization is everything. This is where most contamination happens. Spray every single surface with isopropyl alcohol 2–3 times — the tub, the lid, your gloves, the scissors, the table, the bag exterior. If you're not sure whether you sprayed something, spray it again. Change gloves between steps. IPA and fresh gloves are cheap. A lost tub is not.

The mix. Break up the fully colonized grain bag and mix loosely with substrate at a 3:1 ratio — 3 bags of North Spore Boomr Bag (manure-based substrate) to 1 colonized grain bag. Don't compact it. Loose and even.

Casing layer. Apply an eyeball-level layer of coco coir on top right at the start. This is your moisture-retention surface. Hydrate the coco coir with boiling water before use and let it cool. Don't overthink the depth — just enough to cover the substrate mix evenly.

Steam kickstart. Hit the tub with the Bissell PowerSteamer before putting the lid on. This creates the initial humidity atmosphere that signals the mycelium to shift from vegetative growth to fruiting. Polyfill filter lid goes on — not sealed tight, just resting to allow gas exchange.

Into the fruiting tent. The tub goes directly into the AC Infinity grow tent — not the colonization tent. This is the fruiting environment: higher humidity, light cycle, and automated air exchange.

Environment targets. Temperature 68–78°F, humidity 85–95%, VPD 0.4–1.2 kPa. The AC Infinity controller automates most of this. Light on a sunrise/sunset cycle at mid-level intensity — mushrooms use light as a directional cue, not for photosynthesis.

What to watch. Tiny white bumps (primordia) appear first, typically within 7–14 days of transfer. These develop into pins — visible cap shapes. From pins to harvest: 5–10 days depending on strain and conditions. Wall condensation is good. Pooling water on the substrate surface is not — increase FAE if you see it.

Harvest timing. I watch the veils — the thin membrane connecting the cap edge to the stem. When veils start to tear or break, that's harvest time for me. I don't wait for full cap opening. Spore drop after cap opening darkens everything and doesn't improve potency. I twist and pull gently at the base — not cutting.

Weigh fresh immediately. Before anything went on the dehydrator, I weighed it — using a container on the scale and subtracting the tare. I split into batches when I needed to. B+-01 was two bowls — 790g + 682g = 1,472g total wet. Ended up 102.9g dry. 7.0% wet-to-dry conversion.

Clean up stumps. After harvest, remove any remaining stump bases from the substrate surface. Reduces bacterial contamination risk between flushes.

The goal: cracker dry. Not leathery. Not bendy. Snap-in-half cracker dry. Any remaining moisture causes degradation and mold in storage. When in doubt, dry longer.

Three protocols tested on the Magic Mill dehydrator:

This is where I've lost the most tubs. Both APE-01 and B+-01 lost their second flushes to Trichoderma — blue-green mold appearing at the center of the substrate within days of rehydration. Same presentation both times.

The hypothesis: tap water. Every other moisture input in the process uses boiling water — coco coir hydration, steam pasteurization. But between flushes, I was dunking the substrate in tap water. That's the only unsterilized water source touching the substrate. Two for two on F2 contamination with that method.

New protocol. Boiled-then-cooled water only for all rehydration. Bottom-watering preferred over dunking — less disruption to the substrate surface. Clean spray bottles between flushes with IPA. No tap water touches the substrate, ever.

Long-term storage. Herb Guard vacuum jars with desiccant packets. Store at approximately 68°F in a dark storage tent. Vacuum seal + desiccant + darkness prevents moisture, oxygen, and UV degradation. Label every jar with strain, flush, weight, and date jarred.

Capsule processing. Grind to fine powder in 25g batches. 0.25g caps using the size 0 capsule machine — 100 doses per batch. At 0.25g per capsule, a single B+ flush of 102.9g dry is over 400 capsules.