My Bountiful Mushroom Yields Start With Quality Grain Spawn: Here’s How I Make Mine

Hello everyone! :)

If you want to be successful in mushroom cultivation, you must have good grain spawn; today I’ll show you how I make mine!

I’ve provided a tl;dr at the bottom of the post, to summarize everything in bulleted steps.

My favorite picture in my camera roll; mushrooms from last January

Materials List:

· Grain

· Mason Jars

· High Temperature Silicon

· Pillow Stuffing

· Stove and pans

· Pressure Cooker/ Autoclave

· Mushroom Liquid Culture

Step 1: Choose and Soak your Grain

Any grain you choose will work fine!

I use rye grain, for growing all of my mushrooms. It is widely considered the best grain for cultivating mushrooms, and I’ve never had a problem with it! You could also try wheat berries, barley, millet, popcorn, or even bird seed.

Nothing proves as reliable as rye grain. I highly recommend it!

Now that you’ve decided which grain you want to use, we need to soak it for 24 hours!

Find a large bowl and fill it with your grain and add water.

Warning: Grain can double in size when fully saturated, so leave room in your bowl for expansion.

Step 2: Simmer your Grain

You’ve got your saturated grain, but it’s sooo dirty!

Dump your grain from the bowls into a strainer or colander, to get rid of all that nasty brown water.

Now, get some large pots, and fill them with grain. Add enough water to partially cover the grain.

Turn the burners on low, and let the grain simmer for half an hour.

Afterword, dump the grain straight from the pot right into your sink.

We don’t want to lose the grain, just the water.

You also want to make sure your sink is clean BEFORE you dump the grain in.

Step 3: Modify your Jars and Fill them with Grain

Alright, it gets much more tedious starting… now.

*Evil laugh*

We need to make these mason jar lids right here:

20 jars of pink and blue oyster culture colonizing rye grain!

They are designed for sterile inoculation of a liquid mushroom culture. They’re the backbone of this entire process. Without these, we fail.

I'll show you how to make them, and then I’ll explain why they are so important. Stay with me here; it may get a little weird. I’ll see you on the other side.

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I promise, these lids are actually very simple to make!

I’m a surprisingly unhandy teenaged boy, and I made these!

So can you!

Here’s how to make the special lids- I’ll explain everything after:

· With the lids still on the jars, drill two separate ¼ inch holes on opposite sides of the lid

· Take the lids off of the jar and wash each jar out- there will be scrap metal inside

· Clean the hanging metal pieces off each lid as well

· Grab some pillow stuffing and thread it through one of the holes on each lid- this very well might be the hardest thing you ever do. Don’t believe me? Try it.

I’ve found that rolling the stuffing into a skewer and pushing it through the hole works best. Good luck.

**If someone finds a better way to do this, please let me know. Like, please.**

· Cover the other hole (completely cover it- don’t go light with this stuff) with high temperature silicon. I got mine on Amazon for $10!

Here’s what you just made, and why it is so important:

We’re about to fill our jars with grain to be pressure cooked, and afterword you’re going to inject your liquid culture into jars filled with VERY CLEAN GRAIN.

Now there's two main problems here...

1. That liquid culture has to compete with other bacterium to colonize the grain. That’s why it has to be so clean- so that we can kill all of the competition! If there’s any contaminants inside of that jar, there’s almost no chance your liquid culture wins.

It’s like putting a baby up against Mike Tyson.

Moral of the story: everything’s got to stay clean, otherwise… you lose.

That’s what our high temperature silicon is for! It can a) withstand the heat of your pressure cooker, and b) reseal itself after you insert your needle for inoculation.

This is a self-healing injection port!

It’ll keep (almost) all bacteria out of the jar, while still allowing you to safely inoculate your grain!

2. Problem two: your liquid culture must breathe a little bit in order to colonize the grain.

That’s why we aren’t going to fill our jars to the brim with grain- air circulation.

That’s also why we have a hole specifically designed for air circulation!

I know what your thinking!

“Wait, Noah! Won’t a large, unsealed hole in the lid allow all the bacteria in?”

That’s what the cotton is for! It’ll keep your grain safe!

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Problem(s) solved!

Now fill them 75% up with grain from your sink!

Step 4: Sterilize your Jars and Inoculate

We’re in the homestretch!

You’ll need a pressure cooker (or autoclave) for this step! If you don’t have one, you better hope you know someone who does!

I got mine from my grandmas’ attic! I like to think it was a gift from above- literally- get it?

Fasten the lids tight (not to tight) on your jars, and load as many as you can fit in your pressure cooker! They can be oriented however you like as long as they fit in!

All pressure cookers are different so this may vary, but I have a metal piece in mine that holds the jars over the water in the bottom.

Make sure you research the specific requirements of your pressure cooker.

Pressure cook the jars for sixty minutes.

After they have finished, release the pressure from the machine and remove the jars.

Let them cool and dry off.

Once the jars have cooled off, grab your liquid culture syringe, and a lighter!

3ml of pink oyster liquid culture!

Install the needle to the syringe, and immediately clean it with an alcohol wipe.

Then light the needle with your lighter to further sterilize it. Let it cool for a couple seconds, and then you can begin inoculating through your self-healing injection port!

Simply insert the needle through the silicon, inject 1ml of the culture, and pull the needle out of the jar!

The silicon will reseal itself!

Make sure you light your needle with your lighter (until it starts turning orange) in between each injection to make sure everything stays AS CLEAN AS POSSIBLE!

When you light the needle on fire, expect to hear some popping- that’s a little left-over serum, or silicon burning. Your needle may even catch flame- this is normal- just make sure you wipe off any debris, and relight it, to ensure a sterile inoculation.

Make sure to shake your jars every 5-10 days, and you’ll be well on your way to some high-quality grain spawn!

What comes next?

I'll cover that in future posts, so make sure to subscribe (for free) to the blog, so you can have my weekly posts hand-delivered to your inbox! ;)

If you’d like to see the day-to-day of a microgreen and mushroom farmer, check out my Instagram @the_botaneer!

I wish all of you the best of luck!

Happy farming! ;)

Mushrooms from my school science fair!

tl;dr:

· Pick a grain- they all work- rye is best

· Soak grain for 24 hours

· Simmer grain for 30 minutes

· Dump grain in sink to let water drain out

· Modify mason jars with 2, ¼ inch holes- thread cotton through one, and completely cover the other with high temperature silicon

· Fill jars with grain (not all the way to the top) and tighten lids firmly

· Sterilize the grain inside with a pressure cooker, or autoclave- check specific requirements for your machine

· Let jars cool off; inoculate each jar with 1ml of liquid culture by sticking the needle through the high temperature silicon and injecting the serum- the needle hole with reseal

· Shake jars every 5-10 days

· Enjoy! ;)