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Where do you get your high quality mushroom supplies?
In my mushroom growing guides I don't try to recommend specific brands and companies because it's important to focus on the fundamentals and not be so focused on who makes the product. This also helps our group innovate on mushroom cultivation methods, as newer and better products will enhance an already great system. But I will dedicate this post to a great company for those who are beginning their journey into mushroom growing, North Spore. I started growing mushrooms using North Spore's Lion's Mane/Pink Oyster liquid cultures, which have always been reliable and aggressive cultures. I've also bought growing apparatuses, like Martha Tents and Monotubs from this company, because they have such strong guarantees on the quality of their hardware that—when issues do occur—they help replace parts as fast as possible. If you have interest in purchasing from North Spore, I have a referral code that gets you $20 off your first purchase if you spend $40+ with them. They also have consistent discounts on their substrate/grain bags, as well as lab supplies, which I like to stock up on as I slowly scale up my production. I can't recommend many companies out there because I've run into so many questionable quality control practices, but North Spore is the rare company that has gone out of their way to be on the top of my mind when I need certain hardware. Here's a brief list of what I purchased from them the last couple months: - Wide Mouth Culture Jar w/ Port and Filter, which are modified jar lids that save me the hassle (and cut fingers) of drilling holes into standard mason jar lids, which have always been a messy process. Their filter patches and ports last for quite a few sterilization cycles as well before replacement, which is cents on the dollar. - Wide Mouth Silicone Lid Covers, which are a less wasteful alternative to aluminum foil - Trumpet, Pink Oyster, Lion's Mane Liquid Cultures, as I needed to re-up my LC stock after doing some failed agar experiments. - I also regularly purchase Organic Millet from them, as I have trouble sourcing organic millet from my local area (I'm still looking though!). They don't have the best rates for Millet when only purchasing 10 pounds, but when I'm spending more than $150, their free shipping makes it an okay deal.
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New comment Aug 28
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Welcome to BMG: Badwater Mushroom Group
Our mission here is to share the newest developments for mushroom use for health and wellness and the best methods to grow mushrooms in all their different forms, as well as how to find them in the wild! We want to make the best mushroom resource on the internet. Whether you're new or are an advanced mushroom grower, this is a hub for discussion on improving your knowledge about growing mushrooms. If you want to be involved in making mushroom growing more accessible than ever before, you've found the right place! Here are some rules for the community. 1. We don't spam this community. If you notice somebody DMing you with spammy stuff, let us know and we'll take care of it. 2. We want to submit the highest quality posts that help people learning more about how to grow mushrooms, how to forage them, and how to better understand the underlying processes of mycelial production. We love when you format your posts clearly with an intent to educate and inspire. 3. Please ask questions. We won't know how to produce better guides if people don't ask questions. 4. Let's keep this community positive and open, with no negative posts. Please introduce yourself, and tell us where you are in the mushroom growing journey, whether beginner, advanced, or anywhere in between. Ask us anything! And the easiest way to rise through the ranks in this community is by producing simple, high-quality guides.
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New comment Apr 5
Welcome to BMG: Badwater Mushroom Group
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Long Post: Getting Started With Growing—Everything you need to have, step-by-step.
So you want to start growing mushrooms, a hobby that embodies frustration, despair, but also complete elation when you finally see your first fruiting bodies! This is a step-by-step guide for procuring the right tools, hardware, and materials so you can move on to the nitty gritty Let’s think of growing mushrooms in four general steps: 1. Prepare Materials 2. Inject Grain Spawn 3. Mix Grain Spawn with Fruting Block 4. Set Fruiting Block to Fruiting Conditions Seems simple enough right? It can be, if you don’t get stuck in the details. But there are a lot of details, and we’ll be sure to cover them throughout all the guides. This guide is only about the tools required for each step in the process, so we’ll figure out how to use all of this in a separate post. --- What you need for Step 1: Prepare Materials. --- We need to have a Grain Spawn jar/bag, and a Fruiting Block. The mycelium propagates itself in Grain Spawn, and once it fully takes over the Grain Spawn, it is ready to mix into a Fruiting Block, which gives the mycelium enough nutrients to start producing fruiting bodies. Preparing the Grain Spawn jar/bag requires: - 1x 1 qt Wide Mouth Sterilizable Mason Jar OR, - 1x 6”x5”x20” Grow Bag with Fresh Air Exchange Filter and Injection Port/Micropore Tape - 1x Wide Mouth Jar Lid with Injection Port and Fresh Air Exchange Filter - 1lb+ Whole Grain Oats as the organic medium - 1x Medium Pot - 1x Wire Mesh Colander - 1x Stirring Spoon - 1x Pressure Canner/Sterilizer Preparing the Fruting Block requires: - 1x 8”x5”x20” Grow Bag with Fresh Air Exchange Filter - 1lb+ Soy Hull Pellets - 1lb+ Oak Pellets - 1x Stirring Stick (needs to be sturdy enough to mash things as well) - 1x Very Large Bowl (for mixing) - 1x Pressure Canner/Sterilizer --- What you need for Step 2: Inject Grain Spawn --- To inject the Grain Spawn jar/bag, you’ll need a liquid culture syringe (we won’t talk about agar plates yet) of a Hardwood-Loving mushroom like Shiitake, Oyster, Lion’s Mane, etc. But we also have to think about a semi-sterile environment so the Grain Spawn doesn’t get contaminated after we inject the liquid culture syringe.
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Doubling Down on Agar
For a long time now, I've recommended prospective mushroom growers to inoculate their grain jars with liquid culture (LC) syringes because it's so easy. Inject and go! But as I've sourced my liquid cultures from different manufacturers, I've realized that this recommendation can only take you so far before you deal with confusion, disappointment, and contamination. This is because many liquid culture producers out there have perfectly viable liquid cultures with a hint of contaminants in them. I've found several times from a recent producer I've purchased from that my LC-inoculated grain jars look great, but once I mix it in substrates like coco coir and oak/soyhull bags, they soon become contaminated. I've provided tried-and-true instructions on completely sterilizing oak/soyhull substrates. So why should they contaminate after mixing with these apparently clean-looking grain jars? This is because bacteria in the liquid culture can still live with the propagated mycelial culture in a grain jar, just waiting for the opportunity to grow when introduced to the right environment. Trichoderma, the most common bacterial contaminant, grows in oxygen-rich environments; grain jars are not great oxygen environments, and a stronger mushroom culture can crowd out the bacterial contaminant, which lies dormant until it's mixed in the more nutritious, open environment of a bulk substrate like coco coir and Master's Mix (oak/soyhull pellet mix). In the end, to better guarantee a clean colonized grain jar and a subsequently contamination-free fruiting substrate, you need to isolate the mushroom culture from bacteria through the use of agar in petri dishes. Agar throws a wrench in the easy process I've outlined for growing mushrooms, but it's effective in identifying contaminants and getting rid of them. This fact has been ignored by me, as I successfully use North Spore's Lion's Mane liquid cultures without any issue, and propagate by own liquid cultures without contamination (you can check out North Spore's liquid culture collection here: https://northspore.sjv.io/Y9zZrB). But for those purchasing from other sources, you'll likely need to propagate the liquid culture in agar to clean out bacteria before inoculating your grain jars.
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Doubling Down on Agar
Getting Back to BMG and Future Plans
Hey all, Since May, I've been MIA from Badwater Mushroom Group – no managing, no new posts. I'm a wildland firefighter in the summer. That means two weeks of fighting fire, then a quick three-day breather at home to crash and hang with family. Rinse and repeat for five months. Come fall, I'm spit back into the real world with a whole winter to dive into my personal stuff. BMG has grown since I started it earlier this year, and I want to thank everyone who's contributed to the community—whether through likes, comments, or other means! In the coming month, I plan to reach out to those who want to be more active in our group. I'm pumped to show folks how to grow mushrooms and help others who want to spread the knowledge too. It's super cool that we're in a time where anyone can grow mushrooms right at home. This awesome food, medicine, and supplement isn't just for big farms and industries anymore. If growing your own mushrooms is a way to stick it to the man, I'm totally here to support that! So here’s an update on my re-entry to mushroom cultivation: I purchased an updated version of the North Spore BoomRoom martha tent to improve my current tent setup. The BoomRoom II’s humidifier capacity is 2 or 3 times larger than the last one, and it’s set up on the outside. For years now, I’ve had to refill the humidifier each day; if I forgot one night, it would be dry the time I wake up. Bumping up the capacity to 4.4 gallons seems like a game-changer. The old humidifier also took over two shelf spaces that could have been used by a few more bags of Lion’s Mane. This at least a 20% increase in capacity for the whole tent. Lastly, the exhaust fan used to awkwardly take over the top shelf, connecting to a 4-inch tube that stretched to the floor, which constantly pulls at the plastic it’s attached to. After multiple reinstallations, the plastic tent tore at the exhaust fan's entry point, further compromising the tent’s seal. While I appreciated the first BoomRoom's convenience in assembling a martha tent with the right tools, its design felt clunky. The shelving didn't seem made to accommodate the humidifier and exhaust fan effectively.
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