I wanted to try growing mushrooms, but all the sites I went to said you needed to buy all this crap, like a pressure cooker, vermiculite, etc. So I decided to see if I could grow them using a spore print, without buying anything at all. Well, except brown rice, which is like 50 cents a pound at the Asian market. And a cubensis B+ spore print, which I got for $30 on the Internet from a site I knew was reputable.

I eat a lot of salsa, and had a couple jars laying around. I washed those, then dug through the refrigerator and found a few more that were almost empty, or were spoiled. I washed out the jars and rinsed them with bleach and tap water. Then I poured a quarter cup of brown rice in each one, along with about 1.5 times that much water. They fit well in a pot I had, so I put some silverware in the pot (to make sure there was space between the jars and the bottom of the pot) and put the jars in. Then I filled it up with water to about halfway up the jars. I put the lids on fairly loose, and boiled the water with the lid on for about 45 minutes.

Once the jars cooled off, I took them to the least-used, least-dusty, least-likely-to-have-mold-in-it room where I live. This turned out to be the guest bedroom. Then I wrapped tape around one end of a piece of copper wire (to keep my hand from burning if it got hot). I took a shower, then washed my hands really well, making sure NOT to dry them with a towel. Those things are loaded with germs. Then I got my butane mini-torch and heated up the one end of the copper wire to the point where it discolored. I held the spore print over each jar, uncapped it, scratched at the spore print so I saw them fall in the jar, then capped them again.

After three days, I saw some fuzz, so I loosened the jars to let in oxygen. Over the next few days, there was more white fuzz. One day, I saw a spot of mold in one of them, so I got a little spoon and heated it up with my torch, then scooped it out. That happened again with one of the other jars, and I scooped that mold out the same way. Eventually, the mycella took over all five jars, and after 17 days, I saw tiny mushrooms. I couldn't get the cakes out because the neck of the jar was too narrow, so I cut each cake in half and pulled out the two halves. Then I put them in a clear plastic box, and put some water in the bottom, then covered the box with saran wrap.

The tiny mushrooms grew into big mushrooms, and I had enough to trip on after about a week. So a bit more than three weeks from the spore print. We have a dehumidifier running in the basement, so I pointed the blower from that on my mushrooms to dry them. Now it's a bit more than a month and I have about an ounce of dried mushrooms, with a bunch more still in the box. Considering all the precautions I didn't take, I think I did pretty good! I didn't have to throw away a single jar, and got plenty of shrooms.

Now I'm trying to see if I can get the mycella to take over an entire casserole dish of brown rice that I baked in the oven. If that works, I'll have a steady supply of shrooms for like a year!

Wow, really cool.It's nice to see someone being frugal and smart.+rep!

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thats crazy you skipped almost every step and you were not sterile at all and you still got strooms. but i doubt you will get a better yeild to some one who has followed all the steps

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Haha, well I already have more than I know what to do with! And yeah, I didn't lose a single jar either. I live in a pretty damp climate, so there's mold everywhere here, but I bet someone who lived in a desert area could grow mushrooms without taking any precautions at all. Heck, my uncle lives in Arizona, and you can leave fruit on the counter there and it won't rot or mold, it just dries out.

I attached a picture of my shroom box, as well as a picture of a fully colonized jar. Mmm... Newman's Own mango salsa... There aren't many mushrooms in the box because I already took out all the big ones, which dried down to about an ounce. This is from a cup and a quarter of brown rice.

Oh and Stoney, thanks for the rep!

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nice looking good man. Definitely blew me out of the water on my first go and ran I through the whole procedure step by step. My first grow attempt I went 0/5 for jars. But I ended up recoverying by going 4/4 on my next go.

But I did the PF tek guide, mostly to really understand what was going on and why this way worked better than that way etc. Plus it also gave me piece of mind that I wasn't growing anything dangerous in these jars. After I read through this thread:

A word about Contams - Contamination Forum - Shroomery Message Board

about "valley fever" I was like no way I'm I taking that chance. It just gives me peace of mind that there's no way nothing is wrong with my mushies. But I guess keep going with what's working for you.

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Hmm, that's too bad you had to throw your first batch away, what happened there?
Valley Fever appears to be something you get from breathing in spores of a fungus that may not even be able to grow on food, and only releases spores after a rain in desert areas. You'd be just as likely to get it sniffing your leftovers to see if they're still good. And you can still get contamination no matter what method you use.

Besides, my cakes weren't contaminated. Two were initially, with mold, but I cut that part out before it could get much bigger than a pinhead. Plus, I've heard that if the mycella beats the contamination, the resulting mushrooms are ok, as long as there's not stuff growing on the mushrooms themselves.

very nice for realz you got a good yeild from just using brown rice flour LOL

i still cant believe it...i refuse to

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Important: Everything i do or say on this site is complete fiction and is made up by me and only me. I have never tried pot and never will and i would especially never even consider growing it. Cali's Ebook Collection

Not rice flour, just plain old brown rice.

I thought this would work based on my knowledge of biology, but mostly based on my extensive first-hand experience of the various means in which food spoils.

I think regular brown rice is a better substrate for fungus because it has a lot of gaps between the grains that the mycella can move through, whereas flour produces a goo that can be hard for the filaments to penetrate. Also, bacteria would have a tougher time colonizing rice because they can't move through the gaps like fungi can.

That's a good tip. I was going to try rye grain for that very reason actually. Plus I've heard rye makes for more potent mushrooms. I've also noticed that Brown Rice Flour creates a goo and mycella has a really hard time colonizing dense BRF regions.

Yeah, my first batch got lost to Lipstick mold. Really slow growing mold, which is why I had my fingers crossed the mycella would beat it out. But it ended up being that the cores of all my jars were more greatly infected then the visible out areas. So what I thought was getting beaten, was actually waging war inside my cake. I tossed them in the best interest of myself and others that may partake in my fruits. But my next batch is coming along very nicely. Check out my grow in my signature.

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Could you provide any information towards questions i might have?


1. While growing- Stink like shit or what?
2. Doing it this way, is there any fungi that can be on it that's not visible? like other than what you seen?
3. How well do you trip on these shrooms?
4. You say in a few days i seen small shrooms, What was the total time it took to yield a oz of the shrooms?
5.Mason Jars are the same as the "salsa" jars?
6. Should they get a lot of sun/no sun? what... I wanna make my own shroomies!