Anybody growing mushrooms willing to talk???

Fangthane said:

I assumed failure, too. Maybe a week into harvesting the first flush was when I realized air-drying just wasn't gonna cut it for dealing with any real volume. That's when I ran out to buy one.

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my walmart failed me! no dehydrator. do you happen to have a link to yours? i'll be down in colo springs Wed so hopefully one of the bigger walmarts has one.

My local Walmart also failed me. Made the trip for nothing. Had to get it online anyway. eBay apparently doesn't have the exact model I bought anymore, but it's pretty much identical to this one.

Fangthane said:

My local Walmart also failed me. Made the trip for nothing. Had to get it online anyway. eBay apparently doesn't have the exact model I bought anymore, but it's pretty much identical to this one.

VEVOR 5 Trays Food Dehydrator Machine Adjustable Timer 300W Jerky Fruit Drying | eBay

Are you in search of healthy and low-calorie snacks for your family?. VEVOR's food dehydrator is here. It features five stainless steel trays and 300W. Effortlessly dry various fruits, vegetables, and even make beef jerky.

www.ebay.com

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damn, that's a nice unit for that price. thanks for the link

Fangthane said:

True, but I guess I just wanted to limit how much gunk can fall down into the heating element area of the dehydrator.

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Right, I get some of that.

rkymtnman said:

do you both use dehydrators?

guess i'll be doing the cardboard box in a well-ventilated room.

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Dehydrators are the way to go fasho!! Bought my 1st one from Walmart for $30. Fits a Qp!

Drop That Sound said:

That being said, what kind of dehydrator do you guys recommend? Is it worth building one of those modified DIY contraptions, where they add a whole extra 5 gallon bucket worth of space, for doing like a lb or more at a time?

Also, do they eventually smell like mush, and become loaded with spores? As in.. would you not want to use the same dehydrator to dry out other stuff like fruits & veggies? Better to keep a dedicated one for mycology purposes only?

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Amazon

Fangthane said:

My local Walmart also failed me. Made the trip for nothing. Had to get it online anyway. eBay apparently doesn't have the exact model I bought anymore, but it's pretty much identical to this one.

VEVOR 5 Trays Food Dehydrator Machine Adjustable Timer 300W Jerky Fruit Drying | eBay

Are you in search of healthy and low-calorie snacks for your family?. VEVOR's food dehydrator is here. It features five stainless steel trays and 300W. Effortlessly dry various fruits, vegetables, and even make beef jerky.

www.ebay.com

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Amazon

As I got better, the more I needed. These 3 run daily!!!

7L!fTeD24 said:

Yep same process of inoculating jars, I just use bird seed it's worked the best for me so far. When the jars are fully colonized. I would use 1qt of spawn pe 6qt shoebox. I use a black trash bag for a liner in The tub. Then shake up the jar and mix the 1 qt of spawn with coco and put a layer of coco on top of that mix. Also gotta prep the coco 1st using bucket tek pasteurization. All you do is break up a brick of coco in a bucket and pour boiling water in and put the lid on. When the shoebox is made up, you snap the lid on. In under 2 weeks, the whole surface will be colonized. Then you can just unsnap the lid or put another Tub upside down on top of it for a tub tub. Simple and effective.View attachment 5331646View attachment 5331647

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Thank you, bro. I appreciate you going through your steps again. The tubs will fit perfectly where I want to put them.
I've sterilized verm/coco in the oven before. I go with the 70/30 ratio verm/coco. The boiling water method sounds easier, i might give that a shot.

rkymtnman said:

wal-mart, here i come.

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Good choice. I dried with fans and it took weeks. They'll pick up any moisture on a humid day and soften up again ime.

natureboygrower said:

Good choice. I dried with fans and it took weeks. They'll pick up any moisture on a humid day and soften up again ime

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i guess worse scenario is i can make dog treats with the dehydrator too. win/win. thanks for the advice

Dehydrator is crucial. Partially dried shrooms will get moldy or drastically loose potency quickly.

wirh Harvest ideally you won’t damage the surface. If they’re pulling up a lot of sub with them I usually use a scalpel to cut them off at the surface.


this is an AA+/PE cross called FP+, it’s got extremely tomentose mycelium from the plate to the grain and now the coir.

luckily i've only got 4 that i picked and in cardboard now

amazon better get that thing here ASAP.

A.k.a said:

Dehydrator is crucial. Partially dried shrooms will get moldy or drastically loose potency quickly.

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Yea I can understand that. Might as well be the most important piece of equipment you have when it comes down to it then, huh? No excuse not to have one, especially considering how affordable they are. Even for a little batch here and there. I just don't like how small those units are personally. I know they have dinky little elements and fans, and feel ripped off. I feel like for $50 I could dry way bulkier amounts by rigging up a cheap but powerful space heater in a box, or even up to a metal trash can full of round trays with dehydration netting. Tons of DIY dehydrator vids on youtube, now that I started looking into it.


Oh ya guys this is what I meant by adding a 5 gallon bucket to one of those units..


I was looking for other links to ones I seen that were way more efficient looking. Like, a bucket in a bucket with ports to better help direct the flow from the unit, and not waste hot air, but I can't remember where.

As far as just setting the bucket right on top, and running it longer, that can't be all that good. Then again, somewhat used dehydrators are like 10$ a pop at the thrift shops. Maybe I could rig up a dual unit with 2 dehydrators into one bucket, to speed it up

Say you did harvest way more than you can fit in your dehydrator at one time . Well, as you guys say, you can't let them sit around and start molding, while they wait for the other batches to dry. So tossing the bucket on and dumping them all in at once might be the better way to go, instead of buying 2-3 more dehydrators right?

My only grow was a small one, just 3-12qt dubtubs, so I wasn't exactly swimming in shrooms compared to a serious grower. I don't think it actually worked out that I had any just sitting around waiting for the dehydrator to clear out. I didn't necessarily need all the trays loaded up at any one time, so worst case was that I just had to put freshly harvested ones in their own tray and dry them with ones that were further along. With mixed drying, I'd just put the freshest ones on the very bottom and mark what time I started drying them. The only slight problem I had was with some of the bigger mushrooms from the later flushes being slightly too big to fit comfortably between trays.

can anybody give a basic timeline for how long in the dehydrator? i'm guessing it depends on how big they are too?

the one i ordered does have expandable racks in case i grow any monsters. lol.

I see anywhere from 18-24 hours typically recommended. I ended up doing 18 and it worked out fine. I'm thinking I'd set it to around 155*F, but that part of my memories are a bit hazy.

Fangthane said:

I see anywhere from 18-24 hours typically recommended. I ended up doing 18 and it worked out fine. I'm thinking I'd set it to around 155*F, but that part of my memories are a bit hazy.

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thanks. i think i've seen 18 hours too somewhere.

then i'm thinking after dried, vacuum seal them ?

You could vacuum seal them, but I'm thinking a bunch could possibly end up getting broken up. Probably not an actual problem, though. I just loaded mine up into little sandwich sized Ziploc bags. 4 of those little bags fit nicely inside a 1 gallon Ziploc.