cruetmixer
Rising Star
Please do not abuse this information.
There is a lack of info on growing sclerotia here at the Nexus so I'd like to fix that.
What the heck is sclerotia you ask? It's a mycelial growth that this species produces, it is how food is stored until conditions are favorable for fruiting. Sclerotia looks nothing at all like a mushroom, it resembles a nut.
In my opinion growing them is easier than growing mushrooms. If you have a good sterile technique but lack the space, cannot provide the level of care required or lack the proper environment to grow mushrooms... this is for you.
What do you need to grow them?
Clean spores from the type of sclerotia forming species you want to grow. I use a spore syringe in this tek. You can make your own syringes with a clean print but I won't go into that here.
A pressure cooker (you must have one, no way around this, period.)
Quart jars (Mason/Ball jars work great but you can use what you have available. Pint jars are too small.)
Tyvek (priority mail envelope works great)
grass seed** (you can also use other materials but this is what will be used here.)
** Make sure you do not get a coated grass seed or one that is bright green and treated with chemicals ok?**
Water (tap water is fine)
Coffee and a coffee maker (yep, regular cup a joe, a percolator, pot with water and coffee grounds and a clean stocking if all else fails)
A nail or drill with 3/16" bit to make two holes in the lids.
Silicone, RTV sealant, micropore tape or regular scotch tape if you have nothing else.
Alcohol (rubbing alcohol, moonshine, vodka... either is fine, lol!)
Lighter (we actually will need fire for some of this.)
Clean paper towels or a clean dust free cloth.
Measuring cup
Sieve or collander tight enough to hold the grass seed.
A spoon that will fit inside your jars.
Oven mittens or a clean shirt.
Patience
Making lids is pretty generic, you can search this if my explanation confuses you.
The night before you want to begin this go ahead and make your lids. It take a few hours for the silicone or RTV to dry and I let mine "cure" overnight. Drill or otherwise make two holes in each lid, go from the top side down if you are using a nail or awl otherwise you will have edges sticking up that could tear the tyvek. Cover one hole with RTV (or silicone) on the front and back - This is your injection port, the other is left open for gas exchange.
Cut your tyvek into circles that will fit your lids and put a spot of silicone on it as well. Note - You want these spots on the lid and the tyvek to line up. Leave all of this to dry overnight.
This is a representation of what you want to end up with.
Ok on to the next part.
We need to make our jars now so they can soak for at least 12 hours. This is so endospores and other things can germinate and be vulnerable to heat when we pressure cook and sterilize the seeds. This step helps to prevent contamination as well as hydrate the seeds.
Wash your jars out with soap and rinse well, they need to be clean and dry. Wash your hands, no need to be super clean here as everything we do will be sterilized later...but be as clean as possible.
Make a pot of coffee, yes seriously make a pot of coffee the same strength you would drink.
Get your quart jar and pour it no more than half full of seed. It will swell up some so we have to leave room for that.
I don't have a picture of this, next time I'll take one.
Pour this from your jar into a sieve and wash it. When you think it is clean enough wash it one more time. If there is anything weird in there, glass, rocks, sticks, Elvis... remove it unless you want to eat it. Put your cleaned and inspected wet grass seed back in the jar. A spoon works well for this part.
Take an empty quart mason jar and fill it half full of coffee, fill the rest with regular tap water. Take your watered down coffee and pour into into the jar with your clean grass seed, you want to cover the grass seed entirely. (Some of it will float, don't worry about that it will sink eventually.) Put a regular lid on, one without holes and shake it. Go put it somewhere for 12 hours and relax. Your done for a little while.
When the jars have sat for at least 12 hours you can drain off the excess coffee water. How I do it is crack the lid loose a little bit, turn it upside down and let the coffee water run out. If you open t too much grass seed is going to come out with the water.
When it stops flowing out and begins to drip shake it down a few times to get even more water out. Do that a few more times to get all of the excess off. You don't want it too wet.
Put your lids with the holes and tyvek on now, make sure there are no seeds in the threads.
Tighten them and then loosen the lid back a half turn or so. I read this was to keep the jars from exploding in your cooker. They have a hole in the top already though so how could they possibly explode? I do it anyways because hot broken glass doesn't sound like fun to me. Cover the top of the jars with tin foil.
:!: I'm not going into detail on how to use a pressure cooker, read the manual that came with it, seriously, these things can explode! How someone managed to make that happen I do not know but they did it. :!:
Your entire domicile will smell like rye bread or grain cooking. You want to cook at least 90 minutes from the time the gauge reads 15 PSI or your wobbler dances about. After that turn the heat off and let it sit for an hour or so until you can safely open yours.
Put on your oven mittens now and tighten the lids on the jars. They are real hot so be careful ok? You will notice that the bottom is really dark and wet looking compared to the top seeds. This is normal. Shake the jars until the wet and drier seeds are spread evenly and to avoid clumps. Go set them somewhere to cool completely. You can shake them as they cool if you want. Leave the foil on while they cool. I wait 12 hours to let the seeds get uniform moisture content and cool completely.
We are ready to move everything to a clean environment so we can inject spores into the cool, moist, sterile grass seed now. Shake them up real good one last time.
You need to be as clean as possible from this point forward. If you have a small room with no air flow use it. A still air box can be used if you have one. You can look up how to make one, it is not hard or expensive. Also read about sterile technique.
:!: BE CLEAN AND WORK FAST :!: !! You, your clothes, your work space and everything you touch or that will touch your jars should be clean now. You need to clean and wipe down with alcohol everything, even the outside of the bottle of alcohol, the syringe and the outside of your jars too. Wash your hands well. Dry your hands with clean paper towels.
Have everything laid out so you can get to what you need easily.
Get a cloth and pour your alcohol on it. Wipe your hands down with the alcohol. Put on gloves if you have them and wipe them with alcohol as well. Shake the syringe up very well to break up any clumps of spores. Remove the seal and screw on the needle. Do not remove the safety cover over the needle yet. You want to keep the needle covered until you sterilize it. (It is supposed to be sterile but we're not going to trust that it is. Everything is contaminated unless we sterilize it ourselves. If you keep this mindset you will have no contaminates.)
With clean hands remove the foil from the jar you are working with. Get a clean cloth and soak it with alcohol, wipe the lid of your jar and the spot of silicone or RTV sealant.
:!: FIRE WARNING - ALCOHOL IS FLAMMABLE - DO NOT SET YOURSELF OR YOUR ALCOHOL SOAKED PAPER TOWELS AND CLOTHS ON FIRE. :!: Once something is sterile the longer it is exposed to non-sterile air it is being contaminated so work fast. Do not stab yourself with the needle either that thing is seriously sharp and will go through your finger without issue or much effort at all.
Remove the needle cover and with lighter or torch heat the needle up red hot, it must glow red hot. Do not let it touch anything from this point forward, it is now sterile.
Squirt a drop of liquid through it to cool the needle, it will sizzle. It's is cool enough to use now.
Put the needle through the RTV/ silicone on the tyvek and into the jar (if you didn't do this step this is where you would put tape over the hole you just made in the tyvek.)
Inject 1cc -1.5cc spore solution into your jar. Remove the syringe. Roll the seeds around to spread the spores over the seeds. Do not shake the jar, you don't want to chance getting the tyvek wet so roll it.
Follow this same protcol with each jar. Heat the needle red hot again before you inject the next jar.
You are done. Easy wasn't it?
Now all you have to do is be patient.
Place these jars in a dark room in a temperature controlled area (70F-80F is fine). In 6 weeks or so you will have stones you can harvest. This is about the same amount of time it takes to grow mushrooms. Stones get stronger and larger with time and you can leave them for several months and I have heard up to 9 months.
Your first week of growth should be similar to this photo.
The second and third week similar to this photo. (You should be seeing stones by the middle of the third week or so depending on your temperatures.)
This jar is real close to 30 days old and you can see the aggressive mycelial growth, stones are even growing at the top of the jar on the glass. This also why you do not shake your jars after you innocualte. The almond colored spots are sclerotia.
Writing this was a lot of work and I tried hard to make this as easy and understandable as I could!! If I missed something, misspelled something or it just doesn't make sense and I need to clarify a step let me know.
More pics to come soon.
Stay tuned for dosing, storage and other info.
There is a lack of info on growing sclerotia here at the Nexus so I'd like to fix that.
What the heck is sclerotia you ask? It's a mycelial growth that this species produces, it is how food is stored until conditions are favorable for fruiting. Sclerotia looks nothing at all like a mushroom, it resembles a nut.
In my opinion growing them is easier than growing mushrooms. If you have a good sterile technique but lack the space, cannot provide the level of care required or lack the proper environment to grow mushrooms... this is for you.
What do you need to grow them?
Clean spores from the type of sclerotia forming species you want to grow. I use a spore syringe in this tek. You can make your own syringes with a clean print but I won't go into that here.
A pressure cooker (you must have one, no way around this, period.)
Quart jars (Mason/Ball jars work great but you can use what you have available. Pint jars are too small.)
Tyvek (priority mail envelope works great)
grass seed** (you can also use other materials but this is what will be used here.)
** Make sure you do not get a coated grass seed or one that is bright green and treated with chemicals ok?**
Water (tap water is fine)
Coffee and a coffee maker (yep, regular cup a joe, a percolator, pot with water and coffee grounds and a clean stocking if all else fails)
A nail or drill with 3/16" bit to make two holes in the lids.
Silicone, RTV sealant, micropore tape or regular scotch tape if you have nothing else.
Alcohol (rubbing alcohol, moonshine, vodka... either is fine, lol!)
Lighter (we actually will need fire for some of this.)
Clean paper towels or a clean dust free cloth.
Measuring cup
Sieve or collander tight enough to hold the grass seed.
A spoon that will fit inside your jars.
Oven mittens or a clean shirt.
Patience
Making lids is pretty generic, you can search this if my explanation confuses you.
The night before you want to begin this go ahead and make your lids. It take a few hours for the silicone or RTV to dry and I let mine "cure" overnight. Drill or otherwise make two holes in each lid, go from the top side down if you are using a nail or awl otherwise you will have edges sticking up that could tear the tyvek. Cover one hole with RTV (or silicone) on the front and back - This is your injection port, the other is left open for gas exchange.
Cut your tyvek into circles that will fit your lids and put a spot of silicone on it as well. Note - You want these spots on the lid and the tyvek to line up. Leave all of this to dry overnight.
This is a representation of what you want to end up with.
Ok on to the next part.
We need to make our jars now so they can soak for at least 12 hours. This is so endospores and other things can germinate and be vulnerable to heat when we pressure cook and sterilize the seeds. This step helps to prevent contamination as well as hydrate the seeds.
Wash your jars out with soap and rinse well, they need to be clean and dry. Wash your hands, no need to be super clean here as everything we do will be sterilized later...but be as clean as possible.
Make a pot of coffee, yes seriously make a pot of coffee the same strength you would drink.
Get your quart jar and pour it no more than half full of seed. It will swell up some so we have to leave room for that.
I don't have a picture of this, next time I'll take one.
Pour this from your jar into a sieve and wash it. When you think it is clean enough wash it one more time. If there is anything weird in there, glass, rocks, sticks, Elvis... remove it unless you want to eat it. Put your cleaned and inspected wet grass seed back in the jar. A spoon works well for this part.
Take an empty quart mason jar and fill it half full of coffee, fill the rest with regular tap water. Take your watered down coffee and pour into into the jar with your clean grass seed, you want to cover the grass seed entirely. (Some of it will float, don't worry about that it will sink eventually.) Put a regular lid on, one without holes and shake it. Go put it somewhere for 12 hours and relax. Your done for a little while.
When the jars have sat for at least 12 hours you can drain off the excess coffee water. How I do it is crack the lid loose a little bit, turn it upside down and let the coffee water run out. If you open t too much grass seed is going to come out with the water.
When it stops flowing out and begins to drip shake it down a few times to get even more water out. Do that a few more times to get all of the excess off. You don't want it too wet.
Put your lids with the holes and tyvek on now, make sure there are no seeds in the threads.
Tighten them and then loosen the lid back a half turn or so. I read this was to keep the jars from exploding in your cooker. They have a hole in the top already though so how could they possibly explode? I do it anyways because hot broken glass doesn't sound like fun to me. Cover the top of the jars with tin foil.
:!: I'm not going into detail on how to use a pressure cooker, read the manual that came with it, seriously, these things can explode! How someone managed to make that happen I do not know but they did it. :!:
Your entire domicile will smell like rye bread or grain cooking. You want to cook at least 90 minutes from the time the gauge reads 15 PSI or your wobbler dances about. After that turn the heat off and let it sit for an hour or so until you can safely open yours.
Put on your oven mittens now and tighten the lids on the jars. They are real hot so be careful ok? You will notice that the bottom is really dark and wet looking compared to the top seeds. This is normal. Shake the jars until the wet and drier seeds are spread evenly and to avoid clumps. Go set them somewhere to cool completely. You can shake them as they cool if you want. Leave the foil on while they cool. I wait 12 hours to let the seeds get uniform moisture content and cool completely.
We are ready to move everything to a clean environment so we can inject spores into the cool, moist, sterile grass seed now. Shake them up real good one last time.
You need to be as clean as possible from this point forward. If you have a small room with no air flow use it. A still air box can be used if you have one. You can look up how to make one, it is not hard or expensive. Also read about sterile technique.
:!: BE CLEAN AND WORK FAST :!: !! You, your clothes, your work space and everything you touch or that will touch your jars should be clean now. You need to clean and wipe down with alcohol everything, even the outside of the bottle of alcohol, the syringe and the outside of your jars too. Wash your hands well. Dry your hands with clean paper towels.
Have everything laid out so you can get to what you need easily.
Get a cloth and pour your alcohol on it. Wipe your hands down with the alcohol. Put on gloves if you have them and wipe them with alcohol as well. Shake the syringe up very well to break up any clumps of spores. Remove the seal and screw on the needle. Do not remove the safety cover over the needle yet. You want to keep the needle covered until you sterilize it. (It is supposed to be sterile but we're not going to trust that it is. Everything is contaminated unless we sterilize it ourselves. If you keep this mindset you will have no contaminates.)
With clean hands remove the foil from the jar you are working with. Get a clean cloth and soak it with alcohol, wipe the lid of your jar and the spot of silicone or RTV sealant.
:!: FIRE WARNING - ALCOHOL IS FLAMMABLE - DO NOT SET YOURSELF OR YOUR ALCOHOL SOAKED PAPER TOWELS AND CLOTHS ON FIRE. :!: Once something is sterile the longer it is exposed to non-sterile air it is being contaminated so work fast. Do not stab yourself with the needle either that thing is seriously sharp and will go through your finger without issue or much effort at all.
Remove the needle cover and with lighter or torch heat the needle up red hot, it must glow red hot. Do not let it touch anything from this point forward, it is now sterile.
Squirt a drop of liquid through it to cool the needle, it will sizzle. It's is cool enough to use now.
Put the needle through the RTV/ silicone on the tyvek and into the jar (if you didn't do this step this is where you would put tape over the hole you just made in the tyvek.)
Inject 1cc -1.5cc spore solution into your jar. Remove the syringe. Roll the seeds around to spread the spores over the seeds. Do not shake the jar, you don't want to chance getting the tyvek wet so roll it.
Follow this same protcol with each jar. Heat the needle red hot again before you inject the next jar.
You are done. Easy wasn't it?
Now all you have to do is be patient.
Place these jars in a dark room in a temperature controlled area (70F-80F is fine). In 6 weeks or so you will have stones you can harvest. This is about the same amount of time it takes to grow mushrooms. Stones get stronger and larger with time and you can leave them for several months and I have heard up to 9 months.
Your first week of growth should be similar to this photo.
The second and third week similar to this photo. (You should be seeing stones by the middle of the third week or so depending on your temperatures.)
This jar is real close to 30 days old and you can see the aggressive mycelial growth, stones are even growing at the top of the jar on the glass. This also why you do not shake your jars after you innocualte. The almond colored spots are sclerotia.
Writing this was a lot of work and I tried hard to make this as easy and understandable as I could!! If I missed something, misspelled something or it just doesn't make sense and I need to clarify a step let me know.
More pics to come soon.
Stay tuned for dosing, storage and other info.
