It was a long journey until I finally managed to start growing. I supported GordoTEK on Patreon before his account got nuked there, and he graciously shared some spores with me (TTBVI and P. Natalensis). After all the praise for TTBVI in terms of its euphoric, clean high, and its immense potency (with PCBE ~3% on average, more than 4.5% in some isolations, compared to ~1% for Natalensis), being 7 time winner (1st place) of the Cultivar, Island, Entheo, and Psychedelic Cups, with users reporting the cleanest, most euphoric and beautiful experiences with it out of any psilocybin-containing species out there, I decided that's what I'm going to grow first. Just for reference, here's the alkaloid analysis of TTBVI and Natalensis respectively:
Following his easy pan cyan tek, I knew I needed to find a way to sterilize grain/substrate, transfer the spores to the grain, make some casing layer, etc.
I started out by attempting to make a laminar flow hood, following Gordo's instructions. But because I'm a dummy, I thought I knew better, and instead of buying the filter he recommended in his tek, I got a "better" industry-grade HEPA filter to put on my LFH. It turned out that the fan did not have enough power to generate the static pressure needed to pass air through the filter in a balanced way, so it was completely unusable, no matter how many modifications I attempted. I scrapped the project and decided I'll just use a still-air box.
Initially I bought a kitchen-grade pressure cooker whose operating pressure was 8 psi, and then realized that I'd have to let it cook for 5 hours at that pressure to achieve full sterilization, as depicted in this graph:
I was afraid it would fail and explode on me (something that has happened in my past, thankfully to no injuries for anyone), so I gave up on it and sold it. Buying a proper pressure cooker that can go to 15+ psi, with a pressure gauge and enough volume, would cost too much at the time, so I decided to buy pre-made grain and substrate mixes. I got them from an Italian vendor and they did the job great.
To transfer the spores to the grain bags, I set some water to boil and when it had been boiling for 10 minutes, I sucked 10ml with a sterile syringe and put it in the SAB to cool off, then once it was cool I transferred it to the small glass jar that I baked in the oven to sterilize beforehand. Then I scraped the spores into that water and cycled it a few times through the syringe to mix well, then injected each of the bags with 5ml of the spore liquid.
After a couple of weeks I had some great colonization in one of the bags:
The other one looked even better, but over time it developed black mold inside, so I tossed it away and was left with just one colonized 1.5kg bag of oats. I mixed it up once and let the mycelium re-colonize it fully, then the time to transfer to substrate came. As the tek suggests, I used two large plastic IKEA totes. I filled one halfway with water and put an aquarium heater at the bottom, set at 28C (82F), and put the substrate-containing tote inside of that one. After wiping it clean with 70% IPA, I poured in all the substrate, 7.5kg in total, comprised of coco coir, vermiculite, horse manure, and gypsum. I spread the colonized oats on top of that and mixed it well, sprayed with water, and closed the lid and let it sit for a week or so until I could see a layer of mycelium covering the entire surface of the substrate. It was time to add the casing layer.
Because I couldn't find suitable casing substrate to buy, I had to make my own. I used peat moss and vermiculite. The tek calls for either calcium carbonate or calcium hydroxide, neither of whom I realized I had at hand when I was making it, so I researched a bit and found that eggshells are practically 95% calcium carbonate, and the other 5% are organic material that can't cause any harm anyway. So what I did is I peeled 7-8 boiled eggs, stripped out as much of the inner membrane as I could, then put the shells in the oven to bake for ~45 minutes at 150C (300F) to completely dehydrate the remaining membrane without burning it.
Once they were baked, I put them in a granite mortar & pestle and ground them to a fine dust, which would be almost entirely calcium carbonate. The recipe called for 20g of it, so I measured out about 22g of the powder to accommodate some presence of ground membrane, and I mixed it into the casing substrate. Then I put it all in a few big glass jars and set those to bake in the oven for 2-3 hours at around 80C (175F), with the lids put on loosely. The idea was to pasteurize without sterilizing, as some people have advised that this is the better way, as existing beneficial bacteria in the mix can fight off potential contamination. I know there's a few opinions on the matter, so I'd be curious to hear what do you think - is pasteurization or sterilization better for casing?
At that point, I opened the tote, sprinkled a 1cm casing layer on top of the whole surface, put a mesh on top of the tote, clamped it down with a few clips, and put the lid on top diagonally, as instructed in the tek. This setup results in 3 things that are vital for the prosperity of TTBVI:
1. Very high humidity
2. A lot of free air exchange, stimulated by the open corners of the tote, and the warm water underneath, pushing air up
3. Preservation of relatively high ambient temperature within the tote itself
Here's how it looks:
The average ambient humidity and temperature in the room where this tote was kept for the whole duration are ~40% and ~22C, respectively. Following the recommended 3x misting per day protocol, it was time to let the magic happen. And it did.
In total, I harvested 5 flushes from this tote. And I'll share some photos for your pleasure.
First flush (you can see how the mushrooms grow out from clusters of mycelium for this one, unlike most of the others):
Second flush (much larger amount and density of growth):
Third flush (significantly less, as expected, but still more than enough for a few very intense trips):
Fourth flush, still going strong:
Fifth and final official flush:
Following this last flush, I left the tote open to dry a bit before I tossed it out, as it was quite heavy, and in the process, a few pins came out here and there that I collected as well.
After each flush was air dried with a fan blowing at it, I knew I had to completely dry it before storing. To do that, I decided to go the extra mile. I couldn't order anhydrous calcium sulfate, commonly sold as Drierite in the US, which is a very powerful dehydrating agent, so I decided to make some at home. To do that, I got gypsum - calcium sulfate dihydrate (CaSO₄·2H₂O) - and baked it in the oven at 250C (480F) for a couple of hours to completely remove the water molecule and leave behind pure anhydrous calcium sulfate powder - CaSO₄
Once the powder was relatively cool in the oven, I quickly pulled it out and transferred it back to an air-tight container for storage. When exposed to air, it immediately starts collecting water from it, so it gets wet rather quickly and turns back into gypsum. I put a bunch of that powder into a couple of coffee filters, tied them at the top to make a bundle, and put that along with each harvested flush into a glass jar.
Leaving the mushrooms with the powder like that for a few days results in them being so dry that they're brittle and turn almost to dust when you squeeze them - perfect for long term storage. Once all flushes were dried like that, I vacuum-sealed them and am keeping them in a dark place.
One might ask - why not just dry them with silica gel? Sure, you can do that too, but there are a few key differences between calcium sulfate and silica gel. Calcium sulfate is completely safe to ingest, whereas silica gel isn't - it has some toxicity to it. Furthermore, the key difference is in the way these two agents dry.
At the tail-end of each harvest, I made some spore prints too, resulting in 6 usable prints that I will keep for the future.
In total, here are the numbers I got from each flush:
Total Dry Weight: ~ 70 g
Considering 0.5g of this strain is more than enough for quite a visual experience, I reckon I did well for my first ever mushroom growing attempt. Since harvesting, I've had a few experiences with this strain, and I plan to have many more in the coming months. I will make a separate thread outlining those experiences, but to summarize them with a few words - this is definitely the best mushroom strain I've had. It's beautiful, it's gentle, it's warm, euphoric, visual, introspective, and profoundly healing.
I will forever be thankful to Gordo and his community for supporting me through this process, and I want to also extend warm gratitude to @Voidmatrix for offering advice and being there for me while I was practically stumbling my way through the dark. I'm no expert by any means, but if you have any questions, I'm more than happy to try and help. I've got lots more to learn, but so far it's been a wonderful process.
Here's to many more healing journeys, my friends. Forever grateful to the medicine
Following his easy pan cyan tek, I knew I needed to find a way to sterilize grain/substrate, transfer the spores to the grain, make some casing layer, etc.
I started out by attempting to make a laminar flow hood, following Gordo's instructions. But because I'm a dummy, I thought I knew better, and instead of buying the filter he recommended in his tek, I got a "better" industry-grade HEPA filter to put on my LFH. It turned out that the fan did not have enough power to generate the static pressure needed to pass air through the filter in a balanced way, so it was completely unusable, no matter how many modifications I attempted. I scrapped the project and decided I'll just use a still-air box.
Initially I bought a kitchen-grade pressure cooker whose operating pressure was 8 psi, and then realized that I'd have to let it cook for 5 hours at that pressure to achieve full sterilization, as depicted in this graph:
I was afraid it would fail and explode on me (something that has happened in my past, thankfully to no injuries for anyone), so I gave up on it and sold it. Buying a proper pressure cooker that can go to 15+ psi, with a pressure gauge and enough volume, would cost too much at the time, so I decided to buy pre-made grain and substrate mixes. I got them from an Italian vendor and they did the job great.
To transfer the spores to the grain bags, I set some water to boil and when it had been boiling for 10 minutes, I sucked 10ml with a sterile syringe and put it in the SAB to cool off, then once it was cool I transferred it to the small glass jar that I baked in the oven to sterilize beforehand. Then I scraped the spores into that water and cycled it a few times through the syringe to mix well, then injected each of the bags with 5ml of the spore liquid.
After a couple of weeks I had some great colonization in one of the bags:
The other one looked even better, but over time it developed black mold inside, so I tossed it away and was left with just one colonized 1.5kg bag of oats. I mixed it up once and let the mycelium re-colonize it fully, then the time to transfer to substrate came. As the tek suggests, I used two large plastic IKEA totes. I filled one halfway with water and put an aquarium heater at the bottom, set at 28C (82F), and put the substrate-containing tote inside of that one. After wiping it clean with 70% IPA, I poured in all the substrate, 7.5kg in total, comprised of coco coir, vermiculite, horse manure, and gypsum. I spread the colonized oats on top of that and mixed it well, sprayed with water, and closed the lid and let it sit for a week or so until I could see a layer of mycelium covering the entire surface of the substrate. It was time to add the casing layer.
Because I couldn't find suitable casing substrate to buy, I had to make my own. I used peat moss and vermiculite. The tek calls for either calcium carbonate or calcium hydroxide, neither of whom I realized I had at hand when I was making it, so I researched a bit and found that eggshells are practically 95% calcium carbonate, and the other 5% are organic material that can't cause any harm anyway. So what I did is I peeled 7-8 boiled eggs, stripped out as much of the inner membrane as I could, then put the shells in the oven to bake for ~45 minutes at 150C (300F) to completely dehydrate the remaining membrane without burning it.
Once they were baked, I put them in a granite mortar & pestle and ground them to a fine dust, which would be almost entirely calcium carbonate. The recipe called for 20g of it, so I measured out about 22g of the powder to accommodate some presence of ground membrane, and I mixed it into the casing substrate. Then I put it all in a few big glass jars and set those to bake in the oven for 2-3 hours at around 80C (175F), with the lids put on loosely. The idea was to pasteurize without sterilizing, as some people have advised that this is the better way, as existing beneficial bacteria in the mix can fight off potential contamination. I know there's a few opinions on the matter, so I'd be curious to hear what do you think - is pasteurization or sterilization better for casing?
At that point, I opened the tote, sprinkled a 1cm casing layer on top of the whole surface, put a mesh on top of the tote, clamped it down with a few clips, and put the lid on top diagonally, as instructed in the tek. This setup results in 3 things that are vital for the prosperity of TTBVI:
1. Very high humidity
2. A lot of free air exchange, stimulated by the open corners of the tote, and the warm water underneath, pushing air up
3. Preservation of relatively high ambient temperature within the tote itself
Here's how it looks:
The average ambient humidity and temperature in the room where this tote was kept for the whole duration are ~40% and ~22C, respectively. Following the recommended 3x misting per day protocol, it was time to let the magic happen. And it did.
In total, I harvested 5 flushes from this tote. And I'll share some photos for your pleasure.
First flush (you can see how the mushrooms grow out from clusters of mycelium for this one, unlike most of the others):
Second flush (much larger amount and density of growth):
Third flush (significantly less, as expected, but still more than enough for a few very intense trips):
Fourth flush, still going strong:
Fifth and final official flush:
Following this last flush, I left the tote open to dry a bit before I tossed it out, as it was quite heavy, and in the process, a few pins came out here and there that I collected as well.
After each flush was air dried with a fan blowing at it, I knew I had to completely dry it before storing. To do that, I decided to go the extra mile. I couldn't order anhydrous calcium sulfate, commonly sold as Drierite in the US, which is a very powerful dehydrating agent, so I decided to make some at home. To do that, I got gypsum - calcium sulfate dihydrate (CaSO₄·2H₂O) - and baked it in the oven at 250C (480F) for a couple of hours to completely remove the water molecule and leave behind pure anhydrous calcium sulfate powder - CaSO₄
Once the powder was relatively cool in the oven, I quickly pulled it out and transferred it back to an air-tight container for storage. When exposed to air, it immediately starts collecting water from it, so it gets wet rather quickly and turns back into gypsum. I put a bunch of that powder into a couple of coffee filters, tied them at the top to make a bundle, and put that along with each harvested flush into a glass jar.
Leaving the mushrooms with the powder like that for a few days results in them being so dry that they're brittle and turn almost to dust when you squeeze them - perfect for long term storage. Once all flushes were dried like that, I vacuum-sealed them and am keeping them in a dark place.
One might ask - why not just dry them with silica gel? Sure, you can do that too, but there are a few key differences between calcium sulfate and silica gel. Calcium sulfate is completely safe to ingest, whereas silica gel isn't - it has some toxicity to it. Furthermore, the key difference is in the way these two agents dry.
- Capacity (Total Moisture Uptake): Silica gel is superior for bulk moisture removal. It can absorb roughly 30% to 40% of its own dry weight in water before becoming saturated. In contrast, calcium sulfate has a low capacity, typically absorbing only 10% to 14% of its weight.
- Efficiency (Ultimate Dryness): Calcium sulfate provides a significantly lower residual moisture level. When used to dry an environment, calcium sulfate can reduce the residual moisture to approximately 0.005 mg/L. Silica gel leaves a higher residual moisture content, typically around 0.03 mg/L to 0.05 mg/L, making it less suitable for applications requiring absolute dryness.
At the tail-end of each harvest, I made some spore prints too, resulting in 6 usable prints that I will keep for the future.
In total, here are the numbers I got from each flush:
- 1st: 450g wet, 24 dry
- 2nd: 390g wet , 21gr dry
- 3rd: 157g wet , 9.3g dry
- 4th: 128g wet , 8g dry
- 5th: 79g wet , 5.5g dry
- 6th: 25g wet , 2.8g dry
Total Dry Weight: ~ 70 g
Considering 0.5g of this strain is more than enough for quite a visual experience, I reckon I did well for my first ever mushroom growing attempt. Since harvesting, I've had a few experiences with this strain, and I plan to have many more in the coming months. I will make a separate thread outlining those experiences, but to summarize them with a few words - this is definitely the best mushroom strain I've had. It's beautiful, it's gentle, it's warm, euphoric, visual, introspective, and profoundly healing.
I will forever be thankful to Gordo and his community for supporting me through this process, and I want to also extend warm gratitude to @Voidmatrix for offering advice and being there for me while I was practically stumbling my way through the dark. I'm no expert by any means, but if you have any questions, I'm more than happy to try and help. I've got lots more to learn, but so far it's been a wonderful process.
Here's to many more healing journeys, my friends. Forever grateful to the medicine
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