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Troubleshooting pf

observe

Rising Star
So I mixed 50/50 verm and rye flour filled 3 wide mouth mason jars with the substrate then pressure cooked them for a few hours. I waited three days then inoculated each jar 2 with ecuador and 1 with golden teacher. They have been at 70-80 degrees in total darkness for about 4 days. I know it's normal not to see activity in this window but I've been trying to successfully grow for 2 years failing every time and 1 month ago this exact same technique failed for me. What can I do to make pf work? What can I change about my current environment to ensure my shrooms do not die again? Any advice is welcome watching grow after grow fail at different stages for so long has been incredibly depressing, so I'm open to anything.
P.s. I realize this may be in the wrong place. Sorry if it is.
 
What do you mean failed? Like no growth or contamination? You didn't mention water but i suppose you are adding it to the mix.. how much water you're putting? They usually use brown rice flour but it'll work with rye flour but it has to be whole grain rye flour and not the refined one
Can you explain more about how you are doing it, are you flame sterlizing the needle between each jar? Are the spore syringes you are using from reputable vendors?.. if you are following the pf tek as it is and still failing then i don't know what you can do to make it work
If it's not working for you go for agar and grain
 
Anything worth doing is worth doing right agar and grain sounds good I'll learn about how to properly attempt that. I've had contamination. No growth. Colonization then decay. my spores are reliable. It is refined so I guess I'll get whole grain. I didn't realize it wasn't nutritious.thank you for your quick response would brown rice flour be as reliable as whole grain?
 
I second Sakkadelic's suggestion to use brown rice flour as it should be cheap and easy to acquire.

Regardless of the medium, seeing zero mycelium growth strikes me as unusual, even if the substrate were less than ideal. My first thought was that perhaps the spores were inactive but you are confident that they are reliable. I wonder if you are not letting the syringe cool after flame sterilization, or if they were exposed to higher heat following inoculation.

In my experience, it can take over a week or more for mycelial growth to appear.
 
I usually get mycelium. I used to sterilize by sticking the needle in an iPa saturated sponge then pushing the needle thru the sponge into the jar to inoculate but I've quit sterilizing my needle because i find it pointless. Conditions are definitely my problem. Regardless of sterilization I get cube growth. When it is contam at least I can put my finger on it. More often than not my cakes stop growing and start dying. My reasoning for not sterilizing is that if there are a few hundred mixed alien spores on my syringe they have to compete with the few million I'm pushing thru the syringe and cubensis is a hearty and competitive shroom so I've had faith in its victory. I also store my syringes in a way that reduces such contamination. But more sterilization can't hurt I'll start flame sterilizing to isolate my mistakes.
 
observe said:
I used to sterilize by sticking the needle in an iPa saturated sponge then pushing the needle thru the sponge into the jar to inoculate but I've quit sterilizing my needle because i find it pointless. Conditions are definitely my problem. Regardless of sterilization I get cube growth. When it is contam at least I can put my finger on it. More often than not my cakes stop growing and start dying. My reasoning for not sterilizing is that if there are a few hundred mixed alien spores on my syringe they have to compete with the few million I'm pushing thru the syringe and cubensis is a hearty and competitive shroom so I've had faith in its victory.
That's the problem!
Flame sterlize the needle between each jar, and make a SAB. Iso only sanitizes and sterilization is important, in nature it is much different than in a verm/BRF/water sterile jar

Brown rice flour(BRF) is the standard in PF tek, you can use other grains but they must be whole grain for it to work well.

Also for each 2 cups verm you use 1 cup water and 1 cup BRF.

I suggest you follow the PF tek precisely and you will succede

 
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