Using Your Agar Dish Culture

Make Grain Spawn

USING YOUR AGAR CULTURE DISH
 
Your Dish culture is live mushroom fungus, growing on a sterile food gel called Agar. Do not open dish until use. For this process you will need a Pressure Cooker.
 
Within this text, you will find the information needed to create grain spawn for your mushrooms. This method will literally work for any strain of mushroom fungus.
You can choose from a wide verity of grains for your spawn to grow in. We recommend using rye grain, wheat grain or wild bird seed. First thing you will need to do is boil your grain in a large pot. You will need twice the volume of water as grain.

MAKE GRAIN SPAWN

1. Bring your grain and water to a rolling boil, stir frequently. Boil for 20 minutes. Let cool down.
2. Drain the water from your grain for 10 to 20 minutes. Wild bird seed tends to be stickier and may require rinsing.
3. We recommend having a half inch of dry vermiculite or 5 to 10 dry hard wood fuel pellets on the bottom of your jars (to control moisture content)
4. Fill the rest of the jar with your cooked grain, approximately 2/3 the way full.
5. Make a hole in the center of the lids with a small nail (this will serve as air exchange.) Some growers recommend using 2-3 layers of micro pore tape over nail hole (optional). Place your lids on jars, tighten and then cover lid with 2 layers of aluminum foil.
6. Pressure cook your jars at 15 psi for 1 to 2 hours, depending on the size of your cooker and amount of jars being cooked. Large batches require more cook time. (Fallow Instructions For Specific Cooker Used) Cookers that utilize a jiggler gauge and no pressure gauge, the heat should be left low enough that it only jiggles once every 30 sec or so. Use maybe 1 inch of water in the bottom to insure water does not all evaporate.
7. Let your cooker cool completely before opening. Transferring your culture in to grain while over 100° will harm or kill your fungus. Large cookers may take over 8 hours to cool.
8. Clean a work area with disinfectant. Spraying disinfectant in to the air helps clean the air. Make sure your arms and hands are thoroughly clean and wash your hands once more with rubbing alcohol immediately before starting the inoculation.
9. Place your jars in your work area, we recommend having a torch, a torch lighter or an alcohol lamp to flame sterilize tools between jars
10. Warning! Disinfectant can be highly flammable!
11. Carefully remove aluminum foil and lid from one jar at a time and cut a small piece of tissue from the dish and drop into each jar. Flame sterilize tool between jars. Replace lid and foil on each jar immediately after each inoculation. Make sure aluminum foil is sealed tightly around the neck of your jar.
12. Leave at room temperature in a dark place. Mycelium (mushroom fungus) should fully colonize jars within 2 weeks to 1 month depending on type.

Utilization of a still air box or flow hood is recommended!

All our cultures are trained to grow at room temperature.
Many strains can actually be fruited from these grain jar cultures. If you are doing this as an experiment or just to have grown some mushrooms you may decide to just fruit from these jars. For larger more abundant fruits you will want to use these jars to inoculate bulk substrate.

Inoculation of Bulk Substrate