Oyster mushrooms are fun and easy to grow. They provide a wonderful source of vitamins and nutrients to keep you healthy during cold and flu season. They can be planted in and among plants, flowers and vegetables to get even more nutritious food from your garden soil every season. With all the concern over industrial food production causing many new food born illnesses and viral mutations I.E. Avian Bird flu, Swine flu H1N1. These and many other health problems are a direct result of the terrible conditions these animals and produce are subjected to within their short, miserable lives. You can make a difference in the world just by choosing to grow some of your own food for you and your family. This can progress into soil filtration, erosion prevention, watershed protection, better nutrition, all with the use of beautiful oyster mushrooms! Here are some steps to get you started down the path to becoming a mushroom healing center.
The first step is to get hold of some fully colonized grain spawn of the type of mushroom desired. For the sake of time I won't get into the specifics of making sterile grain spawn, as it has been covered countless times across the internet. For a much easier method, and to skip a lot of costly sterilizing, I HIGHLY recommend just buying the spawn from a trusted source.
This is what my spawn looked like the last time I ordered some.
You can also buy your own culture syringe and either make or buy your jars in bulk. Either way, you will need some good, reliable oyster spawn.
Once you have a nice load of spawn ready to go, you will need a large amount of finely chopped wheat straw. I recommend wheat straw if it is as easy to find in your area as ours, but rice straw, and a number of other materials will also work. If you are having trouble finding wheat straw in your area let me know where you are at by responding to this post, and I will gladly find you a suitable substitute that is commonly found in your area.
Anyways, assuming you are using wheat straw, the straw must be chopped into small, roughly one inch pieces or smaller in order to colonize fully later on.
This is easily done using a weed eater inside of a garbage can. Wood chippers/shredders can also be used, but are a little more costly initially. If you can find it, I recommend a high quality weed eater replacement line, as the straw can give the standard line a good beating, and waste quite a bit of time in replacement time.
The brand I use is actually made from Kevlar, and simply does not break. Works great. Just load the can about 1/4 full of straw, place the weed eater head in the can, and a towel, sheet etc, over the top of the can to prevent straw dust from flying everywhere while chopping. A few minutes after whirling the weed eater around in there, check your straw for the right length, and repeat until you have enough straw for one full batch of mushroom logs.
Now that your straw is ready to go, you will need a large metal food grade storage container, or a large stock pot, depending on the size operation you are hoping to achieve.
I have fitted mine with a metal hose nozzle so that the straw water can be collected after cooking, and used in the garden. A five gallon buck it just placed under the nozzle, and opened to drain into the bucket.
Set your barrel up on cinder blocks, and place a turkey fryer burner under the barrel.
Line the barrel with a sheet large enough to hold all of your straw. If you are doing this on a smaller scale with a stock pot, a pillow case will fit perfectly.
Once the straw is in fill the barrel with water, giving the straw time to soak it up before considering the barrel full. Place a meat thermometer in the top center of the straw so you can get a good idea of how hot the coolest part of the straw it.
Once everything is in place, heat the water up to 165 according to the thermometer at a medium flame, so that the bottom of the barrel doesn't go over 180 degrees and damage the straw.
Be sure to cover the barrel to keep the heat trapped inside. We even insulate ours, to ensure a faster heating time, and less use of propane.
Once your straw is heated between 160-180 for about an hour and a half, you will want to drain your barrel, and let the straw drip until no more visible water is dripping from the sheet. In other words the straw should be allowed to drain for about a day, so that if you squeeze a handful of it as hard as you can, only a drop or two of water should come out of the handful.
After draining well, and cooling, the straw is now ready to be inoculated with our oyster mushroom spawn from
www.spores101.com.
Just lay it out on a flat surface that is up off the ground such as a large table.
Once it is spread out, and you are sure the center is cool to the touch, just evenly distribute the grain spawn on the top of the straw.
Be sure not to mix it up too much or all the grain will fall to the bottom of the straw pile,
making it harder to get spawn in every handful of straw as the bags are packed.
Using clear polytube bags found at most shipping supply stores, and a heat sealer, one end of the tube is sealed and then stuffed full of straw/spawn mixture keeping the mixture as even as possible.
Once the tube is filled the other side is heat sealed shut, and then a small hole, roughly every three inches or so along the side of the log is poked through the plastic.
This keeps the tube from becoming anaerobic, and killing the mycelium. This is also why it is a good idea to incubate them in a clean, but warm, humid area.
Any questions so far? Feel free to ask away! I will continue to update with pics as the logs develop, and fruit! Hope you learned something.