First Time Shroom Grower PF-Tek

ok so i finished the dunk and roll and put them into the chamber
immediately i noticed its way too small i must have been pretty fucking high when i bought that small container. there only like 2 inches from the tops of the cake to the top of the chamber.....dammit!

lol yea man. get a nice tall bin for your chamber

Hey Jolly, I have tried this method 2 times and time it has failed. I think it has to do with my incubation temps. I placed them in a plastic bin with water heater set to 85 Degrees. It gets really hunid in there, plus i do not think the temp is accurate. How did you incubate yours?

if you look back in the thread, ive got a pic of my incubator
its a cooler with a plastic bin the sits in the water
with a small water heater
temp is normally around 80-83

have you been able to get the jars to colonize? or get any kind of growth?

Haya Jolly, I gotta ask, what is the basic climate you live in? I live in a "green" desert, arid but with lots of shrubbery and palo verde trees (the devils bush!). I have AC instead of a swamp cooler so I am basicaly screwed on the humidity aspect of things.
I have successfully colonated a bunch of jars with different strains but so far have gotten only a single little shroom to fruit. ok, wasnt really little but it was just one, so far no more flushes. Very frustrating project, but thankfully is pretty damn cheap.
Anyways, my best jars were a 50/50 mix of coco coir (found in bricks in pet stores, used for reptile betting as well as plant grow medium) and fine-cut vermiculite. Moistened that mix first (just barely moist, you want to squeze it and not see more then a drop or two of water in your hand) then just add in the flour until lightly coated. I just eyeball all this shit. It's like cooking, ya know? If you didn't make enough to fill all jars, make more - no biggie. I must add, the coco coir should be a fine cut - you can see in the packageing, if it's not fine cut you will see what looks like wood chips pressed in it. That stuff is a bit too course. It is also compressed and very dry. You should spend the time breaking it up as much as possible dry in the bowl first. Add water slowly always mixing it. It flufs out alot. What looked like powder in the bowl now looks more like fiber. ADD WATER SLOWLY. You don't want to use too much. After the coco coir is a good consistancy, add in your verm, then do the flour last. The make great jars. I also use bottled spring water for the water.

I can make one hell of a jar, but only one shroom. What I was doing was using those tin pound cake loaf pans with a bed of moist (again, not too moist) coco coir. Crumble the cakes on top, cover with foil, and stabalize a few days. I then put the pans inside a rubbermaid tub which has 3 inches moist purlite in the bottom. Move to cooler room and give em light. Oh, the lid to rubbermaid has a plexiglass window in it - 5 bucks at ACE hardware.

If I try this again, I am going to skip a step. I think I will just crumble the cakes in the bottom of the tub, on the bed of coco coir, skipping the tins and purlite. This ways, with small holes in the bottom of the rubbermaid, you can soak the entire cake in another tub the same size.
Anyways, hope this helps ya out in the future for making jars! Good Luck!

i live in louisiana
so its pretty humid for most part of the year, definately not dry

ive thought about looking for the coco coir at the petstore a few times but i always get sidetracked with the puppies and crazy looking fish

have you ever tried to just fruit the colonized jars instead of doing the whole tin pan thing? i dont know why your not getting shrooms..after crumbling the cakes in with the bed of coir..do you let the mycelium colonize the pan before fruiting?

jollygreengiant8 said:

if you look back in the thread, ive got a pic of my incubator
its a cooler with a plastic bin the sits in the water
with a small water heater
temp is normally around 80-83

have you been able to get the jars to colonize? or get any kind of growth?

Click to expand...

I was just being lazy. Yeah i had a little the first time, but the second it was other factors like they fell over during the sterilization. I will take a look back. Thanx.

Hey buffalosoulja, if you are having a hard time with this method, I would try this Homestead Book Company the oldest counter culture book distributor in the world this is the kit I used. It worked purfectly, and was almost fool proof.

buffalosoulja said:

Hey Jolly, I have tried this method 2 times and time it has failed. I think it has to do with my incubation temps. I placed them in a plastic bin with water heater set to 85 Degrees. It gets really hunid in there, plus i do not think the temp is accurate. How did you incubate yours?

Click to expand...

i have seen on some pf recipes that the max inoculation temp should be 86 degrees F.

in fact some say that while the mycelium is growing, it will generate a couple degrees of heat itself and therefore the temps should be kept closer to 81-83.

they warn of high temps will kill. just what i have read....


also if you are incubating then humidity is not a concern. in fact youo should not add any more water as the cake you made has been designed to be perfectly hydrated for the duration of time it will take for the mycelium to take over the jar.

AFTER the jar has become fully white and you birth the cake, then you can dunk in water for 24 hr to rehydrate and THEN place into a FRUITING CHAMBER and keep humidity as high as possible.

sounds like you need to review the recipe for pf tek mushroom growing. good luck

Nope I haven't tried the invetro yet. It could work but it's just not going to be a large flush. Well, lol that's kinda funny concidering the size of my one an only flush so far hehehe... Anyways, I think I am done with this for now though. Maby I'll try it again in a few years =)

SmokingNuggz said:

Nope I haven't tried the invetro yet. It could work but it's just not going to be a large flush. Well, lol that's kinda funny concidering the size of my one an only flush so far hehehe... Anyways, I think I am done with this for now though. Maby I'll try it again in a few years =)

Click to expand...

actually i read that getting your jars to be invitro would produce a higher yeilding flush.

atleast the recipe i went by stated that although i have not personally seen this happen.

hey jolly how's everything? any progress to report?

my 12 jars are on the 5th day, so far no contams. just keeping my fingers crossed during the wait....

hope things are going well with you...

not much progress at all really..
its been a little cold here and so the fc wont get above 65
im looking around for a heating pad or something to get the temp up..

try a fishtank heater

find cheap one at local walmart


i just put one in and trying to from 62-64 i basement to 72 with use of heater.

i just lay in bottom of FC.

will take some more pictures as soon as i charge my phone. but you will be surprised at the grwth i have now...


and that is without the heater. cant wait to see how things improve.

my other four cakes are flushing like mad and are almost ready for harvest.

and i havent even eaten the last harvest yet.....

only had five out of 12 and yes the F strain is nice. took alittle while for it to kick in last night but when it did, very nice.... sort of a creeping feeling as far as highs go...

but i like the F strain....AhHHHHH who am i kidding I LIKE ALL THE STRAINS.... havent met a bad one yet.


keep in touch.


oh yeah and on a side note, my Aerogarden clones are still alive after 3 days.....keeping fingers crossed.

thanks for that massbaster!
ill be looking for those pics, i was thinking about an aquarium heater but wasnt sure if you could just lay it on the perlite but seems like it would work well.
Enjoy your fruits of labor..and ive got my fingers crossed for your clones, hopefully all goes well

I'd make an incubator JG. Put the fish tank heater the bottom of a larger tub with water in it. Put your container into the water, the heater will heat the water wnad the water will warm your container. Thats the method I've heard of.

nice work on the shrooms - i read the mushroom cultivator and the guy who wrote it is not too far from me. some friends of mine were ready kicking it down at one time and flushing over 100 lbs a round. i was getting lbs for $400. those were good days

Fuck I have never even seen a lb of shrooms. The most any one I've known has ever gotten their hands on was a QP. That was only once, the beginning of this year, and after they were gone, I havn't seen a mushroom since. rrrrr the weeds dry, and the shrooms are just a dream.

i used to get 10 lbs from them at a time and i used to get what they called the shmoo, being the stuff from the bottom of the pile that looked like shit for $50 a lb and turn it into chocolates and sell it for a pretty good profit and it really didnt cost shit. i would put 2.5 grams in each one and after mine there was no way you would get high off anyone elses lol

if you really want to come to canada then do it cause they will let you in. i have several friends that i call yanko-canadians. its not that hard, but ya gotta just do it