u/moroseta04

Since the mushrooms appeared, I've avoided opening the box entirely, as enough FAE should pass through the lid. There are many newly sprouted mushrooms on the surface (you can't see them clearly in the photo), but will they grow well? Since some mushrooms will be ready in a few days, I'll have to harvest them first and wait for the others to finish growing. I think the problem might be the low humidity (my room temperature is 22.5°C). Do you recommend misting the walls or doing something else to increase the humidity? This is one of the very few boxes that have managed to produce; I want it to perform at its best.

I'm experimenting with agar; tomorrow I'll make my fourth attempt. So far, only two plates have mycelium growth, but it doesn't seem to be spreading. All the other plates showed only bacterial growth (I'm using agar to help "clean" my LC of bacteria).

Both this time and the previous one, I added a few drops of LC to each container, but I didn't notice any growth. What could be the cause?

This jar has the most uncoated parts. Since I'm unsure whether to throw out the other jars, I decided to check this one. When I opened it, I didn't notice any suspicious odor, just the classic mushroom smell. However, there is excess water in the jars and also "mycelial urine." I initially kept these jars between 22 and 26°C, but for a week now I've been keeping them at 27-29°C. Could they be contaminated?

All other times, I've filled these jars with 400ml of oats and sterilized them at 14.5 PSI for 2 hours. Now that I've halved the contents, how long does it need to "cook"?

I inoculated these jars on July 27th. But I performed the B&S on different days to see if anything had changed. Colonization started less than 48 hours after inoculation and progressed rapidly. After the B&S, colonization was very rapid, but it's been slowing down for a week. I noticed that the uncolonized parts are the ones that were completely full of mycelium before the B&S. The kernel inside is completely white, but the outside isn't yet. I've had this problem for a long time now and wanted to know if it was normal.

In addition to this larger box, I have other much smaller boxes that have produced 2-3 small mushrooms per harvest. I have one box that is on its third harvest, but each has produced less than 1 gram of dried mushrooms. Given the heat, the containers were drying out very quickly, but this larger one has LOTS of water droplets on the surface and lid. I'm trying everything I can to lower the temperature in my room, but another extreme heat wave is coming. I keep all the doors and windows open at night, but the air coming in is still very warm, and during the day I seal all the doors and windows.

I made this box by making a big mistake: I didn't mix the oats with the coconut fiber well. Colonization started very quickly at first, but it stopped shortly after. So I started giving FAEs about once a day. For the past few weeks, my room has been around 27-30°C (82°F). [I'm trying everything I can to lower the temperature, but all my boxes are dying now.] In less than 12 hours, a series of white bubbles with many drops of water appeared on the surface of this box. I placed the box under observation, and within another 24 hours, the first bubble turned yellow, and more of these white "bubbles" appeared. Some bright red spots also appeared on some of the oat grains. What could it be? I threw the cake out into the garden to avoid contaminating the whole house.

When I opened the box, there was a lot of condensation, but in two days there was no sign of moisture on the walls. When I removed the lid, I also noticed some hyphal nodes on one corner, but the situation doesn't seem to be improving. Given the extreme heat where I grow, it averages 28/29°C. And all the boxes I currently have have a lot of condensation on the walls, so much so that they drip onto the surface.

I made this box on June 4th using about 250 ml of oats inoculated with AA+. I don't know how well the surface is colonized because I sealed the lid with plastic tape, and the water drops prevent you from seeing underneath. Any advice is welcome.

Here in Europe, it's hard to find pressure cookers that reach 15 psi. The ones imported from abroad are exorbitantly expensive due to shipping costs. I'd like a stainless steel pressure cooker (so it lasts longer) that can reach as close to 15 psi as possible. So far, I've found a very inexpensive 6-liter pressure cooker that reaches 14.5 psi, but since it doesn't have a pressure gauge, I can't really tell what pressure it actually is. I found another model on a website selling a very large pressure cooker from China with a pressure gauge, but it reaches about 13 psi (90 kps) and is made of aluminum (The pot in the last photo costs around €100, much less than other 22-litre pots, so I'm not sure I should trust it too much.). Which one do you think is better? Or should I keep looking? (I can't find anything on Facebook or other used sites.)

I live in Europe and have been looking for a new, reasonably priced pressure cooker for a while. I read in the description of this product that it has a pressure of 1 bar (14.5 psi).

I make almost all the boxes I've ever had this way. I know I can harvest them at different times, but I have to run them through the dryer for 2-3 cycles.

For a week now, water droplets have been accumulating on the surface. So, to encourage fruiting, I started adding a lot of FAE. This led to the growth of some mushrooms, but many water droplets remained. However, I noticed that the walls and lid are drying out. What do you recommend?

I have a jar of oats that hasn't fully colonized due to issues with the mat (it cooked some oats). Today I was about to throw it away after having it for months, but I noticed that except for the top part and a few grains at the bottom, the rest is completely colonized. I wanted to try scooping out the colonized part with a spoon to use it to make the box. I have two lids to choose from: the first has one of its two filters damaged, and I wanted to know if it would be okay to cover it with a layer of microporous tape to prevent contaminants. The second, however, only has very small holes on the edges, and I wanted to know if they should be covered with microporous tape or left uncovered. Which of the two is better? I haven't found any specific tutorials, so I wanted to know how to do it and if it would work.

On May 2, I mixed and broke these three jars. From that day on, growth exploded, bringing them to almost complete colonization in about a week or two. However, once they were almost fully colonized, colonization began to slow down dramatically. Several weeks have passed, and two of these jars were only a few kernels away from being ready. While the third jar (red photo) was still 10-15 kernels away from colonization. So (about three days ago), to eliminate any doubt as to whether it was contaminated, I broke it and mixed it. But where the uncolonized kernels were, a mush remained stuck to the glass. My questions are: are bacteria causing this? Are the first two jars still usable, or is it better to wait for the mycelium to grow further? And why, if the mycelium was able to "beat" the contamination, once I mixed it, did the mycelium completely stop growing?

A few drops from the lid fall onto the cake, leaving some empty spaces (circled in red). Do you think I should try to add more FAE? This will help the moisture evaporate faster.