Hello guys,
It's been a min since my last post but I'm having a bit of a problem with my first shroom cultivation attempt.

I ordered some African Transkei spores almost a month ago (kinda slow compared to the other grower storie I've read, they always seemed to colonize within in a week or so while mine took a WHOLE month. Is that normal?) and I just transplanted them to their terrarium about 4 days ago.

Everything was normal until about the 3rd day when I noticed a gray spot only on the top part of the shroom cake. I thought it was just a drop of water from condensation but the more i look at it the more it' making me worry and fret cause I only did one cake for my first attempt.

Can someone please tell me is this a contamination or just regular discoloration? It took a whole month to colonize so I was thinking that the mycellium was established enough to fend off contamination....can contamination happen after the substrate is fully colonized? Does it depend on the strain of shroom you're uing?

Sorry if I'm overloading you guys with questions. I just want to understand whats going on and how to prevent contamination if this little spot on here is an interloping germ.
I know the camera quality isn't the best but hopefully someone can tell if I should go ahead and scrap this cake and start over.

That looks normal to me, some grey and beigeness is normal. If you start seeing green or red spots id try chopping the section off with a sanitary knife. I find PF cakes to be a pain, easy to contaminate, and to have unpotent fruits. Try rye berries in foil pans with casing; its super easy to do and the fruits are very potent.

Also the smell should give you a clue too, if its like a sour dirty sock kind of smell, you might have bacterial contamination (my least favorite of contams because it usually means you gotta start all over).

I agree that it looks normal.... and kultsek is correct about the smell thing, the rotten apple smell is another one to watch out for.

IT should smell just like the day you coooked it + mushroom smell and that's it.

Just don't contaminate it with your nose by sniffing around too much

I concur with the others. Doesnt look bad contaminations usually look brown/orange/redish.

ime if you see a contamination on the cake or in the jars its done for nothing you can do but start over.

But perhaps cutting out the infection might help never heard of it being tried.

Be very careful when opening your tubs as there is alot of dirt floating around in the air, use a bleach spray and wait a minute after spraying to make sure the air is alright. Be careful when inspecting your terrarium as when leaning over it you often drop small untraceable amounts of dirt onto the cake. Ive heard of a grower that would put on a full on lab suit with a breathing mask and gloves when handling his cakes but this is extreme imo

Also ime jars did take a month to colonise whoever can colonise jars in a week needs to post links to this info.

Good Luck!!