SWIM also posted this on the shroomery, but he's working the numbers.

Does anyone of you guys/gals know how much delay there is for the start of the colonization process when the temperature is around 21° C (+/-72°F)?

SWIM inoculated last Thursday and we're going into the sixth day now, and there's still nothing to see.

Also, when pressure cooking the jars, is it normal the fluid in the substrate evaporates and condenses on the sides and trickles down to the bottom of the jars?You can clearly see the most moist part is at the bottom of the jar, and some drops still stick to the side.

BTW since SWIM is a rookie he's using PF-cakes.

to much water it may be rotten smell it

just got reply from someone on the shroomery that it can take up to 2 weeks at room temp.

Ah, the impatience of the noobie :o

Jars might be just a "wee" slower than if you had the temperature set around 75-76. But honestly they probably will colonize around the same amount of time...even at 72 degrees. You should be good my man!

COMPASSION AND RESPECT

And for the p-cooking and water content:

A little condensation on the sides of the jars is fine. Just as long as your mix isn't "slosshy/mud" looking then you will be all good if you followed all procedure before the pressure cook! Hope everything goes well for ya man!

COMPASSION AND RESPECT

And it depends on what strain you colonize with...some can colonize quicker than others and some are slower. Some are more resistant to minor neglect and contams, and some need the upmost love and care!

COMPASSION AND RESPECT

Dude, SWIM loves cakes despite what anyone says! SWIM does alot of casings and has just started straw/poo mix. And honestly if done to a T and if the cakes and dunked and rolled you will have great flushes off PF style cakes!

COMPASSION AND RESPECT

SWIM's working with the "Ecuador" strand and it seems they colonize slowly he read.



It seems a lot of the recondensed vapour collected at the bottom and the substrate is much more compact there. Is this what you mean by "slushy"?

Also, SWIM read that very dark syringes work counter-productive in another thread, yet the syringe he bought was almost pitch black with spores. Exactly how does this counter productivity manifest?

thanks for the support anyway, DMTrip.

SWIM was at the Shroomery under a different alias but he quit that place. The main reason jars are considered noob, is because the yields are low. Who the hell eats enough shrooms to utilize bulk growing? A few months ago, SWIM had a TMS bag that took almost two weeks because it was not in an incubator.

Why in the world would a syringe have dark specks floating. Doesn't seem like spores

"Does anyone of you guys/gals know how much delay there is for the start of the colonization process when the temperature is around 21° C (+/-72°F)?"

From SWIM's experience Ecuador is a relatively fast colonizer, but 21c is pretty far from ideal. Try to get a heater or something and bring the room up a few degrees whenever you can, it'll make a big difference if you can get it even a little warmer in there.

"It seems a lot of the recondensed vapour collected at the bottom and the substrate is much more compact there."

You may find the bottom of these jars colonizes really really slowly if compacted and watery, the strands of mycelium have a hard time penetrating that stuff. SWIM turns his jars upside down sometimes towards the end of colonization to help with this problem occasionally with no adverse effects. Don't invert them until later in the game though, it can introduce contams. Only invert as a last resort. (I think later PF tek version mentions this somewhere)

"to much water it may be rotten smell it"

Unless you have contams it wont matter how watery it is in there, the water wont get 'rotten' unless there's bacteria to make that happen. It may affect colonization if there's like, more than a tablespoon of water in there though.

"Why in the world would a syringe have dark specks floating. Doesn't seem like spores"

SWIM makes his own spore syringes and they almost always have dark chunks of spores in the inoculant. Pull a couple of CC's of air into the syringe and shake vigorously to break them up. If you dont you'll just find some jars colonize way faster than the rest, due to thier getting uneven amounts of spores.

Ecuador is a very nice strain, one of SWIM's fav's. Just be patient, and check them thoroughly and daily for contams. Good luck!

Yeah almost everytime I talk to someone who is bulk growing, they boast about having a freezer full of shrooms. What the hell would they do with them though? Good way to get busted for trafficking I imagine. And anyone who gets low PF tek yield just isn't trying hard enough, lol! Last yield SWIM got around 15 average size shrooms per cake (and 19 cakes, teehee!) with two of the shrooms being over 11 inches long. SWIM used a modified version of the 'poor man's terrarium', basically shoved the cakes into used take away containers. Leave the bulk teks to mushroom farmers I say.

Good intel, thanks guys.

Found an easy DIY incubation chamber at this link, so SWIMM'll be checking out thos aquarium supply shops soon.
http://archives.mycotopia.net/discus/messages/5/6777.html

And yeah, the shroomery isn't exactly the most user friendly enviroment, it's just too massive. You can just see your post getting buried under the tidal wave of new ones.

When I was refering to "sloushy/mud" look I meant throughout the whole jar, because i've seen alot of people starting out add maybe too much water, or use coarse verm instead of fine verm and they get a brf mudpie! lol But the little bit of condensation you speak of that kind of collected near the bottom does happen sometimes, but nothing to worry about. Just let you p'cooked jars cool overnight then stick them in a environment with 70's temp and TAKE THE JAR LIDS OFF so there is some air circulation getting brought into the jar. ( The layer on verm on the top will protect of any airborne contams) so you should be all good bro.

COMPASSION AND RESPECT

Take the lids off? Are you INSANE?!

HAHAH i greatly apologize guys. SWIM was very smoked out last night along with several beers. I will restate and correct my following post:

In order to have proper air exchange and to not have the jars being too wet inside,etc REMOVE THE MICROPORE TAPE from the holes to allow proper gas exchange... This is totally fine due to having the thick vermiculite layer on top. That acts as a pretty good airbrone contamination barrier.

EDIT: DONT REMOVE THE LIDS lol

Sorry about that!! Its hard to be serious about anything when under the influence

6 days is not too abnormal. You don't want too much moisture in those jars. Seriously, the PF Tek is right on for me, I added extra water the first time and got some contams. Give it a few more days.

Honestly, I always incubate at room temperature for cubes (70-74F). It takes about 2 1/2 - 3 weeks for colonization, but I have found repeatedly that I get less contamination. Sure you save an extra week, maybe, if you boost the temps up to 82F or so, but your contamination rate goes up.

Also, I have read and experienced (but won't say it is a fact) that slower growing mycelium and mushrooms gives more time for active alkaloids to be formed, making somewhat stronger mushrooms.

[/quote]Also, I have read and experienced (but won't say it is a fact) that slower growing mycelium and mushrooms gives more time for active alkaloids to be formed, making somewhat stronger mushrooms.[/quote]

AHH HA! Thats why SWIMs Lipas that took soo long to colonize were soo damn potent!

Yeah the one time I accidentally took my jar lids off (pop off lids, not screw top- they just popped off while I was inoculating) I lost almost the whole grow to contams

Mmm, I have seen the same thing too. The slower the better I reckon. When I get uber fast, record breaking colonization times I experience much lower yields.

SWIM finally got an aquarium heater and stuffed it in a water filled glass bottle for radiant heating a couple of days ago and look: There's small specks of mycelium popping up here and there in the jars!

SWIM feels like a proud parent watching his kid taking his first steps.