I did exactly this! It was quite fun...

here are some new shrooms growing and two of them have got these dark stains on the stem... hopefully you can see from the pics

Alright so now swim picked all the big mushrooms and he's left only with several pins that don't look very healthy and have been there without growing for the last week... as you hopefully see from the pic the cake is starting to go a bit blueish, he has bottom watered it for the last 24 hours but no growth at all... what to do now?

these are aborts you should pick them(the ones turning black or with broken veils) before they mold and this is happening because there's no holes in your fruiting chamber so there's no fresh air exchange... the bluing on the cake could be just bruising, try wiping it gently with the tip of folded tissue , if the color is transferred to the tissue then it is mold if not then it's just bruising

Thanks Sakk you're a genius. Blueing is just bruises. Aborts taken out (all darker caps). Left the lid slightly more open and later he'll punch more holes around all faces of the box to make a widespread airflow. Should he carry on with bottom watering now, right?

you're welcome eddy-j yes everyday tilt to remove old water and add new water and keep misting it regularly

actually this morning when swim woke up the pins that were left had not grown at all, so he removed them all and put the cake in their box (the one of their size that they came with), soaked them in fresh water, covered with lid, and put them in the fridge so to start next flush as if new...

He'll take advantage of this time to rinse the perlite again and make more holes to the fruiting chamber and tonight he'll put the cake back in it after sterilising.

sounds good
what do you mean by "after sterilising"?

that he'll clean the fruiting chamber with acetone before putting in the shrooms

Acetone? Well acetone is a good organic solvent for many things so that's why it is good for cleaning but it does not have antiseptic uses like alcohol so it is not effective in killing bacteria and mold.. use ethanol or ipa for that purpose...

damn, didn't know that!

Usually you dont want wet mushrooms. The fruits die when too wet.
Thats why you want humidity but not direct wetness.

Nice fat boys you got there tho

Very nice work on the mush so far.

I've been contacted telepathically by swim and he told me he's at the fourth flash and mushies keep growing nice and big but fruit flies keep coming around. he sucked them away with the vacuum cleaner a few times and placed a lemon trap just beside the fruiting chamber as previously described in this thread, but they keep coming back. I'd be curious to know what is the reason for this. Are there rotting parts in the cake that attract them? The cake certainly doesn't look as fresh as it did at the beginning... Will the flies cause any damage? Or is this a sign that the shrooms will be compromised?

this is how the last ones are looking

hey there! happy to see you're still going through more flushes
the flies are harmless, they are attracted to the mycelium and the mushrooms, they eat from them but it's insignificant, outdoor fruits are full of flies and tiny insects but they are still good to eat, keep vacuuming them whenever you see them. you could also use sticky fly traps and there's also a solution with apple cider vinegar look it up if you want i think in all cases the flies will keep coming so keep removing them and again they are harmless but annoying
nice fruits you got there but what's the white fuzz on the center of the caps? it could be mycelium but could possibly be mold too, if it's mold then eating it will get you sick so be careful, can you take a closer picture of the white on the caps or i don't know how but let's try to figure out what that is before you consume them

they are in the process of drying and this is how they look. They smell normal and the texture of the spots on the top of the caps is the same of the rest of the cap.