Found nearly everything, but having most trouble with mason jars and sealable lids. I've found this:


Frasco Autoclavable Tapa Azul 1000ml Graduado / autoclavable flask with blue lid.

It's high quality glass, but they don't say much about the lid, just it's a screw top with a special ring to not drip. Probably they are available but am having trouble with the translation here.


Also the PH meter, is this the ideal kind of thing?

problem is, it's $200 and with everything else being more expensive here (mag stirrer being closer to $200 than $40), it's probably out of the budget for now.

Are ph paper strips sufficient?

Before you acquire everything, what are your basic objectives? DMT and mescaline? Is one higher priority than the other? And how pure do you want the end product?

Given the high cost that you have to pay for the equipment, I wouldn't want you to jump in if simpler, less expensive processes were available, depending on your goals.


Depends on the process you're using. As per our other thread on mescaline extraction, if you're titrating down to pH 6.0-6.5, then you can make your own red cabbage indicator and that would probably be easier to use than a pH meter or strips if you don't care about the indicator being in the end product after evaporation. But generally, strips are fine. Here is an example of a technique for pulling the water and checking the pH without the water being contaminated by solvent:

https://www.dmt-nexus.me...spx?g=posts&m=897031

no real priority over DMT / Mescaline. Possibly to add psilocybin extraction as well in the future. Never looked into that though. But chakruna / san pedro / mushrooms are all that is available to me here

As for purity, high as possible. I tend to become quite obsessive with things and chase needless ends unnecessarily


Equipment hasn't been that expensive, what I was expecting to be honest. Just the mag stirrer (with heat pad) is a lot more expensive than what is available on Amazon and the ph meter (although waiting on some people to get back to me on this, one annoying thing about here, prices being listed is not the normal, you always have to contact them, so is possible have a cheaper option, although I am not holding my breath)



red cabbage what now? I think I need to read that thread more careful.

As always, thanks for your reply, cheers

Never seen jars like this here before, widenecked and with a rubber seal! Perfect for storing liquids and for mushroom cultivation. Bought the shops whole stock

might have jumped the gun a bit there, the seal isn't so great, leaks water quite easily. ohwell.

Still good for spawn jars

Okay I was thinking if you just wanted to do simple water extractions of mescaline with evaporation, you don't need all this equipment. If you want to play around with this hobby, then getting this equipment and the simple chemicals is a good start.


Do you need the heat pad?


Begin reading here with doubledog's post #9:
https://www.dmt-nexus.me...mp;m=1091307#post1091307

On top of the leaks, limonene will probably degrade that rubber seal.

Just curious, are you using BRF for your substrate or grain?

Using alpiste, which is (I think) canary grass seed. Got some rye on order and going to try popcorn - which is currently soaking ready for cooking up tonight

My first bulk grow many years ago was popcorn as the spawn and coco coir for the bulk substrate.

Just recently completed 9 shoeboxes where I used a golden teacher clone for all 9 boxes. Compared oats versus rye (pre-sterilized bags from Out-grow.com). For this clone and environmental conditions, oats were the clear winner in terms of speed to colonize the grain, speed to colonize the bulk substrate and then fruiting, and overall yield. Different variety and conditions might favor a different grain.

I also tried different ratios of spawn to bulk substrate, casing layer or not, and 50/50 coir/vermiculite versus straight coir. I didn't find any consistent patterns to inform me that any particular ratio, or casing layer, or type of substrate was better than any other.

Just sharing the results since you (and I) can get obsessed about this sort of stuff.

Just went to the city yesterday to pick up 100l of vermiculite, 100l of pealite, 100l of coco coir. Only ever seen it in tiny bags are crazy prices, but found a distributor, who sent it on the bus, so that should see me well for a while.




Been meaning to read into taking clones / isolating, but got such a big backlog of things to read about am getting overwhelmed. How did the process of getting the clone isolated go? All straight forward?




What kind of oat do you use? I used to be able to get rolled oats:


But the shop hasn't stocked them for a while, is that what you use? Interesting you had such a good success with oats, not read that before. Seems most people recommend rye as the best option. Might have a drive around a few places and see what I can find today




What substrates did you use? Am planning to go with cow manure (as there is a lot near us as a neighbour keeps cow and they pretty much wander around freely) with coir / verm. I read good things about straw, but that is unavailable here

What is the purpose of pearlite? I assume you are spawning to bulk substrate such as coir, manure, etc?

>> Been meaning to read into taking clones / isolating, but got such a big backlog of things to read about am getting overwhelmed. How did the process of getting the clone isolated go? All straight forward?

I have a laminar flow hood and I purchase pre-poured agar plates, so cloning is easy. Just peel open a fresh mushroom from the bottom (like peeling string cheese) and transfer a tiny piece from the inside of it to agar. A piece from the inside has a good chance of being free of contaminants. Transfer a piece from near the base, as it is believed that mycelium is the most vigorous. Let it grow out on agar (or multiple agar plates). Then place a piece of the colonized agar into a grain bag.

If you don't have a flow hood it's a little more tricky because you need to use a still-air box for all the transfers (to agar, to additional agar plates, to grain bag/jar, etc). And I assume you will need to pour your own agar plates. You can investigate a cardboard tek for cloning. I haven't read about that in depth though.

>> What kind of oat do you use? I used to be able to get rolled oats. Interesting you had such a good success with oats, not read that before. Seems most people recommend rye as the best option.

You need to use oats that still have the hull on them. Rolled oats, steel cut oats, etc cannot be used as they will turn into mush when you soak and sterilize. You can find whole oats (cheap!) with the hull intact as horse and cattle feed. Something like this:

https://www.tractorsuppl...-oats-50-lb?cm_vc=-10005

I was also surprised at how well the oats worked. They're also cheaper than rye. My guess is that it's not about oats versus rye. Rather it's the combination of grain and the bulk substrate. The balance of nutrition and water content of the whole system. I happened to hit on a combination of grain and bulk substrate that was well balanced along with my environmental conditions and this variety/clone of mushies just loved it.

>> What substrates did you use? Am planning to go with cow manure (as there is a lot near us as a neighbour keeps cow and they pretty much wander around freely) with coir / verm. I read good things about straw, but that is unavailable here.

For my recently completed experiment, I used either pre-pasteurized 50/50 coir+vermiculite which I purchased online for convenience. Or the other substrate was straight coir purchased from Home Depot. The 50/50 was at field capacity (stream of water when squeezed). The straight coir was drier. I used this tek with the coir. It's quite simple and worked well:

https://www.shroomery.or...flat.php/Number/26009662

My best performing shoebox was oats with this coir tek. After two flushes this shoebox had the most yield by far per quart of grain. And this shoebox yielded 94% of its total yield with two flushes (meaning the third flush didn't produce much). After three flushes another oat box (with the 50/50 coir+vermiculite) barely got the prize for most yield per quart of grain, but it took three flushes to do so.

Fun stuff!

Adding to soil for ganja and cacti cultivation. Not sure is much use for in mushrooms, apart from if having a perlite and water bottom in the FC.


Just looked at what a laminar flow hood is: Very nice! I'm using a plastic tub with two badly cut holes in the side for my hands. Box is too small really and should get a bigger one, but for now, it does the trick - ish.


That's my hold up at the moment, pouring the plates. Plan for this week though.

Bit disappointed with my attempts so far. None of the jars have taken yet. Been 4-5 days nearly. And would have expected something by now. I think the popcorn is going to be a failure, they look quite dry to my eyes.

But will use the remaining solution on the agar so hopefully will get something in enable me to keep the strains going. Then I want to try a LC liquid, which should give me much much potential innoculant to experiement with what I have available here




ahh ok, never seen those here.


Cheers will look into that


Good work! Yield from a grow kit I purchased is look like it might top out at 5grams lol. Probably that low partly due to me (although not sure how you can screw up misting / fanning) but also it cannot have had that great a substate. But it's served it's purpose, got some prints and enough for a trip, so the experiementation contnues

Are you using a fruiting chamber to fruit cakes? I thought you were doing a bulk grow like monotub or shoebox. Humidified fruiting chambers are old tek. Shoebox is basically a small monotub. Very simple and effective. I used to use aquarium air pumps, perlite, hydroton rocks, automated fan setups, etc. That's back when we didn't know how to keep it simple.

>> Bit disappointed with my attempts so far. None of the jars have taken yet. Been 4-5 days nearly. And would have expected something by now. I think the popcorn is going to be a failure, they look quite dry to my eyes.

Did you innoculate with spores? If so, it can take two weeks or more to show any growth. I just innoculated agar plates from 3 syringes and even on agar it can take several days to show germination. If you're looking for signs of growth on grain it might take longer. You know that shroomery is all about patience, right?

>> But will use the remaining solution on the agar so hopefully will get something in enable me to keep the strains going. Then I want to try a LC liquid, which should give me much much potential innoculant to experiement with what I have available here.

I've done LC in the past with success. But LC is highly prone to contamination and a couple of my recent attempts failed (contaminated), so I'm sticking with A2G and G2G transfers for now. I grow way more than enough with just those techniques. LC is nice if you're trying to innoculate a lot of grain, like mass production.

>> Good work! Yield from a grow kit I purchased is look like it might top out at 5grams lol. Probably that low partly due to me (although not sure how you can screw up misting / fanning) but also it cannot have had that great a substate. But it's served it's purpose, got some prints and enough for a trip, so the experiementation contnues

My recent yield on 9 shoeboxes averaged about 1.1 dry ounces (30 grams) per quart of colonized spawn (some oats, some rye). Not bad. Total nearly 12 ounces. I can use up to an ounce per month though. It sounds like you have all the right bulk substrate materials. Just need to dial in your grain.

Was a kit, had a small plastic tub and a plastic fruiting tub. Put small tub in big tub and fan. But last time I grew mushrooms was probably 15-18 years ago, so most of what I remember is oldmantek



This is what I will go to (or monotub) when / if can get my grain colonoised.



haha that's what I have planned now. Got an order I need to pay for of a aquarium heater, air pump and bubbler stone. Am planning on having a tub with water, have the heat in that to raise the temp and the air pump through the bubble stone to get some movement and create humidity, then have a fan blowing in and some pipes coming out and to the monotubs. So can get good FAE and keep humidity.

this a bad idea from what you are saying?

My goal is get pan cyans grows working well. Just waiting for the rains to pick up so can find some here (usually find a hand ful every year out side our house (sometimes in the garden if the neighbours cows got in <angry>. Had a couple of pan cyan trips 20 years ago and they blew me away, never had them offered again since. I think pan cyans are more awkward to grow and need that FAE exchange, hence the above "idea"



Bought 2 spore syringes off some guy I found on facebook. Not too sure what they were, he doesn't answer he messages now. But the syringes didn't look like contained spores (certainly weren't black like I used to make them, so either they are very very very weak, or is a LC solution of some kind.

This morning have noticed some myc growing on the canary grass seed (about 7 days now) on 50% of the jars, others nothing. But perhaps I was too cautious on amount of solution to use as wanted to keep some for agar experiements. Zero showing on the popcorn, which is 1 day behind the c.grass seed jars.




Laid some agar plates yesterday. I have come to realise my SAB is far too tiny, the material is a bit opaque which isn't ideal and my office can be quite drafty even with doors / windows shut - build quality is not too great here lol. The room faces towards the ocean, so there is always a sea breeze, Will need to perhaps look at spare room at the back of the house, or build a shed or something.

But got the syringe solution onto 8 plates, although, getting drops out was hard, most the time a squirt of far too much solution came out, so I just rolled it around the top of the agar and sealed it up.

Also had a mushroom in the FC come ready, so I tried taking a sample from inside the stem (terminology?) at the base, that was hard as was using a razer rather than a skapel in the too small SAB with slippery gloves whilst pouring with sweat as had windows and doors closed and fan off.


That's quite a lot of mushroom eating! I'm probably going to be able to eat about 10grams a year based on how often the wife takes the kids to see her family (although I may start suggesting she visits more once I have some good supplies lol. Mostly am planning on giving them away, but am not sure that kind of talk is allowed so will stop there

Same with me. Last grow was around 2004 and when I picked up the hobby again I started with a heater, air pump, etc. Then I read all the recent articles and found that the complicated active setups we previously used are old skool and relatively ineffective.
No ideas are bad, just not as useful as other ideas.

What has been discovered over the years is that cubensis don't need much help to fruit. Shoebox tek is very simple. There is enough FAE in a small box from the gap in the lid that you don't need active air exchange (this is important when choosing what plastic box to buy). Fan once in a while if you feel like it. Mist if the top appears dry. Otherwise the boxes will be fine if you just leave them alone.

FAE is the number one pinning trigger. Higher humidity is necessary at the surface but not the whole FC in general. Meaning as long as there are tiny moisture droplets visible on the surface (not pools of water), the humidity is enough to initiative pinning. We don't need active setups that humidify the whole FC, like we used to believe.

Pan cyans might require a bit more attention and dialing in, but not much. Like you probably need a casing layer whereas with cubensis it is optional. Maybe fan more often. But if you're like me, you check on them often anyhow so that's the opportunity to give them more FAE than the gap in the lid is already providing.

One thing I don't understand about trying to grow more fussy species because they are purportedly stronger. Why not just eat more cubensis instead?

>> But got the syringe solution onto 8 plates, although, getting drops out was hard, most the time a squirt of far too much solution came out, so I just rolled it around the top of the agar and sealed it up.

I use individually wrapped sterile cotton swabs:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000BI3M60/

You can probably sterilize your own in the pressure cooker. Saturate the swab from the syringe, with a bowl underneath to catch the excess drops. Then dab a drop from the swab onto the center of the plate, or lightly run in an "S" to get more spores onto the plate. The idea with the "S" being there are more chances for spores to germinate away from contaminants. You will probably have to transfer clean mycelium away from this initial innoculation plate, as most spore syringes have some contaminants.

I have a couple African Transkei plates innoculated from a syringe. There is a blob of bacteria growing in the centers where I dabbed the swab, but the mycelium runs faster so I was able to get a bit of clean mycelium at the edge to transfer to new plates. The original plates I put in the frig until I see the new plates growing. Then the original (contaminated) innoculation plates can be tossed.

>> Also had a mushroom in the FC come ready, so I tried taking a sample from inside the stem (terminology?) at the base, that was hard as was using a razer rather than a skapel in the too small SAB with slippery gloves whilst pouring with sweat as had windows and doors closed and fan off.

Scalpel is definitely easier. As with mycelium germinating from spores, you may have to transfer clean mycelium onto a new plate after you see some new growth away from the cloned tissue (typically once you see a nickel or quarter sized circle of mycelium). Assume your tissue sample picked up some contaminants from the bulk substrate, even though it is relatively clean being inside the stem.

>> That's quite a lot of mushroom eating! I'm probably going to be able to eat about 10grams a year based on how often the wife takes the kids to see her family (although I may start suggesting she visits more once I have some good supplies lol.

I have a daily meditation practice, and every two weeks I do a medicine journey where I meditate 2 hours beforehand, take the shrooms, then meditate 2 hours on the shrooms. Maybe you can start meditating and ask your family to leave you alone for 4 hours every other weekend while you do an intensive "meditation session".