Cheap alternative - Rice + Straw cakes - RS Tek

By now you should be familiar with my sterilization techniques so I wont go into them in detail. If you unsure check my other posts for a refresher. This method costs about a quater of the PF tek and gives the spores more energy per pint.

For 9 pint glasses of substrate use 1 kilo of rice and about 10 large handfuls of straw and 2 cups of verm .

Put your rice into a large pan and fill the pan with water, then swill the rice around to wash as much starch of as you can, this will help keep it fluffy. Once the water is cloudy drain it off and repeat until the water stays relativly clear. Drain of the clearish water.

Put enough fresh water into the pan to just cover the rice, boil for 10 minutes then leave the lid on and leave it for 2o minutes with the lid on, this will let the rice absorb all the extra water and make it fluffier.

You will also want to wash cut and wash your straw. Drop it into the sink and chop it up into 1 inch pieces, fill the sink with warm water and squirt on some washing up liquid, give it a good wash then rinse. Stuff this into a pillow case and submerge this in the largest pan you can find, you only need to pasturize this I've found boiling it isn't so great. Keep it between 60-70C for around 2 hrs. This will stink.

Once the rice has stood for 20 mins, take a fork and fluff it all up. I use a large brewers pan for this next part, its a huge metal basin with handles. Put the pasturized straw into your mixing vessel and drop in a couple of cups of verm, this will soak up any excess water and help keep the water content right during sterilization. Mix in the fluffy rice. I continue to mix this until the rice no longer steams, this stops the rice clagging up into lumps.

You will then fill up your pint glasses with the mix, cleaning the lip and topping the top half inch with verm. Put a double folded piece of foil over this, I tie this on with string, then put a slightly looser single ply of foil.

Sterilize in your preferred method for 90 mins. I slpit them between big pans and a veg steamer. If you use a pan remember to keep the glasses off the bottom or it will fuck your substrate.

Making mushroom tea

Shitake and Reishi mushrooms are very strong anti cancer foods I hera, I keep myself free of cancer by making a lovely tea out of them. I then counteract the tea by smoking constantly and drinking whenever I can.

For one cup of anti cancer tea take about 10-15 grams of wet fruit ( bare in mind that the second flush of homegrown mushrooms will be stronger so you may only need 10 grams ) if your using dried fruit I'd say use between 5-7 grams depending on the flush.

Finely chop up the mushrooms and drop them into a cup with about a tablespoon of lemon or lime juice in the bottom. The citric acid will start to break down the mushrooms making the anti cancer compounds more readily available to your gut. Soak for about 30 mins.

Fill up the cup with cold water and pour this into a saucepan, then fill the cup halfway up and add this water too.

Bring the tea up to a boil and turn the heat as low as you can , leave the lid off too.

You dont want to heat the tea too vigorously as this may damage the anti cancer compounds and you don't want to heat it for more than about 30 mins.

When done strain the tea into a cup , you can drink this hot or cold.

I'm sure you could use this recipe for field mushrooms or whatever, but why would you do that?

Mass substrate cultivation - Straw + Cakes

So I've done this now , this is the first time I've used straw in this way but I think I've got the method down. Here's what I did.

Bought one large bag of straw from the garden centre, half filled 2 pillow cases with said straw.

Boiled a half pan of water added 2 tablespoons of gypsum ( available from brewers shops )

Submerge one pillow case in the pan and boil for an hour. Beware unless you wash your straw first it will start to stink like shit after 15 minutes. I mean really fucking stink.

Sit the pillow case on a collander on your back step, draining board or whatever and boil t'other.

Once both bags have been pasturised and cooled empty them both into a large heavy duty clear bin bag.

Crush up afew PF cakes in a bag as described in the casing method, add this spawn to the straw and aggitate to spread spawn around.

Press this bag into a large storage box with a lid and leave it somewhere dark to colonize.

I'm actually keeping it at just under 25C , a temperature less favourable to trichoderma. Colonization will still occur just a little slower, I always have several terrariums going so I'm hardley ever in a rush to fruit.

Personally I prefer to incubate at a slightly cooler temperature, most ppl will prolly disagree but thats how I work and I don't suffer failures.

Lemme know if theres anything imparticular you want to know about want looking into, I'm always trying new methods and teks, and doing my best to improve them.

Mass substrate cultivation

I was just up at my local garden centre and I noticed that they sell big bags of straw as bedding, I'm gonna go up again later this week and pick some up. Then I'm gonna pasturize it and add some spawn then cultivate that, eventually making a huge casing out of it! Once I've done it I'll post up exactly how it's done.

Turning PF cakes into a casing

Heres a pic a friend sent me of an unknown species at the end of the casings life. Still looks bigger than most but as a casing ages its fruiting capabilities with decrease somewhat, he said this casing had already flushed 4 times. He had added a thin layer of potting compost to make adding water easier. Seems to have done the trick my old PF cakes would push out 4 flushes of pathetic little shrooms, nothing like this bad boy.

This method can produce much larger harvests for longer and can actually negate the use of a terrarium. Using Calcium Carbonate in the mix isn't essential if your having trouble getting it, seashells can be bought from some fish mongers, bake them then crush them with a mallet.

Another variation you can do is instead of cutting up the cakes, drop them into a heavy duty bag like a freezer bag and just break them up into pieces this works fine and can minimize the risk of infection.

If your going to put the crushed up cakes into several smaller containers and fruit them, you can either put the in a large clear plastic bag , or like me use a medium seed tray that has its own lid, you'll need to put air holes in this, I'll put up a couple of pics of the 2 different terraiums I use at some point.

Oh and sorry bout the formatting , I couldnt be arsed sorting it, if it bugs you c+p it into word and do it yourself ;)

C-Tek “Casing”

Step 1
· Produce required cakes using PF-tek
· Birth cakes directly into a plastic bag, shake the dry verm off to the bottom of the bag, then place the bag down , take a sharp clean knife don a glove and put your hand into the bag
· If applicable cut a thin disc of the top ( this is only needed if mycelium is not protruding from top of cakes where previously covered with verm ) and knock this to the bottom of the bag
· Now slice the cake into 2 fat discs
· Close the bag , repeat process twice to make 6 fat discs

Step 2
· Now prepare the mix for the casing
· Bake 4 cups of verm for 60 minutes
· Leave this to cool in the oven
· Mix 4 cups of verm with sufficient water to hydrate in a bowl
· To this add 4 cups of potting compost
· 1 cup of crushed seashells ( oyster is best )
· 2 tablespoons of calcium carbonate
· Mix together well and add enough water so as when your squeeze a handful only a few drops of water will run from the mix
· Now cover bowl with foil and steam for 60-90 minutes for a realgood sterilization

Step 3
· For this part use a makeshift Glove box
· Once the casing has cooled sufficiently pour the cool dry baked verm into the D-Tek terrarium
· Pour boiled water over the verm to hydrate it ( you may want to boil the water earlier cover with foil and allow to cool )
· Now carefully lay your fat discs onto the verm
· Spread the casing mix over the fat discs to a depth of approximately ¾ of an inch
· Run the back of a form over the casing to make sure its level this does not need any compaction
· Now cover with foil before removing it from the glove box
· Place this in your state of the art incubation device ( running at 26 – 28 degrees C )
· In around 5-7 days Mycelium should be starting to permeate the surface
· Remove the casing from the incubator, sterilize your propagator lid and place on

Step 4
· The casing should not be heated until fruition and then only when temp drops significantly in surroundings
· Harvest flush within 24 hours of each other to allow fastest recovery time for Mycelium
· Patch up holes left by harvesting with more sterile casing to fight infection
· Lightly mist the surface after patching
· Repeat step 4 actions 1~4 as many times as possible until culture is spent

Preparing your cakes to fruit

D-Tek “Dunk and Roll”
Step 1
· You will need to prepare your cakes using the PF-tek
· Fill a large pan with cold water
· After consolidation birth your cakes into a bowl scrape off the excess verm
· A healthy cake will have a nice fresh mushroom smell
· Wash the cake under running water and place it in the pan of water
· Repeat step 1 actions 3~5 until all cakes are in the pan
· Soak for 24 hours
Step 2
· Bake several cups of verm in the oven for 60 minutes and allow to cool in oven
· Remove a cake from the pan and once more wash it under running water
· Roll the cake in the baked verm so its covered entirely
· Next place a square of foil adequately sized to allow your cake to sit on it into your PFtek terrarium
· Place your rolled cake onto the foil
· Repeat step 2 actions 2~5 until all cakes are in your PF-tek terrarium
Step 3
· Put the lid on your terrarium and wait for 30 minutes
· Then mist the terrarium and the cakes 4 times or until the verm on the cakes in saturated
· Expect to see growth within 1 week

Bearded men know best - Video Instructions

If you want to see the method for making PF tek cakes and the D tek dunk & roll method you should check the video bar down the side for instructional videos. Remember with great power comes great resposiblity.