It Only Took Me 6 Years to Figure This Out!

[@kevinfox2370]

Thank you. Started a farm here in colorado and as it warms up we are seeing a spike in contamination. Neurospora and trich are what we are fighting. Will try some of these teks.

[@chrisnuenthel8937]

Could you naturalize the mycelium to eat mold? Paul Stamets notes that if you want to take a culture that's been grown in sterile conditions and grow it in the wild, you have to slowly introduce it to microbes because it's immune system hasn't been developed enough to compete well. I have first hand experience with this because I grew oyster mushrooms from store bought mushrooms. In the store it could have been exposed to large amounts of bacteria and mold spores. The base of the mushrooms have mycelium growing. I would clone them completely none sterile. Grew it on logs I steam steriled and placed in a see through tube. Green mold grew on the lower logs, the oyster mycelium was placed on top initial which quickly grew down very rizomorphically. When it got to the green mold it actually hovered over it then came down on it and it was never seen again. I also grew oyster mushrooms in coffee which had green mold grow on the side. The oyster mycelium just ran right through it and again never seen after that. The difference is I used tissue culture that had time to adjust to microbes. Maybe it would be worth looking into. While sterilization is great, having the extra insurance of having strains that can kill bacteria and mold would stave money.

[@lyci.]

Super helpful thank you! If you keep track of enough data you should be able to figure out the optimum time to leave the bags in the steriliser to minimise/ predict contamination. E.g. track length of time in steraliser, temp on removal, material, # of contaminated bags. Then you can run a regression and see what the results are - predict the amount of contamination if you remove the bags after X hours.

[@whatthefungus]

Lyci that's the plan

[@nohja]

@@whatthefungus can you share the optimal time to leave the bags in the sterilizer to prevent contamination?

[@braingamedotcom]

I needed to hear this today, was having a few contam issues. Nice to know that people have walked the path before me! Mush love

[@HangingRockKY]

Love your channel ❤️ I've been cultivating mushrooms for 2 years now for the wife and I. I just retired. I bought a small greenhouse 10×20 and thinking about selling small scale. I like your channel because your talking about what not to do reveling your mistakes and finding solutions to over come problems. I find your channel very helpful. Thank you 😊

[@user-vt5hx1kz7l]

Thank you from someone who is just starting out on their mushroom growing venture in the UK. I have just lost a whole batch due to black mold and I had an inkling that it was due to the substrate being too warm. Your video confirms my hunch. Thank you 🙌

[@kenho2481]

Can you use mushrooms from the grocery store for The Missoulian

[@d.b.skyaerials2524]

There is away to introduce hepa filtered air into your drums and vent out of the top of drum keeping positive pressure in your sterilizer (sending cool air in the same time your leting hot air vent) would let your bags cool down in hours ver days.Keeping positive psi with filtered air . You would need to keep at least 2 psi on sterilizer to keep air pure during cool down..Thats how I do it at my work using 300 thousand gal. vessels and we have zero contamination.You also need to figure a way to keep your bags steril from sterilizer to inoculation.

[@whatthefungus]

D.B. Sky Aerials will be designing a cool down container that has a double door into the lab

[@OpareSam-hs2px]

Please am Ghana and would like to know how to prepare my spawn, love you work want to go into this very project. Help me start my bro.

[@toddwmac]

Love your testing mentality. Considering that this is more than 4 years old, would be cool to know who took some of your insights or hypothesis', applied them and now they are used by many. Thanks for your contributions.

[@mo4u1]

Thank You, this is so helpful, I'm new and trying to learn what I can before I get to that stage. Still working with agar. The temperature to cool down will be a definite focus. Dump your bags in the woods friend👍👍

[@wickedjack1222]

Interesting Ive been unloading from hot and have had the exact same problem

[@christianchamp-ht5rs]

wonderful content do you impulse seal. before you go into the steamer?

[@glasscannon7993]

I've had this problem aswell... to much moisture in summer leads to compost!! The slow reaction of cooling down in presser causes them to dry out a extra... but seal emeadetly when cool enoff to touch.. hotter the better.. cold attracts, heat repells in this deminstration

[@glasscannon7993]

Dose he use liquid culture?

[@dantosinferne]

Around 6:00 , regarding top spawning, not mixing right away, damn that's a great idea. thank you for sharing that one. i hadn't thought about that!

[@archiewebster5034]

But think about double handling at large scale. I agree there is only one way to test the viability of spawn and substrate. But generally you get a feel for what went wrong when you are doing this every week for a long time. The spawn will show contamination in the bag. It should be inoculated with agar and used quickly. Contam enters the spawn when it is left in the shelf for too long. If the spawn is produced correctly, you can be pretty sure you did something wrong when producing the substrate.

[@haunce]

Brian-Thanks for posting so others can learn from your mistakes not just their own. I might have a semi solution for ya. I bundle my bags (unsealed) in a handkerchief. This does a couple of things. Bundle bags in a kerchief: 1: Pulls them tight so they are not as insulating. (heat gets to center quicker) 2 : Keeps them off wall of sterilizer - protects bag from melting. 3: Brightens my day to see the pretty colors ;) 4: After unloading, I have a bunch of sterile rags to wipe stuff off with. 5: I can move bags around without worrying about contams getting on the outside before spawning. 6: ***Mostly- as bags cool, the air sucking in gets filtered through the fabric.***

[@donnbialik9085]

So what did you figure out as time went on? How long are you cooking those bags now? How long do you leave them in for the cool down?

[@diplod5000]

Get better filter bags I saw a mushroom grower just pour hot water over pellets to pasturize over night. Drain the bucket of pellets. - and inoculate the next day!

[@kimprocarione5473]

Excellent information! Thank you for sharing your trial and error for us all.

[@kimprocarione5473]

@Eric Lawrence thanks!!

[@d.b.skyaerials2524]

All I can say is Mr. Callow,you seem to be the hardest working man I've seen in along time.Always looking to improve your system.

[@whatthefungus]

D.B. Sky Aerials you got it

[@edc.lucero311]

I have a question . Do you usually cultivate directly to the substrate ? Or so you have to make grain spawn separate and then cultivate with substrate ? Is it diferente for each strain ?

[@cassieabhram7089]

Love your passion and spirit to overcome problems . I'm wondering, as an outside observer not involved with mushroom production , why you do the very complex and labour intensive batch process involving plastic bags , instead of the normal way of mushroom cultivation of preparing a sertile growing medium bed then inoculating the bed . your moving the medium in small batches with lots of handling and possible contaminations vectors ...this might seem an obvious question .....Cassie UK

[@whatthefungus]

Cassie Abhram beds are used in the button mushroom industry. We are growing wood loving species

[@thesupremechickenhed]

Thank you so much for that knowledge. Will likely help me avoid disaster in the future

[@maxplank3782]

If you have a contaminated bag can you resterilize it and still use it?

[@carolferguson5467]

That's interesting, I notice that Dr. Stamets bags had the wheat germ on top of the wood sub and the spawn on top of it. Makes sense as the mycelium can better digest the sugars in the wheat germ, it's really the mature mushroom that requires the wood then?

[@portwolf2293]

Hmm, wonder if you could set up a chilling loop, I need to go back and look at your process. We have Rv size Boilers at work, we usually run our processor Temps at 212.0c but we use heat exchangers and can cool down with chilled water. But we can also run that temp since we use inert gas, Co2 generated off the Boiler. And displacement of 02 by steam. Inert atmosphere keeps anything from burning/ catching fire. I'm just brain storming on a process that would take hours rather than days.

[@whatthefungus]

Jeremy Young will be doing a video soon but I want a storage container that is positive pressured with hepa air for cooling down our bins over 3 - 4 days (bags will not be unloaded until we inuculate),

[@portwolf2293]

WHAT THE FUNGUS I gotcha, I was just exploring speeding up turnaround with higher Temps and faster process. I work in a food plant where we run 24 rows at 440ft a min, so just seen a potential bottleneck later down the road. As for the container, I'd look at hydronic cooling using warmboard and pex over a geothermal or hybrid unit. That way you don't need a massive hepa unit. Would also make expansion easier using manifolds for multiple containers.

[@d.b.skyaerials2524]

We steriize our tanks for 60 min. Then start cracking in air the same time we start venting and keeps from sucking the vessel in as long as we don't let psi go into vac

[@portwolf2293]

D.B. Sky Aerials hmm, have you thought about the Uv room sterilizers that douse the room in Uv, they use them in the medical field and clean rooms.

[@d.b.skyaerials2524]

Jeremy Young yes we do use them in the lab clean rooms.That is a must have in your inoc rooms,that way you don't have to rely souley on steril air flow

[@zorankospic6243]

Hello . I did not understand well. Did you have less contamination after four days or after two days of cooling. Best wishes .

[@90spyro65]

Great, innovative material, thanks for advice :)

[@arcies9286]

Wow, new grower here who was discouraged because out of my 5 first bags I lost 3. Guess I'll just make 10 next run and try to do it better. Great vid, thx

[@sabastiangreer7560]

Genuine respect. Thank you.

[@mojay6110]

I know this vids old. But I'd guess tge problem was that dirty air is coming in thru the filter. Sub bags. W a .5 micron filter cooling down and creating a vacuum not inside a clean room.

[@douglasbowers9103]

I have doing a lot of reserch on mushrooms I have always hunted wild mushrooms but as I grow older I'm looking on ways to farm them. Thanks for the insight

[@andrews9328]

Hey thanks for sharing especially in your moments of trial. I hope all's well 3yrs down the line. How long would you say a person should sterilize a large spawn bag(5qts of hydrated rye berries) @ 15-17psi? I learned from a dude using 64oz jars, but wanted to learn bags and I'm having trouble. Thanks for any advice. Hopefully you're still active on here.

[@jacobfoley9430]

Thanks for the info I’ve literally been inoculating jars that are cold to touch after only 2-3 hours, now I leave overnight everytime and as long as correct moisture content there golden. I’m using Wild bird seed

[@whoareyapauldunn]

hit and miss with me with regards to WBS - keep getting wet rot

[@jacobfoley9430]

@@whoareyapauldunn I’ve just had this with a batch I think it’s due to too much cc of spawn or LC

[@jacobfoley9430]

@@whoareyapauldunn it will get easier 🌞🍄❤️

[@whoareyapauldunn]

@@jacobfoley9430 well from where i started to where i have come too - huge difference lol at the start i was like a kid trying to use a complex computer LMFAO slow but steady improvement!

[@ClickinChicken]

Yo Joe! Where does mushroom compost come from? What is that material at the store?

[@ClickinChicken]

I'm older than you, at end of show Snake Eyes would have lesson with kid, and knowing is half the battle.

[@chrismetalmayhem6martin204]

I'm trying to get past Trichoderma, I have no doubt that I not only accidentally let Trichoderma spores into the air in my room. As well as having room temp too high a breading ground for Trichoderma so now I'm trying to Brainstorm what ever ideas I can to get rid of the trick spores from the air or on the wall, floor board etc even my grain spawn jars

[@diplod5000]

Also - the bags you are using could have a problem at the plant or something. Sometimes happens!

[@veganfoodsYOUTUBE]

I have a similar problem so did Your technique pretty much work towards success in the direction that You were aiming ?

[@danielstrickland3379]

Fantastic observation man...gl in the future!

[@craigclark6139]

so thankful ill pass it along have a great one

[@taurino117]

why not oppening the bags inside a clean room so if they suck air inside they won't contaminate?

[@brodiebiology560]

Thanks for sharing this Brian!

[@Allaboutpie]

Ive been having issues with a variety of different contaminations. My grain starts to colonize and then contamination hits hard. Cant figure out what the deal is but this video makes me believe that my incubation temp is too warm. Ive been incubating other species at 79 to 81 and it works great but the lions mane keeps contaminating. Good video and im gonna incubate at a cooler temp. The lions mane is the only one ive been having problems with. Everything else has been flawless. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

[@whatthefungus]

Try sterilizing longer and allow your grain to cool off before handling

[@jibbajungs]

Thanks for sharing this, yet another thing for me to look out for :)

[@ketzalkiawitl]

Súper súper súper súper súper helpful . Thanks for sharing your hard earned experience.

[@rocketboy73]

First thank you for your channel! I find it interesting! My background is in Pasta and I'm quite familiar with starting a business with "junk equipment" and building it into something that you can be proud of. Observations and Questions.. When sterilising your wood chips, is there a reason that you kettle cook the grow media or is the goal simply to sterilise? If the plan is to have bacteria free wood chips could you continuously feed a thin layer of media through a steam tunnel? This is coming from a Pasta manufacturing perspective where we run 60,000LB of pasta a week. At the end of the tunnel you could put a cooling tunnel so the output would be what ever temp you would need based on speed and length. Is this possible?

[@whatthefungus]

Arnie Schrock perfect unit would have a double door for unloading into a clean lab. We will be designing a cool down storage container that is positive pressured to ensure a proper cool down. All of this takes time and money

[@rocketboy73]

ooo do I know the struggle! A new Pasta line can be 3-5 mill.. So you need to sell 10-20 million bags just to pay for it. So, Am I correct that you're simply trying to get the temp of the media up to 200 ish without toasting or burning it?

[@whatthefungus]

Arnie Schrock 10- 15 hours at 212F

[@deborahkearn3703]

Very interesting, and thank you for showing the success and failures with possible solutions is awesome!

[@drewslocum4266]

I am confused about your theory about the correlation between the bag temps at unloading and contamination. There may be something I'm missing but wouldn't the higher temp just further ensure the sterilization? It seems more like a correlation between different dates for inoculation and contamination.

[@whatthefungus]

Drew Slocum the bags suck in air during cool down, and the vacuum seal will break if disturbed when the bag is too hot. Time and clean air during cool down is what I'm missing

[@jonathanmartin9356]

Time and clean air between inoculation.is 🗝️

[@dellafurious]

Great video. Ill start top spawning my bags with my next transfer.

[@bradleyolivia9407]

How did that work out?

[@blueeyeswhitejesus]

also have you seen paul stamets' method he found of anaerobic, water dunk pasteurization? if so, what thoughts do you have on it?

[@terredemiel1942]

Great! Very helpful video. Thank you!

[@whatthefungus]

Glad it was helpful!

[@Lipi19821]

that lip clap really gets on my nervs...😂😂

[@liamgallagher7038]

Great advise mate

[@priyanshukul1]

Hi I am getting tricoderma fungus in my ganoderma Mushroom bags. I autoclaved them for 1 hour. Do I need to increase the time limit?

[@YougGui]

Thanks for the sharing mate !! 'Cause what ever mushroom we grow, this tip is helpfull. Keep up with the good work ! I hope you'll figure things out with your comparison method, take notes ;) Keep shroomin' ! :D

[@cakopinolo]

Hello...u use soda spawn because u make it,or its possible to buy also??

[@tom_price]

Would love to learn on your farm, very inspirational stuff.

[@whatthefungus]

Tom Price thanks

[@jeffrobinson2358]

I don't understand your sterilization process for wood chips. As a chef for many years, i learned that when boiling and making different soup stocks, "they need to be cooled very rapidly" before storing in fridge. We do this to get it out of the "Danger Zone" or the temperature where bacteria loves to grow. So just some food for thought.

[@kathleenmathieu4240]

are you still doing farm visits?

[@romanshvydkoy8589]

Here is my 2 cents. Woodchips in the bag method never worked for me -- instant contamination. I believe that chips are MUCH harder to sterilize and it is not just about cooling down. It is about the fact that solid wood is a poor heat conductor. In fact it is almost perfect insulator. So, when we use sawdust it is minced to such a small grain that when we soak it makes wood cells all hydrated. Then the heat can reach every cell and kill contam. As to woodchips, you need to soak them 3-4 DAYS at least to make sure you have them properly hydrated, and then sterilized. With that regiment, it worked for me, but man, timewise this just doesn't make any sense. So, yea, back to sawdust pellets, 2.5-3 hours at 15psi, let cool down completely. Classic always works. Good luck!

[@simbian5900]

Sad to see that...but yeah, as you said, small scale test your new sub/growing medium first

[@jeremyhenrichs1831]

Great video!

[@PeterBove]

Lets go Brenden

[@kohebenezer1063]

l need the spawn bags with filter to buy live in Ghana

[@jimcricket71]

Thankyou for the info

[@aripekka7158]

The way mycelium is put in the bags, I'm really surprised you don't get a 100% contamination...same for the un-sealed bags in the cookers....

[@nicolelamoureux3133]

My sweet John boy!! 😍😍☺️

[@woods_rambler]

When you go about sterilizing your substrate, are you sterilizing directly in your grow bags or do you sterilize the substrate and move it into bags once it is cooled?

[@cemssonga9797]

Has anyone solved the green mold problem?

[@whatthefungus]

Ya years ago. What do you need to know?

[@cemssonga9797]

@@whatthefungus solution of green mold disease in fungus

[@whatthefungus]

@cems songa Sterilize your substrate for 2 hours above 95C and let cool below 35C before you unload from your unit.

[@yeshuaisthewaythetruthandt515]

Thanku

[@visualismeditate]

wow interesting

[@robertfitzgerald8647]

2:51 damn it that sure is a lot of s'mold dude

[@legionjames1822]

Wtf you have lost weight and look very healthy. Nice work bro

[@MrLozzinger]

interesting!

[@RakkaSan7219]

One thing I do to ensure my sterilizer is getting deep enough in my bags is for each Sterilizer I have a dedicated Thermometer that has the long cord for like puttingmmmout your house window so you can nnget and outside reading as wellmas indoor reading.....well mine has sharp tip so its like a icepick looking.....I run it inside the sterilizer and It gets stabbed into the absolute most center bag.....i call it my sacrificial bag../shrug. Just incase anythingnmgoes wrong w it later... anyway I get a realtime reading in mthe core of my most cored bag during the process and I can nget realtime reading as to when I know 100% that that batch did reach properm temps and. Faster knowledge as to when 100% cooled so we cannnpull em an start inoculations. Thats been an game changer for me.... speeds things by cutting down on cooling times, because I know forsure when it reached safe inoculation temps sooner and that each barrel did its job for X amount of time & temp. I myself have way better contam rates over all

[@RakkaSan7219]

Sorry about sloppy text....im currently using a pos tablet with shattered screen....lol P.s. another thing is my sterilizers have a HEPA filter leading into the only vent pipe leading into them. So whennnnthings are cooling andnndoingnthe Natural pull of outside air into them they nget filtered in the process..... so this paired w my thermostat sacrificial bag waaaay more productive on my side of the Fungi Ball

[@whatthefungus]

as long as you don't disturb the bags they can cool in open air

[@InahaFrost]

to much moisture....or heat

[@tylerm1538]

Seems like you need to slow down, rushing always leads to fubar situations.

[@blueeyeswhitejesus]

why not just do pasteurization instead of sterilization? because you already have a lab or another reason?

[@fungisolarsprderl8832]

because the substrate is supplemented with high nitrogen bran so if you pasteurize contaminants grow too fast and they win the race, it only works for straw or moderately nutritious substrates

[@blueeyeswhitejesus]

Fungi Solar SPR de RL he could just supplement the spawn... my point exactly :) use less energy, just need diff bags

[@blueeyeswhitejesus]

For fruiting

[@blueeyeswhitejesus]

I have done it loads and it works great, saves me time, starting a business myself

[@space.youtube]

"...the only way to learn is to make mistakes..." Why am I watching this then? 🤔

[@mukhumor]

I did find it informative, but every mistake I make costs money.

[@NoCantsAllowed]

Sorry you've encountered the complications and hope you can work through and eliminate your problems! If I may, though.... "The only way to learn... is to make mistakes." Is a statement that could only ever be true if you are the 1st and only to attempt something and so-happen to make mistakes while you are making your attempt. You can also learn from successes, reading, other's help, other's mistakes, observation... hell, I've even heard ya can learn stuff watching KZbin! ...really, there are countless ways to learn something. I realize, it's kind of a shitty & douchey thing to say/write and it's probably not really what you meant... but... ya did say, "...that's kind of what this is all about..." I'm only a lowly newb embarking on his first attempt but I would guess, based on what you've said here, that maybe your substrate is too wet???

[@kloii]

Thank you for this video. Have really been struggling with bags. I get contam every time.

[@whatthefunction9140]

are you able to recycle those bags in anyway?

[@whatthefungus]

Dylan T not right now

[@whatthefunction9140]

Check out high temp incinerators. They are cleaner than oil furnaces and they usually heat water.

[@TantricBioHacker]

Whats up with the "about" pronouncation going like "abuut" is this some kind of parody on the South Park Canadians?

[@TheAVNOV]

Education is important. If you had a basic AG degree, you could avoid contamination problems in this farm:

[@chrisnuenthel8937]

TheAVNOV I'm sure he knows enough. Legally u can be an expert on a subject without a degree. Degrees mean u did class work and met the standards for a set of schooling. You could do all the work and more required to learn a field but if no one is there to get paid, witness and hand out a document u obtain no degree.

[@yeahnahsweetas]

That's a pretty old sweater.

[@georgeconstantinou3545]

come and learn what in your farm? how to contaminate bags? All you want is Free labour SMH work for free like a dog for a month lol some 'professionals'

[@whatthefungus]

George Constantinou that's not really the point. I'm offering an open source learning opportunity. I'm not afraid to show you the good and the bad. If you don't understand the opportunity then I would not want you here anyways. Starting a business takes time and nothing is ever perfect. The best way to learn is by making mistakes

[@AlAllerton]

George Constantinou, I'd take him up on working on the farm in a heartbeat! The knowledge I'd gain is worth more than a paycheck. In the long run I'd save lots of time and money on my own mushroom growing by learning from someone far more experienced than myself. One thing I have learned on my own since studying mycology, is that there's still so much to learn. I imagine it stays like that forever. He's offering what amounts to a 5 or 6 year jumpstart in a business. So me personally I would love to do it, unfortunately I'm pretty far away. (-

[@SteveFrench613]

You don't always know what you don't know. I think i just found my 1st tattoo.