[Tastebridge] Stipticus

[Roger H]

Rikke, thanks for the kind words regarding my serendipity (as they say, there are two ways to be good, luck and talent; I guess I excel in the former).  So here is an update:  I prepped and cooked the first three bags of substrate (33 pounds) on Friday.  This time I was very cautious about pH and monitored it closely in all stages.  The substrate prior to prepping was pH-adjusted to 5.0 (down from around 5.5 drained from the mash).  Post cooking the substrate pH dropped to 4.5, something I did not expect nor understand.  Given the drop from cooking the substrate, I don't think I'll be adding any citric acid into the substrate for the remaining bags since the fermenting and cooking alone seems to drop the pH plenty low.  It's funny how I spent all this time learning that I could succeed if I just tried a little less hard - a true lesson in mushroom growing I guess.


The bags were inoculated 24 hours ago, and this morning I see some white hair-thin halos on a few specs of sawdust.  Although I'd need magnification to know for sure--I should get one of those jeweler's magnifiers!--the only phenomenon that I know that can create this appearance is mycelium growth, so I think everything is going to be fine.  Since there are already signs of growth after only 24 hours, the 4.5 pH must not be a problem at all.


Roger

PS - Given the pH drop I saw with cooking and how much citric acid I used to get a pH pre-cook of 3.8, it would not surprise me if the first set of bags had a pH of 3.2 or so.  That is probably just too low for the mycelium to tolerate.



On Sat, Nov 12, 2011 at 7:26 PM, Rikke Rasmussen <rikke.c.rasmussen at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>Hey folks,
>>
>>
>>Here are the latest pics: https://plus.google.com/photos/103960152819764522461/albums/5673920333877202449/5673512162566650498
>>- one is contaminated, and although the moldy spot on the surface is pretty small, you can tell how all the fruits are deformed and miscolored; the other is a happily fruiting uncooked coffee log.
>>
>>
>>Roger, thrilled to hear that you've discovered the source of your problems with the stipticus - really hope you get those critters to fruit!
>>
>>
>>Tony, you should totally come by the space on Monday and meet the mushroom grow people - there's a distinctly non-zero chance of there being other Tastebridgers around to talk to and get to know.
>>
>>
>>Hope to see everyone Monday at 7:30!
>>
>>/Rikke
>>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://www.noisebridge.net/pipermail/tastebridge/attachments/20111113/cc1e89c0/attachment-0001.html>