PF Cakes Spawned to Nutritious Bulk Substrate

so I finally am gunna try a bulk method.

since I do not have a pressure cooker yet. I am going to use a few brown rice flower cakes from the pf tek method to spawn to a hpoo substrate.

once I get some skrill, ill be buying a pressure cooker so I can switch to wild bird seed instead of pf cakes.

anywho.

i cant find much on exactly what I want but from past bulk threads from awesome rollitup members.
i decided I am going to take a whack at it with treys instead of mono tubs. for now.

so I did the calculations from other bulk recipes and made my own.
this recipe is for 2 half pint pf cakes...

horse poop - 4.8 cups
vermiculite - 1 1/3 cups
gypsum (calcium carbonate) - 1/3 cup
cocoa coir - 66.7 grams
H2O - 4.8 cups

I have not added the water yet and I still need to pasteurize this mixture.
I got two Penis Envy pf cakes waiting to be crumbled.

what should I pasteurize this mixture?
5 gallon bucket or just put into a pot on the stove?

I shall post updates once I get everything all nice a cleaned up.
and have mixed the penis envy spawn to my nutritious bulk substrate.

also...
should I use a casing layer or should I just give it a try without one?
I am assuming if I do everything right, I'll see a big turn around.
due to me being used to pf cakes fruiting and getting 5 grams off a flush at the most.

lets see what happens.

please. any advice would be awesome.
dankillerbs. where you at?

bump.

i think I know what to do but gimme some feedback before I start.

I'm new to this setup too, but just recently fruited my own trays. The biggest problem I was having was not using enough colonized spawn and my trays would only make it to like 25% and stall. I pasteurize cmc and coco coir on my stove then add gypsum and verm, water comes from pasteurizing so didn't have a need to measure since I can drain it. Sorry can't help on amount suggestion but as I said too much failed my trays everytime. I would use about twice as much poo and coir to the spawn used per tray.
I haven't used a casing yet either but I have verm and peat moss for an option, it seems like most people don't case with cubes.

horse poop - 4.8 cups
vermiculite - 1 1/3 cups
gypsum (calcium carbonate) - 1/3 cup
cocoa coir - 66.7 grams
H2O - 4.8 cups

Your spwan ratio may be too low here. You want to add at least 1 part spawn to 4 parts bulk sub. So two 1/2
pint cakes = 1 pint of spawn, which means you should only have around 4 pints of bulk sub for that amount of spawn. You can go lower(1:5, 1:6) or higher(1:3, 1:2) on you spawn ratio but higher is always best. When you spawn to bulk, you keeps things clean, not sterile, which means you need a good ratio of spawn to devour the bulk sub before contams can get a foothold.

I have not added the water yet and I still need to pasteurize this mixture.
I got two Penis Envy pf cakes waiting to be crumbled.

what should I pasteurize this mixture?

Yes, PASTEURIZE... when you STERILIZE, your killing off every living organism in the mix. This is why we need to be so sterile while noc'ing up BRF jars and grains... If a single spore survives on the tip of the needle and gets introduced at the same time your spores do, its gonna win the race against the spores you just injected.

On the other hand, we PASTEURIZE substrates that are recieving spawn because we already know were winning the race this way and these organisms that survive pasteurization are actually beneficial to the development of the myc.

5 gallon bucket or just put into a pot on the stove?
Dont try the bucket "pasteurizing" teks. Unless your using all the amounts they call for and following the tek to a T. Even then its not true pasteurization and people only get away with it by using coir, which is very contam resistant. What you want to do is mix up all your dry ingredients first... break up the coir and hpoo, mix in verm and gypsum, then once mixed well, slowly add water to bring the mix to field capacity. Here is a video to show you field capacity http://www.mushroomvideos.com/Casing-Layer-Preparation ... Once your sub is field capacity, load it into quart size jars, cover the jars with foil, and poke a meat thermometer through the foil and into the center of the sub... place these jars in a large pot, fill the pot with water until it covers 2/3 of your jar, turn your heat to med/high... dont turn the heat down until your thermometer is reaching 120deg(the water may be boiling at this point while the sub is still conducting its heat from the water), once the thermometer reaches 120-125deg turn off the heat... the temp will continue to raise to the desired range of 140-160deg... hold it in that range for 60-90 min... if it starts to drop below 140deg, just turn on the heat again until the temp starts rising again, then turn it back off... that should put you back in the sweet spot. After 60-90 min its done! Take the jars out to cool... once your thermometer drops below 80deg and the jars are cool to the touch it ready to use. Use pasteurized sub ASAP as you have just started the epic race of myc vs. contams.

I shall post updates once I get everything all nice a cleaned up.
and have mixed the penis envy spawn to my nutritious bulk substrate.

Make sure and wash your hands!

also...
should I use a casing layer or should I just give it a try without one?
I am assuming if I do everything right, I'll see a big turn around.
due to me being used to pf cakes fruiting and getting 5 grams off a flush at the most.

I wouldnt bother with a casing if I were you. Some species actually require a casing to pin and fruit well, while cubensis does not. It will take longer, be more prone to contams, and wont preform much better than an uncased sub thats recieving good conditions. If you had rh% issues you may benifit from a casing though. Really the turnaround you will see is just from fruiting a larger substrate.

lets see what happens.

When making your trays, shoot for a 2-3inch(max) substrate depth with spawn and all. Any deeper than this and the myc will have a hard time colonizing it all.

please. any advice would be awesome.
dankillerbs. where you at? [/QUOTE]

Right here bro!

dankillerbs...

you know exactly what to do and say.

i shall post images for you asap!

"I wouldnt bother with a casing if I were you. Some species actually require a casing to pin and fruit well, while cubensis does not. It will take longer, be more prone to contams, and wont preform much better than an uncased sub thats recieving good conditions. If you had rh% issues you may benifit from a casing though. Really the turnaround you will see is just from fruiting a larger substrate.

lets see what happens.

When making your trays, shoot for a 2-3inch(max) substrate depth with spawn and all. Any deeper than this and the myc will have a hard time colonizing it all."

I tend to disagree here. If your substrate is something other than straight grain and you are not worried about overheating, make that substrate 5 to 12 inches if you can. You will get fuller flushes, you will get more flushes and you will get more density of fruit. As far as casing? I have never done a side by side but I get some pretty nice results from casing. There really is no other way to syncronize your crop and get uniform fruitings. If you are going to do a bulk grow, you may as well not use techniques designed for smaller grows.


This is a 4th flush, recased. You can see some second flushes in my mushroom pictures thread, I suspect that casing gives heavier yields overall.

Not saying deeper is impossible, just more risky, and I would much rather have three 2 inch substrates than one 6 inch

ive done some playing around with casing but never a side by side and i change strains enough just for fun that its hard to say this is really best but so far what ive started doing is no casing till i see pinning. once my tub starts to pin i get some good wet vermiculite and do a small casing layer over the pins then. ive got some pretty huge fruits doing this in the last few months, and 6 flushes out of my no so large bulk tubs, i just reapply a small casing of vermiculite after each flush.

I've noticed that casing gives a much more even flush... uniform and level

so I used that mixture I said above and it turns out it was enough for 3 half pint cakes or 1.5 pints (quarts) of spawn.
perfect amount.
i will go edit first post right now.

I used said substrate mixture above and pasteurized the way dankillerbs described.
once the substrate cooled down I put a thin layer of verm on the bottom of each trey.
i had three treys. keep in mind it is one cake per trey with this mixture.
the treys I bought are about 2.5 - 3.5 inches deep.
after the THIN layer of verm was layed down.
I crumbled the pasteurized substrate mixture on top of the verm and made sure it WAS NOT packed down.
after that I crumbled 1 cake into one trey each. after birthing the cake and crumbling it in a plastic bag AFTER washing your hands.
then with that crumbled up cake, spread the crumbled up cake over top the bottom hpoo substrate mixture layer we just layed down before breaking the cake up.
after the crumbled cake is layed down. spread the rest of the remaining pasteurized hpoo substrate mixture over top of the crumbled cake.
spread it evenly, put some tin foil over the top of the trey.
and that is basically it!

the short version of my trey laying instructions is as follows...

it is diagrammed with text as a sandwich for example:

Tin Foil
Top of trey
Hpoo Substrate
Crumbled Cake
Hpoo Substrate
Verm
Bottom of trey

hope this helps.

today is day two into incubation and further colonization.
everything smells all nice and gardeny haha

i shall post reports in about a week and hopefully i will have some big ol' nutritious horse shit cakes with no contams.

While the tinfoil lid will not be airtight, it's still a good idea to poke a few small holes in the tinfoil to provide adequate Gas Exchange. If the tinfoil is loosely covering the tray it's probably fine, but if you crimped it around the edges all tight I would poke some holes in the foil. A couple pencil sized holes covered by a bandaid should do it. They come sterile which is handy... Put the breathable part that covers a cut over the hole and be quick so you don't introduce fresh air.

i thought they like non nutritious stuff. i heard they dont do good with nutritious items. Not 100% postive though

dankillerbs said:

While the tinfoil lid will not be airtight, it's still a good idea to poke a few small holes in the tinfoil to provide adequate Gas Exchange. If the tinfoil is loosely covering the tray it's probably fine, but if you crimped it around the edges all tight I would poke some holes in the foil. A couple pencil sized holes covered by a bandaid should do it. They come sterile which is handy... Put the breathable part that covers a cut over the hole and be quick so you don't introduce fresh air.

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fuck...

i did the same thing I forgot to do the first time i tried pf tek.

i did poke holes but i didnt cover them with a band aid or anything.
im at school right now.

if i put some on when I get home you think Ill be fine or am I most likely to contam?

DarthD3vl said:

I've noticed that casing gives a much more even flush... uniform and level

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Of course. But there will always be people debating cakes vs. casing. As casing takes up more volume and material and time. Anyone else got something to say?

ndangerspecimen101 said:

Of course. But there will always be people debating cakes vs. casing. As casing takes up more volume and material and time. Anyone else got something to say?

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Seems like you're confusing casing and bulk substrate. Casing layer shouldn't add more time because it doesn't get colonized, just holds moisture so mushies can get more water.

Oops.... confusion befuddles me again. Yep talking about bulk substates.... casing is just the little adding to give it extra moisture.... sounded like a big newb right now

Just spawn to bulk substrate. such as horse poo, coir, a little vermiculite

Don't worry, if the holes you poked are small it's fine. The band aid would be more if you made larger holes and needed to restrict FAE... Small holes or knife slits shouldn't need covering as they won't let much air in anyways...Also, band aids are total overkill on BRF jars anyways, the dry verm is your filter in that case and covering the holes would only slow things down. So don't worry about your trays, I'm sure they are fine Heatless. What are your colonizing temps and where are the trays being kept?

okay. that makes me feel better.=]

but temp is average at 76 degrees. i try to bump it up but my room mates complain about it being too hot in the condo.
and they are in the same closet where I colonize my pf jars.

thank you for your input bro. you always got me. i plus rep ya as much as possible when it lets me.

ndangerspecimen101 said:

Oops.... confusion befuddles me again. Yep talking about bulk substates.... casing is just the little adding to give it extra moisture.... sounded like a big newb right now

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you are good my buddy!

haha

have you ever tried to cultivate boomers good sir??