Mushroom growing

[Helios]

Has anyone here tried growing mushrooms?

Seems like a fairly relaxing hobby. Mushroom foraging seems like a related hobby, where people risk their lives for free food in the forest. Seems like one of those skillsets that's useful to have, now especially.

[BrianBackslide]

Haven't tried growing yet. from what I've researched, the hardest part is finding a substrate for what you're growing.
For instance, some mushrooms grow on wood chips/sawdust, but you'll need that to be a sterile UNTREATED substrate... Which can be really hard to get a hold of/expensive if you don't have a wood chipper handy. I've yet to get mushroom kits to be successful.

As for foraging, I actually found a patch that grows Chanterelles every summer, and have identified about 18 different species that live around my neighborhood. Most of them only popped up once and I've never seen them again.

[Helios]

I was watching this guy's channel

It seems like a lot of substrates are byproducts of construction, or other industries that deal with dead plant matter, that can you can get inexpensively

[Farquaar]

I’ve worked a lot with microfungi, and my only advice would be that sterility is of utmost importance in early stages. The air is chock full of spores, and you don’t want any Rhizopus oryzae corrupting your precious button mushrooms. Sterilize the work area where you’re performing your innoculations with 70% alcohol if possible, and once you’re done close it up and wrap it with parafilm or something.

[Kryson]

I've heard you can use a pressure cooker to sterilize medium.

[Farquaar]

I've heard you can use a pressure cooker to sterilize medium.

In theory, if you could get your pressure cooker to 15 lbs (121°C) and hold that for 20 minutes, the medium inside will be sterile enough for most laboratory purposes. If you're using a soil-based medium you'll need to autoclave it for longer though- an hour each day over a period of three days will do the trick in my experience.

You can actually buy autoclave indicator test strips that you can throw in with your flask of medium to verify whether you've reached a certain standard of sterility. If you're working out a protocol that suits what you have on hand, they would definitely be good for seeing whether your hardware makes the cut.

[BangingDonk]

Mycology is one of those things I find super interesting, but since I live in the middle of a desert instead of like the PNW, I mostly just collect literature than do any sort of practical technique. Amusingly, though, there's actually a huge wealth of information on DIY stuff from people doing closet grows of hallucinogenic mushrooms.

For home growing mushrooms that WON'T get your closet peeped at by the FBI, though, oyster mushrooms are an excellent choice to play around with. They're extremely hearty, have aggressive mycelial growth, fruit heavily, and I personally think they taste pretty good. As for substrate? I've seen people grow them on cardboard, inoculated cans of hominy, and in some case online, literally on a phone book.

I've even had mild success doing em in a bathroom from a pre-inoculated kit I got as a present once. Looking up books by Paul Stamets or David Arora would be worthwhile, if not a little on the academic side. Or, yknow, YouTube random videos of people growing stuff just for the heck of it. And a home pressure cooker is totally Good Enough for certain species like, well, oysters.

[Farquaar]

snip

That’s fascinating. If I had the space, I would try filling a small trough or basket with composted potato and grow some tasty portabellas, stuff them with cheese/bread and toss them on the grill.

Mushrooms have such a pitiably short shelf life. I really ought to grow them myself once just to taste a truly fresh one.

[BrianBackslide]

Typically if I find anything good out innawoods, I'll dry it, then grind it into a spice to add to stock/roast/gravy. I hear mushrooms keep well by freezing as long as you saute them well first.

Any of you tried Candy Cap mushrooms? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candy_cap I made an amazing bread pudding with them. They really do taste like maple! It's just a shame they don't grow around my area.