How Do I get started?
- Start off by preparing your work surface. Give it a wipe down with some 70% Isopropyl Alcohol Spray. Using an incubation chamber? Give it a wipe down too! Let these surfaces dry and do not spray anything near/on your Dutch kit as it could damage the integrity of the filter patches.
- Turn on your heat source and ensure it gets up to temperature. Your project should be kept between 26-27c. If using one of our 60L all in one fruiting and incubator’s, you don’t need to change any settings as it come’s preset. Simply plug in and play!
- Wash your hands then remove your box from its protective outer plastic bag. Be careful not to touch the air filter or the bag or the inoculation ports too much as the oils from your hands can affect their integrity.
- Pop your Gourmet Health Mushroom syringe out of its silver foil packet, keeping the end cap secured until you’re ready to use the syringe.
- Open your needle packet from the top, remove the end cap from your needle and insert the syringe into the needle, careful not to trigger the plunger early. Keep the protective cap on the needle until you’re ready to inoculate (we’re not there yet!).
- Theres no need to sterilize the injection ports with this kit as it’s already fully sterile. Prepare your syringe by gently tapping it against your hand to shake up the spores. No spores should be left behind!
- Once you feel ready, take the protective cap off the end of the needle, and inoculate the box. Ensure to tilt the syringe so it’s slightly angled downwards as you press the needle into each injection port, stopping halfway into the port. Push down the plunger and release your spores into the bag. Release an equal distribution of spores into each inoculation port. If your plunger is stuck, slowly pull your syringe out (but don’t remove it from the port) and push the plunger down again.
- Pull the needle out and give your box 5-6 seconds for the self-healing injection ports to seal before picking up your box and performing the 360 Tek method. This includes slowly rotating the box 360 degrees to ensure an evenly wide distribution of spores throughout the kit, enabling a much quicker cultivation. You need to do this for 10-15 minutes for a quick cultivation.
- Then place your box back in the bag provided, seal it up and place it on the heat mat with the temperature probe directly between the two. Put your project in complete darkness and leave it for 3-4 weeks until it’s fully cultivated with healthy, white mycelium.
- Once your project has fully cultivated, you must keep it in the heat, but move it into indirect, low light conditions. Too much light can damage your project. If you’re using artificial light, make sure you don’t have it directly facing your project. If you’re worried about whether your project is too dark/light, pop us an email with some photos at [email protected]. We’d be more than happy to help!
- Remove the lid off the box and mist the walls of the bag at least once or twice a day to keep the humidity up. Do not spray the mycelium brick directly. Fan your project daily to keep up with the air circulation your project will need to be successful. You’ll have healthy gourmet mushrooms in no time!
- 10-14 Days after Starting the fruiting cycle you should see tiny dots forming on the cakes surface. These dots will grow over the next few days into tiny mushrooms. Keep humidity inside the bag very high at this time but keep fanning. The more” Spray mist then fan” cycles you give the growing pins at this stage the more dense the pin formation will be. With some strains this time may be as short as 4 days or as long as 21 days.
- As the gourmet health mushroom grow and develop you can ease back on the moisture and increase fanning if the mushrooms develop fuzzy feet. You may increase the moisture but maintain the fanning if the mushroom caps look dry or cracked.
- The mushroom are ready to harvest when the caps start to opens and the thin connecting veil between the stem and cap starts to break and certainly before the mushrooms start to drop spores. Spore drop is indicated by a sudden black sooty covering on the cakes surface (see below).
Dutch Kits are a great kit to go for it you're looking to get a larger flush than usual kits. On average, these kits will provide around 500g+ when wet of Gourmet Health Mushrooms. When these mushrooms are dried they will shrink to 10-20% of this body weight.
You will continually be spraying the walls of the bag with water which will keep it hydrated whilst pinning. However, as time goes on, this will not be enough to keep the project going. At this point, we would recommend adding 1/2-1 cup of water into the kit to soak it. Leave the kit for 12 hours to soak this up and the drain it a few times, leaving it five minutes in between each draining session.
After this point, you can keep it in fruiting conditions and it should bounce back with further pinning! You can repeat this process until the brick has exhausted it's resources.
Once your project is moved into the light and lid popped off, pins will start to rear their little heads. It’s almost ready to harvest your gourmet health mushrooms! It’s unlikely your mushrooms will mature all at the same time as this is an organic process. However, it’s incredibly important to harvest them before they fully mature and release their spores as that can cause contamination and bring an early end to your project. So, make sure to pick any mushrooms that are ready to pop their hoods whenever they pop up!
Make sure you harvest them between stage 3-4 to ensure your mushrooms don’t drop their spores!
Ensure you re-seal your bag with a small easy glide bag sealer if you'd like to get multiple flushes out of your bag!
Yes! This will keep the bag more protected from external contamination and act as a humidity tent throughout this process. It will act as a secondary barrier for the warm air and humidity to be held within your project.
Whilst sealed in the colonization period, you do not need to mist inside of the bag. Just keep it in the bag in complete darkness and it'll colonize in no time!
Dutch kits are one of the best kits to begin your studies with, but they can take a longer time as you can't break and shake them up to speed up colonization like other kits. Therefore, make sure you perform the 360 PF Tek for at least 10 minutes before leaving your kit to colonize!
From inoculation, you should see colonization appear from day 10-14. Full colonization should appear after 4-5 weeks from inoculation. Once in fruiting conditions, you should see pinning occur within 5-7 days! As soon as you see the first pins, keep an eye on the bag as they can mature within hours or days.
Fruiting will keep going as long as you mist and fan the kit appropriately!
Our kits require the environment to be warm, humid and dark to colonize. During fruiting, light needs to be low and indirect. They also require a healthy airflow to be able to expel their CO2 and take in oxygen. Mycelium will go dormant and wait for these conditions, so we would recommend checking these prior to contacting us.
Heat mats must be used in the winter, as the majority of Gourmet Health Mushrooms must be around 26-27c to colonize and fruit. Warmer areas in your house are not guaranteed to be up to temperature or stable. Some areas (i.e., above the boiler, near a radiator) are not suitable as they will heat up over 35c. 35c is when spore death can occur, rendering your project dead.
When using a heat mat, it's important to ensure the temperature probe is situated correctly, otherwise the project may overheat.
The bag should be kept in complete darkness during colonization. During the winter, you may be tempted to wrap your project in a duvet or towel which will keep it dark, but will also imped airflow. Keep it in a clean spare room, or a spacious cupboard that you can keep dark.
Low-light conditions can be achieved with both natural and artificial light. This must follow the natural light cycle (12hr light: 12hr darkness). During the winter, light levels will be lower and will not last the full 12 hours, so artificial lighting must be used. If you're worried you may not have the correct lighting, send photos to [email protected] so we can assist you further!
Keep the Dutch kit completely closed throughout the colonization period to prevent contamination from external sources. Once the mycelium has fully taken over the kit, and is around 85-90% covered in white mycelium, you can take the lid off to allow room for fruiting.
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