How Do I get Started?
1. 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. Do not spray anything on your inject and forget bag as it could damage the filter patch.
2. Turn on your heat source and ensure it gets up to temperature. If your heat mat has a temperature probe, make sure its taped to the mat where your project will sit for accurate temperatures. Your project should be kept between 26-27c. If using one of our 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!
3. Wash your hands then remove your bag from its protective outer plastic bag. Be careful not to touch the air filter too much as the oils from your hands can cause damage.
4. Pop your Gourmet Health Mushroom syringe out of its packet, keeping the end cap secured until you’re ready to use the syringe.
5. 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!).
6. Take out your alcohol wipe that comes with your bag and wipe the injection port of your bag (the small grey square sealed in plastic). You do not need to wipe or heat the needle as it’s a gamma irradiated, NHS grade needle. Therefore, sterilizing it further can cause contamination. Leave this to dry for a few seconds.
7. Gently shake your syringe against your hand to shake up the spores. No spores should be left behind! Can’t see any spores? You may have a an albino strain or it may be the effects of sonification. This is completely normal.
8. Once you feel ready, take the protective cap off the end of the needle, and inoculate the bag. Ensure to tilt the syringe so it’s slightly angled downwards about 45 degrees. Insert the needle only half way into the bag. Push down the plunger and release your spores into the bag. If your plunger is stuck, slowly pull your syringe out (but don’t remove it from the port) and push the plunger down again. If you’re worried about getting your needle stuck, add an extra needle to your order.
9. Pull the needle out and give your bag 5-6 seconds for the self-healing injection port to seal before giving your bag a gentle, but thorough, mix. It might be a bit tough as our bags come straight out of the pressure cooker to your door. If you’re finding it difficult, smush it between your legs before moving the substrate around with your hands.
10. After mixing, place your bag on the heat mat horizontally, on its longest side with the air filter and injection port facing the wall not the ceiling. This will ensure a speedy grow.
11. Put your project in complete darkness and leave it for 2-3 weeks until it’s fully cultivated with healthy, white mycelium. If your mycelium is slow, or all in one place please re-mix on day 10. If after this point it’s still being slow, please contact us for further advice.
12. 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!
You will get your first harvest after 2-4 weeks! After this point you should get further flushes, so projects may keep going for an additional month or so after this. Keep this in mind when you're going on holiday!
You should see mycelium begin to form after 7-14 days post-inoculation. Following another week or two this should be around 85% of the way fully colonized. Your kit should then be moved into low light conditions.
From entering low-light conditions, you should see pinning occur within 7-10 days. If this is taking longer, the lighting may be too strong, too weak, or too direct. If you're worried about this, please email us photos of the lighting set-up to [email protected].
As soon as you see the first pins, keep an eye on the bag as they can mature within hours or days!
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!
NO. OPENING THE BAG WILL CAUSE CONTAMINATION.
Any mushrooms which look peculiar (i.e., Lions Mane, Turkey Tail, etc.) require additional air flow by cutting a cross into the bag when it's time to fruit. Any typical looking mushrooms (i.e., button mushrooms, chestnut mushrooms, etc.) do not need any additional support.
Once your project is moved into the light and pins are starting 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!
It takes only three steps to promote a further flush (harvest) of your bag. Simply follow these steps below and you’ll have more gourmet health mushrooms in no time:
1. After your bag’s growth has stopped, simply open the bag and add a cup full of cold tap water to the bag. Let this sit (ensure it’s sealed) for 12 hours.
2. After 12 hours, your are ready to drain the excess - To drain the kit, you will lay the kit down diagonally in the sink. You will then want to to tip the kit slightly to encourage water to drain. Do this 3-4 times across 30 minutes. The block will only release a certain amount of water each time you tip it, therefore it has to be carried out multiple times to ensure the kit does not become waterlogged.
3. Place this bag (sealed) in the exact same conditions you had it in before for it to fruit successfully. Wait 7-14 days and you should have another flush!
Keep going until you exhaust your bags!Yield size does not depend on the syringe amount used, but the amount of substrate used. There is a sweet spot for each bag on how much ml of spores to use, and how much yield you'd get from this. If you use too little, it may take much longer. If you use too much, it will effect the substrate and may drown the spores.
1lb bag + 2.5ml spores = 50-75g (when wet)
2lb bag + 10ml spores = 150-250g (when wet)
4lb bag + 20ml spores = 500g+ (when wet)
When you dry your gourmet health mushrooms, they will shrink to 10-20% of their body weight when wet.
