1 kilo of wheat bran

A wheat kernel is made up of three parts: the bran, endosperm and germ.

The bran is the hard outer layer of the wheat kernel, which is jam-packed with various nutrients and fiber.

During the milling process, the bran is stripped away from the wheat kernel and becomes a byproduct.

Wheat bran has a sweet, nutty flavor. It can be used to add texture and a full-bodied taste to bread, muffins and other baked goods like mushrooms substrates…

Many types of mushrooms , specifically oysters, will do great and fruit heavily on straw logs as the primary food source. However, most gourmet mushrooms will actually do much better if grown on hardwood sawdust supplemented with some sort of nitrogen rich supplement.

Growing gourmet mushrooms on sawdust blocks will require a little more work than with straw logs, and more equipment- mainly because sawdust blocks need to be pressure sterilized- unlike straw logs which need only to be pasteurized.

However the advantages of hardwood sawdust supplimented with wheat bran are: Colonisation is fast, less mess and waste, has lower chances of contamination due to being sterilised, and provides a perfect medium for the mushrooms to grow large healthy fruits.

The basic recipe we use to grow all our gourmet mushrooms uses Oak hardwood sawdust, wheat bran, and water. Hardwood sawdust in bricket or pellet form are used because they are readily available at local retail stores or online, and store easily.

Make sure to get hardwood pellets and not softwood pellets. Mushrooms do not grow well at all on softwood.

The pellets and bricketts expand when soaked in water. Wheat bran is used as the nitrogen rich supplement.

Oat bran can also be used, but we have found wheat bran to be the most effective. As for water, the trick is to add just the right amount to get a proper moisture content.

You don’t want your block to be too wet or too dry. The following recipe works great for use, but you may have to adjust it slightly to suit the specific moisture content of you pellets.

400g dry Wheat Bran

1 x bricket of Oak Hardwood Sawdust 2kg

2000ml of boiling water.

Combine the hot boiled water, the oak hardwood brickett and bran in a large bucket and leave to expand.

In the morning when the contents of the bucket have cooled. Mix the wetted substrate with hands and bag up before sterilising to suit.