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.
We would recommend 20ml of Gourmet Health Mushroom spores for this project, which should get you around 500g+ of mushrooms. When these mushrooms are dried, they will shrink to 10-20% of this bodyweight.
Instructions
- Before injecting your bag, ensure to wipe the injection port with the included alcohol swab. Do not heat or wipe the spore syringe needle as it comes pre-sterilized and any attempt to sterilize it further may cause contamination.
- In a sterile environment, inject your spores into the bag and incubate in the dark.
- After injection, place your bag within an incubator & fruiting chamber. Signs of life within your bag should appear within 7-10 days.
- When you see germinated spores have formed a 50p size lump of mycelium, you can mix the white mycelium throughout the grain substrate. This should speed up colonization. Return the bag to its upright position so the golden vermiculite is on top, and return to the chamber.
- Mix the substrate once again soon after the mycelium starts to reform. Doing this will not damage the mycelium. Ensure you break up any clumps and mix the life throughout the substrate. Do not mix if you aren’t seeing signs of mycelium, they may need a little bit longer.
- Incubate again until full colonization has occurred.
- Once the cake is fully colonized you can drop the vermiculite sprinkles by removing the lower sealer stick. The vermiculite layer acts as a humidity shield, which prompts the mycelium to start rapidly pinning.
- When the substrate is fully white within five days of the last mix, it’s considered fully colonized and ready to fruit. At this stage you need to move the bag into the light, keeping it on a heat mat to maintain it’s temperature and humidity.
- From this point, your bag should fully fruit in as little as two weeks (permitting you’ve kept your project between 26-27c).
- When ready to harvest, simply open the bag to harvest- no misting of fanning necessary! Reach in and remove mature mushrooms by grasping, twisting and pulling them free from your substrate. Feel free to leave smaller mushrooms for a few more days until they’ve reached maturity. With this process, you’ll be able to harvest your first flush within 35-45 days (strain dependent).
- When all the mushrooms have been removed and weighed in their wet state, you can add 80% of the harvested mushrooms weight in water to the substrate. Seal up your bag once more and await your next harvest! Make sure to follow the steps above once more to ensure multiple harvests from your one bag!
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