Happy Friday everyone! So I was gifted/donates some old lab equipment and among the stuff there was a Thermo scientific incubator. This incubator can keep a consistent temperature between 50-90 F. It does not have a CO2 tank or hookup and inside the incubator there is an ac outlet. 

Ok I have heard if you are growing cubes(also doing gourmet like lions mane and oysters) then you don't need to mess with temperature or humidity. The consensus I got is that cubes don't care and they grow well through a large temperature range. 

I agree but I got this for free so I kind of want to use it. You know how sometimes you get rings on your agar? I heard it's from the temp change between night and day so I thought if I put plates in the incubator then it would make my plates look cleaner. Not just for mushroom growing but growing in general I think whatever you are growing will like the consistent temperature.

So anyway I put some plates in it a couple weeks ago and about a week later I noticed I had huge amount of liquid in my plates. Like a lot, where I had to take the parafillm off and I bought these sterile gauze and I would flip the plates and clean up the water. I have like 40-50 plates going so it's a big pain in the ass and takes up a lot of time. And yes I'm storing plates upside down. 

Now I wasn't sure why I was getting so much water so I bought a nice digital thermometer and I verified that the incubator is actually keeping the temp(I have it set at 75degrees) and the humidity inside the incubator is around 27-30%. Then I measured the humidity in the room that the incubator and it's at around 60%. So I thought you get condensation when there is a big temp diff(I don't think this applies because it's in the incubator) or maybe humidity diff? I wasn't sure so I thought if I raise the humidity in the incubator to match the room that it would help. So I bought tiny humidifier and I plugged it in inside the incubator and I was getting around 60% humidity inside. Ok fast forward a week and I have about the same water as I did in my plates as without the humidifier. So a lot of water, see the pics.

So wtf man lol, I'm not sure how to get rid of the excess water or stop it from forming. If I keep my plates outside the incubator in my still air box, I get a little condensation on the top plate of a stack and then the middle ones will be dry or normal. So I took out all my plates from the incubator because cleaning them is a pain in the ass and I don't want to put them back until I figure this out. Anyone got any ideas or experience with incubators? I know this is a small sub but what from I can tell there are definitely some knowledge people here so I thought I would give it a shot.

Incubator Woes