Posted Sep 6, 2020, 11:47 AM UTC
That looks like mycelium- it’s reaching for fresh air, so you may need a bit more FAE. But it looks ok and pretty healthy.
Got it, more fresh air - thank you so much!
Im noob too but i think they need more air!
Gotcha! Thanks!
Not enough fresh air. Those holes need to cover all six sides of the box, spaced about 2 inches apart. You should also lose whatever lining that is under the perlite - you need holes on the bottom so air can flow in and through the perlite to maintain humidity.
2 inches is 5.08 cm
Great, thank you. There are holes above and below (cut through the lining) after I put the perlite in. I added that sheet so no perlite fell through the bottom holes, then I pierced it as well. It that makes sense?
Definitely sounds like I need to work on improving the FAE, thank you so much!
Rewatch the RR videos and follow them EXACTLY.
I will do this. I watched the videos a couple months before starting. I remember getting confused by some of the agar videos and just thought I’d have a quick go trial and error and learn through doing. Thank you.
It's best to pick a tek and follow it to the letter when you're starting out. Once you have some experience and understand why things are done a certain way then you can start to experiment.
Understood .... there’s certainly much more to it than I first realised. I appreciate all the help!
It can definitely be overwhelming at first, but you'll pick it up in no time and it'll seem fairly straightforward. A lot of it is just best practice and some aspects are actually fairly forgiving.
You should also trim your Tin foil down to just barely around your cakes so the humidity can reach the sides from the perlite
I was totally unaware of this aspect of detail. I shall do this right away, thank you for the spot on that!
You need WAY more holes bud. And nothing underneath the perlite. You need i think 4 inches of pure perlite and holes need to be on all six sides, 2 inches apart. Elevate the box off the ground ( I've used CD cases, books, bricks, etc). If you're worried about getting water/perlite on your floor then put a trash bag on the floor underneath the fruiting chamber.
Exactly why I lined it, because of the excess perlite water falling through the holes (it is raised up) but then after 24 hours I pierced the same box holes to make holes in the lining sheet. Sounds like there’s definitely a lack of fresh air exchange, so thank you so much for helping!
You should drain the perlite before putting it in the FC so there shouldn't be much if any excess water. You would think some of the smaller bits of perlite would fall through the holes but in practice that doesn't seem to be a big problem.
Understood. I don’t think I let it drain fully - I left it quite wet thinking it was necessary to keep the moisture. Learning so much here, thank you - very helpful.
Perlite has lots of microscopic nooks and crannies - lots of surface area that holds water and lets it gradually evaporate. Any that drains off is just excess. You don't really want excess water that can pool in your fruiting chamber as it can encourage bacterial infection.
Perlite is so good at retaining and slowly releasing water that you don't even really need to rehydrate it at least until your cakes have stopped producing mushrooms. The water you add by misting several times a day is plenty to keep the perlite doing its thing and keeping relative humidity up for months.