[HN Gopher] Smart mushroom growing device for beginners
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Smart mushroom growing device for beginners
Author : memorable
Score : 141 points
Date : 2022-07-11 13:35 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (shrooly.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (shrooly.com)
| [deleted]
| charlie0 wrote:
| I don't see anything about this being usable without an app. If
| that's the case, no deal.
| traverseda wrote:
| It says so on the Kickstarter page.
| jmlucjav wrote:
| I just harvested my first mushrooms ever yesterday. This was not
| some fancy lab stuff, just put the mycelium in some got a couple
| of sq meters in my garden (dried leaves and such), keep it moist,
| and got a nice harvest. Like this guy does:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TERv85b9krI
| thepangolino wrote:
| feynmanalgo wrote:
| I'm surprised people are consuming special mushrooms so
| frequently that they would even consider a special gadget for
| this purpose.
| spaetzleesser wrote:
| I assume it's for friends.
| 1234letshaveatw wrote:
| It's like growing zucchini, sure you won't eat it all but why
| not?
| idiotsecant wrote:
| If you want to eat anything other than agaricus it's hard to
| buy them fresh because most mushrooms don't ship and handle
| well. You can get them from farmer's markets in medium and
| largeish cities but if you don't have those your options are
| sad broken and dried out grocery store stock, if that. Consider
| also that for things like stroganoff, wellington, or other
| duxelle-ish dishes it takes quite a lot of mushroom to make the
| end product, since mushrooms are mostly water and will be
| 'sweated' of that water.
| bsedlm wrote:
| the fact that the frontpage animation is a cartoon (computer
| graphics rendering) of what they intend to do, and not a well
| produced timelapse makes me doubt their entire project.
| belval wrote:
| As with all indiegogo/kickstarters, a healthy amount of
| skepticism is warranted. However, the video does showcase what
| seems to be a working devices growing various mushrooms.
| yboris wrote:
| Related: https://www.reddit.com/r/unclebens/
|
| r/unclebens is a beginner-friendly community to share the "Ready
| Rice" technique, a simple and beginner-friendly method for
| cultivating mushrooms without a pressure cooker
| yellow_lead wrote:
| I had a feeling it was a kickstarter (well, indiegogo). Hope it
| works out, but I'm wary to put money into any of these.
| spaetzleesser wrote:
| This thing looks way too small. If you grow edible mushrooms this
| probably won't even be enough for one meal and if you grow magic
| mushrooms the yield will be pretty low too.
| hesdeadjim wrote:
| Clever device. I was wondering how they'd sterilize between
| harvests, but with the presence of a UV light I assume they run a
| sterilization cycle of some kind.
|
| While I don't partake, a quick and clean path growing magic
| mushrooms would be nice for the community. The existing teks out
| there still have plenty of room for contamination.
| loriverkutya wrote:
| Contamination mostly happening in the inoculation phase and
| this is just a fruiting chamber, does not help with that. You
| can also do the whole fruiting phase in a plastic bag with the
| help of a water spray.
| larrywright wrote:
| Since it's on HN, I just assumed this was for growing the
| psychedelic kind.
| throwatrip wrote:
| This is a fruiting chamber, not a mushroom growing device.
| Fruiting is by far the most trivial part of mushroom growing. You
| still need to sterilize a growth media, innoculate it with spores
| or mycelium, grow it out without contamination, and mix into a
| substrate long before it enters this device. Or buy their
| overpriced pre-packaged, pre-grown substrates.
|
| As a fruiting chamber, it does nothing that a $2 plastic
| Sterilite shoebox cannot do. They already self-regulate humidity
| and CO2 when set up correctly. Use your favorite search engine
| and look for Shoebox Tek.
|
| I've seen a few mentions of Uncle Ben's pre-cooked rice Tek on
| here. Using UB for mushroom cultivation is the mycological
| equivalent of programming in Visual Basic or writing a database
| in Excel. It's a technique for uneducated new users which is
| technically inferior, and in the long run way more expensive,
| than learning to do it the correct way. But it uses components
| that users have easy access to, so it is irrationally popular.
|
| I've tried my own hand at automating fruiting chambers, using a
| RasPi with CO2/humidity/temperature sensors (Sensiron SCD30),
| misters, and fans. Nothing but a pain, didn't increase yields,
| too much data leads to too much tinkering and tweaking. The best
| thing you can do for a mushroom grow is to leave it alone.
| idiotsecant wrote:
| >This is a fruiting chamber, not a mushroom growing device.
| Fruiting is by far the most trivial part of mushroom growing.
|
| You've hit on exactly the value being provided here - they are
| handling the culture, inoculation, spawning, and colonization
| stages and selling you an expensive box to put the result in.
| Sometimes people just want a quick fun activity and they don't
| want to research it beforehand. This product fills that need -
| send them money, they send you a mushroom growing experience.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| Usually when you grow mushrooms you do it in two steps. First you
| grow out the mycelium on a growth medium such as grains, then you
| spread out the mycelium and cover it with some casing material,
| say peat moss, and fruit it under different environmental
| conditions. A typical mushroom lab has two areas built out (say
| with plastic sheets) to maintain the conditions for these two
| phases.
|
| Looks like their machine creates conditions to fruit mycelium
| blocks that they send to you in the mail.
|
| It's a big plus that it works with mycelium blocks you make
| yourself.
| PartiallyTyped wrote:
| I had been considering setting up my own small lab to grow and
| do experiments for ... reasons. I think that this is a great
| way to get started and should greatly simplify the process.
| anonymoushn wrote:
| I don't think it makes sense to spend $300 on a tiny tub
| given how easy it is to do this stuff with jars or Ikea tubs.
| You'll probably want a lot of tubs anyway.
| markvdb wrote:
| You've just demystified a large potential demand source for
| this thing to me.
| PartiallyTyped wrote:
| Pleasure to help.
|
| With this device, all one needs is some grains (I have an
| uncle who has a relevant subreddit), and spores, which are
| legally obtainable!
| PaulHoule wrote:
| Back when we did it we had a fruiting tent that was maybe 20
| times the volume of that thing. Of course the project took up
| a whole room in the house.
| nibbleshifter wrote:
| Plastic storage tubs from IKEA or similar works out cheaper,
| and higher volume.
|
| Its pretty hard to fuck up as well.
| Gustomaximus wrote:
| Seems so. From step 1 on the website: "Choose from our
| precolonized mushroom blocks and press start"
| anewpersonality wrote:
| No no no.. for Lion's Mane, you want only the mycelium. How do
| you grow it in liquid such that 100% of the mycelium is
| available? Growing on grain ruins the cost-efficiency of the
| product.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| I am only familiar with eating of the fruiting body.
|
| Are you saying that the fruiting body is useless, or am I
| misunderstanding you?
|
| The eating of the fruiting body has a very long history and
| some literature.
|
| Do you have any more information.?
| idiotsecant wrote:
| The fruiting body of hericium mushrooms like lion's mane do
| not contain Erinacine A, which is generally recognized to
| be the most beneficial component of lions mane. That
| compound is present only in the mycelium. The fruiting body
| does contain Hericenones, which are also thought to have
| some health benefits, just not the nervous system repair
| benefits that Erinacine A provides.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Thanks!
| flutas wrote:
| There's a reason Ben's Original (Uncle Ben's) is big in the
| mushroom community.
|
| - Pre sterilized
|
| - Cost effective
|
| - Easy to monitor
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| $282 + $12/pod to grow fungus. Assuming you're going to use it
| legally, you won't have a positive ROI.
| pline wrote:
| as a home mushroom cultivator I can tell you that this device is
| pretty much the Juicero of the mushroom world. from what i'm
| reading this device accomplishes nothing that one can't do with a
| homemade monotub composed of a 32 quart storage tote, a spray
| bottle and some polyfill. if you are interested in growing edible
| gourmet mushrooms look up a local mushroom farm in your area,
| most of them sell blocks that you can fruit at home.
| 0_____0 wrote:
| What I _would_ pay money for is a simple panel -mount device
| with an ultrasonic mister and a fan, basically a simple
| humidistat that can sense and flush CO2. I actually bought
| components to do this but never quite got around to it.
| anewpersonality wrote:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224
| pline wrote:
| i think you are giving this device far too much credit to
| backhandedly imply that it is as groundbreaking as the
| introduction of cloud storage.
| folkrav wrote:
| Perfectly fair, it's obviously not really a good
| comparison. I'd however rather pay a bit more to have
| something a bit prettier than a spray painted monotub
| sitting on my shelf, when possible. Function over form, but
| I don't totally discount form either, I like pretty things.
|
| This one in particular is a good example of connected for
| the sake of it though lol
| vgatherps wrote:
| HN does love to dump on anybody doing anything but I don't
| think that home mushroom growing tools are in the same boat
| as easy to use cloud file access.
| detritus wrote:
| heh, as amusing as that reference is, it's a bit of a
| difference between buying a big ol' tub and a spray mister.
| About PS200, apparently.
|
| I'm curious to know how repeated use of the device will deal
| with sterilisation, which was always the tricky part.
| [deleted]
| TheBlerch wrote:
| Could you recommend any types of mushrooms you'd recommend for
| home cultivation and online sources for blocks? Already grow
| vegetables and it would be great to add mushrooms to the mix.
| Also are there any communities you'd recommend that share good
| advice?
| idiotsecant wrote:
| I have found that pink oysters are absolutely impossible to
| fail to grow in a wide variety of conditions, very robust to
| storage and handling, and very good to eat. They are very
| hearty little mushrooms (or big mushrooms sometimes!) I
| honestly have no idea why pink oysters are not sold in
| grocery stores or used in more dishes, they are very cheap to
| grow and add interesting color.
| pline wrote:
| lions mane and oyster are both great for home cultivation. if
| you look for a local mushroom farm in your area you can
| likely buy blocks from them. I've purchased blocks from Fat
| Moon Farms and had good success with them growing several
| pounds of mushrooms from a single block.
| https://fatmoonmushrooms.com/
|
| there are a variety of mushroom/mycology related subreddits
| and Southwest Mushrooms on youtube has alot of informative
| well produced video content
| https://www.youtube.com/c/SouthwestMushrooms
| unicornporn wrote:
| This thing looks extremely rough when examining pictures and
| video at highest resolution available. Take a look at the left
| edge of the display cut out, as an example:
|
| https://i.imgur.com/ttZZhwa.png
|
| This hobbyist level of machining does not go very well with the
| slick design and marketing.
| aliqot wrote:
| Wow I recognize this! That stuttered uneven spot is what
| happens when I try to flatten the edges with a dremel with
| the cylinder bit on and the speed up too high. It catches and
| digs in and makes the little dip.
| Closi wrote:
| It's a prototype, so not necessarily indicative of the final
| finish. That looks like it's been cut by a craft knife, which
| is unlikely to be the final manufacturing process.
| antoniuschan99 wrote:
| also looks like it's using a dht (probably 22) sensor which
| is not accurate. In high humidity environments should look
| for a sensor with a ptfe membrane.
| antoniuschan99 wrote:
| I found sterilizing the jars (in a hot bath), innoculating the
| (brown rice) and getting the mycelium to take over took the
| most effort and time (takes like 2 months in the dark for the
| mycelium to take over the entire jar).
|
| Getting it to fruit was easy and all I needed was some
| vermeculite to place the mycelium block on top of and a plastic
| container to act as a terrarium so it will trap the humidity
| from the spray bottle.
| azurelake wrote:
| You're living in the past my friend! https://old.reddit.com/r
| /unclebens/comments/el1d8q/part_2_in...
| bemmu wrote:
| You got me curious about the growing process (didn't even know
| it's something you can do at home), and came across this
| fascinating tutorial:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pm1FgFFzQd4
| [deleted]
| iancmceachern wrote:
| I got caught up in a similar thing years ago but for plants
| (MiT open ag initiative). It was all nonsense. An educational
| tool at best. I don't know about this particular product, but I
| do know that growing mushrooms is like growing plants, with a
| few less steps (no light), and a few other sensitivities
| (moisture control).
|
| The products that are valuable to make in this space have been
| made and are already commercially available to growers. Grow
| chambers, climate control stuff, etc.
|
| Ultimately we don't need Linux and Microcontrollers to do this,
| it's using the wrong hammer. Agriculture needs to be dead
| simple, simple as possible, reliable as possible. These things
| are not that.
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| OpenAg was more than nonsense, it was outright fraud.
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/13/business/media/mit-
| closes...
|
| ...and several other NY Times articles covering the mess. It
| never worked. Period. Which is amazing, considering that
| several friends have built DIY systems using open-source
| equivalents, for growing vegetables (and "vegetables").
| s_dev wrote:
| I don't think these smart boxes are for mushroom growers
| (agriculture) but for magic mushroom growers (recreational drug
| use). Where a "Click&Grow" equivalent is needed. With a
| hydrometer and water sprayer instead of a timed light.
| pline wrote:
| i fear coming off as a hostile know it all, but i think this
| company is simply parting a fool from their money (see
| Juicero). i don't think that a click and grow equivalent is
| needed in the cubensis cultivation space. with the advent of
| uncle bens tek around 2019 and pf tek years before that the
| flood gates for at home cultivation psilocybe cubensis have
| already been opened.
| dnfa wrote:
| I agree with you to an extent, but what has held me back in
| the past is that uncle bens tek seems a little sketchy (I
| want to watch it grow) and pf tek requires a lot of space
| (and oh my god what happens if it goes bad and then you
| just have a massive tub of rotting filth in your
| apartment).
|
| I would not pay $200 for this, but if you can make it look
| nice and make the process idiot-proof, I think there's a
| market for it.
| nibbleshifter wrote:
| You can "watch it grow" with uncle bens.
|
| The amount of active time needed to successfully grow a
| few flushes of cubes is a few hours total (prep work,
| misting, harvesting).
|
| The rest of the time you are just observing it.
| imiric wrote:
| Yet there's still no begginer-friendly way of doing any of
| that without diving head-first into the DIY home growing
| literature. Your comments are coming off as gatekeeping for
| no other reason than speculation and the fact you're
| already familiar with the space.
|
| This product seems to simplify the entire process of home
| growing, which is a bit more involved than squeezing juice
| out of fruit. As long as it's priced and marketed
| appropriately, I don't see a reason why it shouldn't exist.
| Whether there's a market for it is another question,
| though.
| rdtwo wrote:
| My local farmers market begs to differ. At 15$ you just
| soak the block and spray.
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| The sneaky secret with this device is that it is
| unnecessary.
|
| The pre colonized blocks they are offering could be
| placed in a Tupperware and would probably work as well.
|
| This is a cool way to display that, though.
| 0_____0 wrote:
| In terms of complexity, IMO basic home cultivation is
| somewhere between baking a simple loaf of bread and
| assembling an IKEA shelf unit and installing it on the
| wall. It takes basic web search skills to find info on
| front-to-back DIY technique, and one can find colonized
| media online or at the farmers market.
|
| That being said, every level of simplification grants a
| hobby a new audience. I think the objection here is the
| attempt to create a Juicero _model_ , where you get a
| fancy machine that requires (maybe DRM'd? not sure) media
| pods in perpetuity if you want to keep using it.
|
| (edit: doesn't appear to be vendor locked media, but the
| machine is $299... I spent less on that for my pressure
| canner, mason jars, fruiting chamber, and food dehydrator
| put together. sort of puts into question who this is
| for.)
| imiric wrote:
| > basic home cultivation is somewhere between baking a
| simple loaf of bread and assembling an IKEA shelf unit
|
| It's a bit more involved than that, no? I'm not familiar
| myself, but don't you need to take into account things
| like temperature and humidity as well? If their mushroom
| blocks can tell the box the ideal conditions for each
| particular strain, and those can be maintained to produce
| a better end product, that already seems like a win over
| doing all of that manually.
|
| > the machine is $299
|
| Yeah, that's a bit much. They have to factor in mobile
| app development somewhere, right? :)
|
| Again, I'm not saying that this particular product will
| succeed. But I think there might be a segment of the
| market that wants to get into home growing, but doesn't
| want to mess around with the DIY aspects of it.
| 0_____0 wrote:
| If you can clean your kitchen/bathroom properly, and you
| can follow the instructions to bake a loaf of bread, you
| can almost certainly follow some of the simpler
| procedures.
|
| During the fruiting phase, things are pretty easy. Once
| the substrate is colonized you sort of just take the lid
| off of your fruiting chamber, mist it with a sprayer, and
| wave the lid at it to blow the excess CO2 out. Once a
| day. That's what this $299 box does for you.
|
| The part that's akin to baking bread is the initial media
| preparation and inoculation. You need to measure your
| media, hydrate it, put it in a hot thing
| (bread:oven::mycoculture media:pressure canner) for the
| requisite number of minutes. My first mycoculture
| attempts were far more successful than my first attempts
| at breadmaking.
| pline wrote:
| for edible gourmet mushrooms (lions main, oyster, king
| trumpet) its as simple as buying a fully colonized block,
| slashing open the package and letting it grow with some
| occasional misting. its a great activity for kids.
| mushrooms are incredibly resilient and want to grow.
| below is a good video on how easy it is.
|
| https://fatmoonmushrooms.com/pages/oyster-grow-kit-
| instructi...
| somehnguy wrote:
| This product simplifies nothing, honestly. The 'hardest'
| part of growing mushrooms is keeping things sterile for
| the inoculation and colonization phases. This does
| nothing to address that besides offering it pre-made.
| Which you can already buy at tons of places for
| reasonable prices. This device only actually involves the
| easiest part of the entire process - fruiting. And you'll
| get the same results by just throwing your colonized
| media in a $2 shoebox as other people have already
| stated. I like the comparison to juicero others are
| making, that's essentially what this is.
|
| And by the way, absolutely none of this is too
| complicated for your average person. There are tons of
| literally step-by-step guides online for free.
| solomonb wrote:
| This device only addresses the final step of the process
| which is in fact the easiest step (when dealing with home
| scale cultivation).
|
| There are already many companies which will sell you pre-
| inoculated bricks which are delivered to you in a
| cardboard box which you use as the fruiting chamber. The
| only difference here is that this company made the
| fruiting chamber out of plastic instead of cardboard.
| chromaton wrote:
| I've done this technique: https://namyco.org/docs/grow_oy
| ster_mushrooms_on_kitty_litte...
|
| It's pretty easy. I learned it at a workshop for local
| mushroom hunting group.
| more_corn wrote:
| The comparison with Jucero was unfair. This device does
| automate temperature control, misting and light. Which I
| understand is necessary for mushroom fruiting. I'm not
| sure what they do for the colonization phase which I
| understand is a necessary prep step. Although I bought a
| colonized Lions Mane log for $20 at the farmers market so
| it can't be too complex. That being said the instructions
| I received for fruiting are pretty simple too so I'm not
| sure I'd buy this device unless I wanted a kitchen
| counter conversation piece. Or a science fair type toy.
|
| Also Jucero was even worse than you think. It squeezed
| juice out of little plastic packets.
| solomonb wrote:
| You are over estimating the complexity of fruiting
| commercial strains of edible mushrooms at this scale. You
| really only need to worry about automation when working
| at scale. For a single brick you just need to put the bag
| in a mostly clean area, slash it open on the sides, and
| mist it with a spray bottle.
| kodah wrote:
| Considering they're trying to sell pods that go with this
| device rather than selling some general purpose device, I
| don't think you're correct.
| bragr wrote:
| You need to watch the last half of the promotional video
| once they get past the cover material.
|
| This is clearly intended as a set it and forgot it solution
| for growing magic mushrooms.
| s_dev wrote:
| And the guy in Baja hoodie winking every time he says
| Mushroom? The other guy going on about "Uncle Ben tek" for
| growing mushrooms? You gotta read between the lines --
| obviously this product will not be explicitly marketed for
| drug use.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=32056302&goto=item%3F
| i...
| more_corn wrote:
| Good catch.
| kodah wrote:
| Hah, I didn't catch that!
| itslennysfault wrote:
| Yeah, this was my initial reaction as well. Growing mushrooms
| is not difficult. This feels like a solution looking for a
| problem.
| throwawaymaths wrote:
| It does look nice enough to use it as a conversation piece
| when you throw parties, so there's that, over juicero. I
| think that must appeal to a certain type of person.
| elif wrote:
| Yea if I was cooking for someone I would feel better about
| harvesting food from this device than "hold on a second
| while I get this bucket out of my cupboard."
| 7952 wrote:
| I agree. Mushroom growing needs to be hygienic but
| depends on conditions that are not normally considered
| hygienic. Having some help in terms of the inputs and
| conditions would provide reassurance. There are lots of
| products like that in the kitchen that take something
| relatively easy and make it more consistent.
| NERD_ALERT wrote:
| There's actually a mushroom enthusiast who sells an inflatable
| monotub so you don't need to make it yourself.
|
| https://boomershroomer.com/monotub/
| CuriouslyC wrote:
| Growing mushrooms is stupid easy, the only challenging part is
| keeping things sterile during inoculation and before the mycelium
| is established. Moisture content of the substrate is important as
| well but that's pretty easy to get right.
|
| You can set up a monotub using a storage bin, just line it with a
| trash bag, toss in some damp hot water sterilized coco coir and
| mix your fully colonized grain spawn, then cover the bin loosely
| so there is some airflow and keep it in a closet that you've
| cleaned thoroughly. Once set up they require almost no
| maintenance until they start to flush.
|
| Once you've got pins showing you can improve your flushes by
| spraying and fanning, but even without that you will probably get
| 1-2 flushes of decent size.
| basch wrote:
| I agree, but this reads as "you can already build such a system
| yourself quite trivially by getting an FTP account, mounting it
| locally with curlftpfs, and then using SVN or CVS on the
| mounted filesystem"
|
| The keurigification/dropboxification and the ability of
| companies like instantpot/ninja to clone and resell old ideas
| but slightly better cant be understated. People like easy pods
| and start buttons.
| hellohowareu wrote:
| This is a super cool device. Kudos to the founders & company.
| It's a very cute little mushroom box setup. And it's inspiring
| that products like this exist, simply because they look great and
| make me think "Hey, with enough sweat, marketing, and capital I
| can create a product too!"
|
| To get started, low tech: All ya need is: Pressure cooker, wheat
| grains, jar, mycelium, a sterile plastic bag or bin, and the
| right mix of fresh sterile air & humidity.
| DrinkWater wrote:
| I never tried to grow my own mushrooms, but the hardest part
| seems to be the actual growing of the mycelium with all the
| involved cleanliness, usage of needles, autoclaves and so on,
| right? The actual "container", which keeps the right amount of
| light and humidity and air circulation, can be build and
| maintained fairly easily. At least that's why i got from reading
| a little bit about this.
| spaetzleesser wrote:
| If you have a pressure cooker it's not very difficult.You buy
| the spores in syringes and inject them into the sterilized
| jars. Sterilize the needle before each injection and generally
| keep the space clean. I have done several batches and haven't
| had problems with contamination so far. You just go through a
| few weeks of self doubt until the mycelium gets visible.
| pavel_lishin wrote:
| Yeah, it sounds like you order "blocks" to place in the box,
| and then you harvest the mushrooms once they grow - much like
| other commercial mushroom kits, it sounds like large parts of
| it are single-use.
|
| Which is fine, I guess, but I thought this was going to be
| something that would let me order one thing, and continually
| and easily grow-and-harvest mushrooms in perpetuity.
| jayphen wrote:
| Indeed, the hardest part is inoculating without introducing
| contaminants that will out-compete the mycelium (typically
| trich).
|
| However, this is relatively simple and cheap to do at home --
| especially using a technique called uncle Ben's tek. As it
| happens, pre-packaged rice is the perfect sterile environment
| for mycelium growth.
|
| Once successfully inoculated, it's basically a matter of mixing
| the mycelium with substrate (wood chips or coir depending on
| the strain) in a container with a lid that allows minimal
| airflow (a plastic tub for example) and waiting.
|
| The process is really quite simple, and I've harvested
| kilograms of mushrooms with an initial outlay of around $30.
| Once you have mushrooms, you have spores, and the recurring
| cost is only substrate (and uncle Ben's bags or grains, jars,
| pressure cooker if you want to sterilise them yourself).
| xeddit wrote:
| If you think of mushrooms as a cycle, you can "buy in" right
| before they produce the mushroom bodies from pre-colonised
| blocks of grain. You're correct, at this point all the hard
| work has been done and the purpose of the 'container' is to
| build up humidity and co2, it can even be as simple as a
| plastic bin bag. This is the quick, easy and expensive way in
| my understanding, you make it cheap and time consuming by
| creating, sterilizing and inoculating those containers of grain
| yourself. It's worth doing if you plan on growing more, but if
| you just want to get started then buy the pre-sterilised or
| pre-colonised grain.
| citruscomputing wrote:
| Yeah, 1000%. I've grown almost half the species they list. The
| hard (and fun) part is agar work to clean up the culture,
| sterilizing the grain, and keeping it sterile as you inoculate
| it, knowing when a bag has gone bad, etc. Fruiting it is easy
| in comparison. Like, cut some slits in the bag and mist it,
| with a trash bag over it if you want to be fancy. Mushroom
| stand at former local farmers market sold said blocks direct to
| consumer, and they'll give you a hell of a lot more than these
| ones.
|
| I do have my own fruiting chamber, but it's not necessary.
|
| The main advantage of this thing (which is no small feat!) is
| that it looks pretty, unlike a mottled plastic bag, potentially
| with another bag over it. I can absolutely see a place for it
| as a fun, living table piece that gives you food. Also once you
| buy this thing you have an incentive to keep buying their
| blocks. I have never been impressed with "smart" fruiting
| chambers -- they just play up how ~hard~ growing mushrooms is
| and then do the easy part for you and claim it's solved.
|
| Call me when a chamber like this can detect mold better than my
| nose and eyes. THAT I'll shell out money for. It sucks to have
| mold sporulate, contaminating everything, before you know it's
| happened.
|
| Mushrooms want to grow! And once you've gotten to the point
| where they're the only thing growing, you're golden.
|
| Also, none of this is that hard if you read and learn! The
| mushrooms will tell you exactly where you went wrong, and
| there's TONS of info out there to get the hobby grower started.
| I highly suggest Growing Gourmet and Medicinal Mushrooms by
| Paul Stamets, and reading up on The Shroomery (lot of good
| stuff in the gourmet forum, some stuff that's common between
| gourmet and magic, like agar or grain prep is in the other
| cultivation forum).
| camtarn wrote:
| There are even mail order services which will send you a
| pretty box with a pre inoculated block in it. Open the
| packaging, keep it under your table and check it so often,
| and you get tons of mushrooms. It's really fun.
|
| The utility of this device is extremely questionable, but I
| can't deny that it's really pretty and a good conversation
| starter.
| steve_adams_86 wrote:
| Growing Gourmet and Medicinal by PS is an amazing resource
| and it's stunning to me that such a valuable book is only $40
| or so. Even if you aren't growing at the moment, if you're
| interested in mushrooms it's such a great buy.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| >involved cleanliness, usage of needles, autoclaves and so on,
| right?
|
| Most of the cleanliness is overblown. It makes sense if you are
| running a commercial operation, selling a starter, but less
| important if you can tolerate some failures.
|
| I had a friend who grew 20x 5 gallon buckets at a time and this
| was is process:
|
| 1) Boil grain and and put it in mason jars in the kitchen
|
| 2) Cut a piece from the inside of a mushroom and add it to the
| grain in the kitchen
|
| 3) wait until it grows 4) Fill a 50 gallon trash can with wood
| chips
|
| 5) Pour boiling water into the trashcan outside
|
| 6) Transfer woodchips and grain to 5 gallon bucket in a dirty
| greenhouse
|
| As you can imagine, this wasn't a very sterile process, but it
| worked fine for hundreds of pounds of Oysters.
| idiotsecant wrote:
| It's worth noting that this works for oysters almost
| exclusively, because they are voracious fast-growers. Most
| other species do not grow as quickly and cannot outcompete
| contaminants and _must_ have a sterile environment to have
| any kind of decent end result.
| JoeyBananas wrote:
| Are you thinking what I'm thinking?? Magic mushrooms!!!
| kosyblysk666 wrote:
| overpriced garbage
| VectorLock wrote:
| All things must be made Blades and Razors.
| buzzwords wrote:
| Ok, I know nothing about mushrooms and how they grow. But this
| looks like another Juicero situation.
| weego wrote:
| $12 a block? The pod thing is only capable of what appears to
| be a portion, so yeah: It's a fungus juicero.
| alphalima wrote:
| Typically, a block (made by the methods outlined elsewhere
| ITT) will give you 3-4 flushes before it's spent. I can only
| assume these blocks are similar.
|
| Not defence of the product, definitely not for me, removes
| the fun part of mushroom growing.
| N-Krause wrote:
| Seems like we're giving the site a hard time, archive.org URL
| from earlier today:
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/20220711140012/https://shrooly.c...
| alangibson wrote:
| Strong Juicero vibes.
|
| I produced some very fine, eh, shiitake mushrooms in a closet
| from a mycelium bought over the internet from, eh, Hamsterdam
| using only a desk lamp and a spray bottle.
| wallaBBB wrote:
| OK, so the real question - which ones from the list are
| psilocybin mushrooms?
| PartiallyTyped wrote:
| None. However, it is generally legal to acquire cube[ensis]
| spores. From there all you need is sterile grains to setup a
| block, which should be easy if you enjoy rice.
| libraryatnight wrote:
| I believe one would get the DIY block and inoculate with
| psilocybe cubensis
| eterpstra wrote:
| For the section on growing your own "special" mushrooms, they
| have a young guy in a baja hoodie watching the "magic" happen and
| winking at the camera. Pretty sure they're targeting a very
| specific audience here. Solid marketing.
| PartiallyTyped wrote:
| It is _certainly_ working.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| As the top comment says, this seems like the Juicero of
| mushroom growing. There are already much simpler, cheaper, and
| more straightforward ways to grow your own mushrooms:
|
| https://magicbag.co/
| labrador wrote:
| > For the section on growing your own "special" mushrooms
|
| The county where I'm from in California has decriminalized
| growing psilocybin mushrooms for personal use so I can just
| come right out and say that I plan on growing hallucinogenic
| mushrooms
| upupandup wrote:
| There are psilocybin mushroom sold in marijuana dispensaries
| online and offline.
|
| To be honest I don't like the come up. I no longer like being
| "scolded" by it.
| namlem wrote:
| If you don't like the come up being too slow, then I
| suggest mushroom tea with citrus. Makes it hit all at once.
| One moment you're normal and the next moment you're
| tripping.
| labrador wrote:
| I get people selling psilocybin mushrooms following me on
| Twitter all the time since I follow MAPS and other research
| groups. I've been afraid to order because I have to give a
| real address to mail to and it's still illegal at the
| federal level
| everforward wrote:
| Viable spores are still federally legal, and they're
| legal in most states.
| upupandup wrote:
| oh im talking about canada btw but yeah not sure how US
| works
| goatsi wrote:
| Those people are generally scammers unfortunately.
| [deleted]
| devwastaken wrote:
| It's still illigal at a federal level.
| chasebank wrote:
| So is weed. Nobody cares.
| dehrmann wrote:
| Federal employees can be fired if their drug test comes
| pack positive for cannabis.
| idiotsecant wrote:
| As well as private, federal-adjacent businesses like
| power utilities and other heavy infrastructure.
| LouisSayers wrote:
| Have a watch of border control TV shows based in the US.
|
| They will literally cancel your visa and send you back
| home for admitting smoking weed in the US.
|
| If you're not from the US, beware weed is very much
| ILLEGAL, and you should treat it as such.
| eatbitseveryday wrote:
| > They will literally cancel your visa and send you back
| home for admitting smoking weed in the US.
|
| No they don't. They explicitly state, "we do not care
| what you do on your travels, only that you do not bring
| any forbidden substances with you across the border."
|
| If you BRING something measurable (beyond a trace sample
| they wipe from you or your stuff) then they can take
| action like what you suggest. Admitting to them you do
| take substances on your travels is irrelevant to them.
| LouisSayers wrote:
| https://www.vice.com/en/article/5gqp5q/when-immigrants-
| are-d...
| LouisSayers wrote:
| Yes they do, if they have reason to believe you will
| break US law (I.e. smoking weed) they will not hesitate
| to cancel your visa and put you straight back on the
| plane.
|
| They've shown that multiple times in their border control
| TV show.
|
| The episodes I saw:
|
| There was an Australian girl (admitted to smoking weed on
| a previous trip) - put straight back on the plane, visa
| cancelled, and a German guy- on his way out got found
| with a speck of weed, admitted to smoking weed - got his
| visa cancelled and told he'd be refused entry if he tried
| to return.
|
| They basically say "we are federal officers and we
| enforce federal law". In terms of visas if you provide
| reason to believe you will break the law, then they have
| the right to refuse you entry.
| birdyrooster wrote:
| This is why I bring hella weed with me to Japan. Not only
| do they never catch me, but the worst case scenario is
| going home.
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| Give it a few years. It's not a priority compared to
| cracking down on abortion and genociding queer people but
| they'll get around to it eventually.
| devwastaken wrote:
| If you admit to smoking weed in the ER, or to any
| benefits program, your benefits will end or not begin,
| with a big red stamp on your file. If you have weed on a
| federally funded college campus, they by law have to cut
| your loans.
|
| The feds very much so care. Don't get complacent.
| HyprMusic wrote:
| The banks do. Payment providers do. Advertisers do.
| There's plenty of reasons for a business to be low-key
| about providing accessories to break Federal laws.
| chasebank wrote:
| No they don't. They just want plausible deniability.
| They're a bank, they want to make money. Every dispensary
| has CC processing and a bank account. If they cared about
| federal law, they would stop obvious money laundering.
| alex64 wrote:
| I feel like this isn't the case? All dispos in California
| and Washington were cash only.. because they couldn't get
| accounts with banks.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| > Every dispensary has CC processing and a bank account.
|
| I've never been to a dispensary in the US that takes
| credit cards, and MC and Visa specifically don't allow
| cannabis businesses.
|
| https://www.cato.org/blog/cannabis-banking-clash-between-
| fed...
| namlem wrote:
| They don't allow cannabis businesses that sell naturally
| occurring delta-9 THC products. Other cannabis businesses
| are fine.
| chasebank wrote:
| I've only been to our dispensaries here in Santa Barbara
| and they all take cards.
|
| https://www.benzinga.com/markets/cannabis/21/12/24405152/
| its...
|
| EDIT: Just read the company is issuing and processing
| their own 'credit cards'. I'm positive I've only used
| cards when buying from our dispensaries. Come to think of
| it, it's just debit cards but it's a card and it will buy
| weed if you want it to.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| Point being, the large credit card networks, and more
| importantly, any FDIC insured bank, will not deal with
| cannabis funds.
|
| There are a number of workarounds (Colorado credit unions
| being a notable one), and fintechs like the ones
| described in the article you linked trying to provide
| card solutions, but they're still all locked out of the
| "normal" US banking system.
| chasebank wrote:
| "and more importantly, any FDIC insured bank, will not
| deal with cannabis funds."
|
| This is patently false. My close friend runs a $75M/yr
| wholesale distribution op out of Carpinteria, Ca, called
| Headwaters. He has multiple FDIC banking relationships
| for his business.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| Thanks, I stand corrected, looks like some smaller
| regional banks will accept cannabis businesses:
| https://flowhub.com/learn/cannabis-dispensary-bank-
| account
| angst_ridden wrote:
| Nobody cares until the rolling coup finishes up in the
| next few years. Then it'll be a problem for everyone,
| just as it is now for folks in the US on foreign visas,
| US citizens on various welfare programs, and US citizens
| who want certain jobs.
| mellavora wrote:
| Unless you are a vet receiving federal benefits or living
| in federal sponsored housing. They might not want to cut
| your benefits, but the law says they have to.
|
| Many sad stories here. Vet thought it was legal, and it
| helped their PTSD, but they lost their housing over it.
| chasebank wrote:
| Indeed it is.
|
| As someone who's been encapsulating magic mushrooms for 10+
| years, what I'd really love to see is an easy way to extract
| psilocybin for a more accurate measurement of the compound.
| Encapsulated mushrooms work ok but sometimes it can be orders
| of magnitude different in potency. Like you think you're
| drinking a beer and accidentally drank 3 margaritas. I've read
| that people are working on deriving psilocybin from yeast but
| haven't heard much as of late.
|
| Fwiw, I think mushrooms at low quantities might be the best
| drug of all time, even better than caffeine. Happy pills, I
| tell ya!
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| The best I can think of for consistency short of measurement
| is homogenization to make an average. This goes for many
| products. Blend the individual items, batches, ect. The
| larger the quantity, the more consistent the output.
| nibbleshifter wrote:
| Soxhlet extraction into ethanol might be promising for this
| (higher efficiency compared to soak and strain).
|
| Just need to see if the elevated temp over a period of a
| couple of hours negatively impacts potency I guess.
| retrac wrote:
| > I've read that people are working on deriving psilocybin
| from yeast but haven't heard much as of late.
|
| They were successful. A team at the Technical University of
| Denmark inserted the genes to synthesize psilocybin into
| Saccharomyces cerevisiae (brewer's yeast) [1] and they had
| excellent yields:
|
| > a final production strain producing 627 +- 140 mg/L of
| psilocybin and 580 +- 276 mg/L of the dephosphorylated
| degradation product psilocin in triplicate controlled fed-
| batch fermentations
|
| It's likely the means it will be produced commercially if it
| becomes a widely-approved drug. Not sure the average person
| will be able to get their hands on that strain easily anytime
| soon though. I imagine it'll be guarded as a trade secret as
| strictly as those modified E. coli that pump out human
| insulin.
|
| [1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S109671
| 761...
| WaitWaitWha wrote:
| :) The three-picture sequence on the front page, under the
| heading "Easier than You think; 3 easy steps", the last picture
| shows the grown mushrooms in a round container, while the
| device is cuboid throughout the other pictures.
| [deleted]
| Alex3917 wrote:
| > Pretty sure they're targeting a very specific audience here.
|
| Probably accurate. Growing edible mushrooms on such a small
| scale doesn't make any sense given that they are 90% water, and
| so shrink ~90% when you cook them. This would be like buying an
| AeroGarden that can grow only a single leaf of parsley.
|
| E.g. it takes at least 10 lbs of lions mane to make crab cakes
| for two people, whereas I doubt this thing is going to produce
| more than half a pound.
| bluedino wrote:
| Good thing it only takes about 1/8th of an ounce (dried) to
| trip balls.
| scoot wrote:
| That would be dried mushrooms. No thanks!
| skyyler wrote:
| What makes you think it takes 10lbs of lions mane to make two
| servings of crab cakes? This recipe uses 6oz and claims to
| make four: https://steamykitchen.com/192632-lions-mane-crab-
| cake-recipe...
| Alex3917 wrote:
| Because that's a fake recipe that was written just to rack
| up page views, that wouldn't actually work at all if you
| tried it. Making crab cakes isn't going to work at all
| unless you sweat the mushrooms to get the water out -- you
| cook them for 20+ min on low with a lot of sea salt, and
| then you rinse off the salt and squeeze out as much water
| as you can before forming them into crab cakes and pan
| frying.
| skyyler wrote:
| https://foragerchef.com/hericium-crabcakes/
|
| Okay, is this one better? It still only calls for 16oz of
| mushrooms to make 4-6 cakes.
|
| I can't find a single recipe that calls for anywhere near
| 10lbs of fungus. Could you link one?
| idiotsecant wrote:
| 10lb of lions mane would make an absolutely enormous amount
| of crab cake meat. Even if you figure you can sweat 60% of
| the moisture out of your mushrooms (which you probably won't,
| but let's assume that) that's still 4lb of 'crab' for 2
| people. Most crab cake recipes call for 1 lb of crab for
| about 6-8 patties. Mushrooms might be a little bit less
| dense, but not that much less dense.
| dalbasal wrote:
| Only sensible.
|
| Growing mushrooms is cool, and the idea of making it an
| ornamental object like and aquarium is good. It's kind if
| expensive though, and pretty small for culinary mushrooms.
|
| Personally I kinda want one to try growing some flamboyantly
| ornamental fungus. But... a desire to pay $300 in order to grow
| a cool mushroom... these two "very specific" audiences overlap
| a lot. Exactly the kind of tolerant niche customers that makes
| for a good crowdfund.
| agency wrote:
| Apropos of nothing you can easily buy _Psilocybe cubensis_
| spores by mail as they do not contain any psilocybin. Of course
| they're only intended for you to look at under a microscope ;)
|
| https://sporeworks.com/
| _aavaa_ wrote:
| > Strain Origin: Cross of B+ and Penis Envy
| throwatrip wrote:
| Here you go. Reason for the name should be obvious.
| https://sporeworks.com/Psilocybe-cubensis-Penis-Envy-
| Spore-S...
| hinkley wrote:
| As someone who watch too much This Old House as a child, and
| lives in the PNW, if you live in a particularly humid part of the
| world I would strongly suggest you keep your mushroom experiments
| outside.
|
| There are some non-zero risks around having saprophytic mushrooms
| producing spores inside or immediately outside of your house. I
| need to replace the framing around my back door and add a roof
| over it due to water damage, which I can tell because there's
| baby turkey tail about 4 inches up from the sill.
| bilsbie wrote:
| Are t there spores literally everywhere all the time though?
| hinkley wrote:
| When identifying a mushroom you collect a spore print, which
| generally involves finding a young mushroom and sitting it on
| a piece of paper. The color of the spores can often
| distinguish between lookalikes. Doing a spore print, it can
| be a bit of a surprise how much a single mushroom can
| produce.
|
| Teaspoons of sugar versus the entire bowl makes for a very
| different coffee experience.
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