How to Make Liquid Culture: DIY Mushroom Cultivation Made Easy

[Music] hi folks in this video i'll be showing you how to make liquid culture this is a very simple reliable and affordable technique that i've developed over the last couple of years and if you are at all interested in mushroom cultivation i think you'll find that liquid culture is one of the most valuable tools to have under your belt it is truly the most efficient way to expand the fungal culture from a single petri dish to many hundreds of pounds of mushrooms in just a matter of weeks the basic process is very straightforward you grind up your culture in a blender with some sugar water you ferment it with constant agitation lots of oxygenation over several days and then you can use it to fill syringes or inoculate your grain spawn or load it into a pesticide sprayer and hose it down on the wood chip pile in your backyard this video is created by fungia and graciously sponsored by inoculate the world [Music] if you're doing this in a laboratory setting chances are you'd be using a piece of equipment called an everbox stirrer this is a very expensive blender i figured out that you can do it pretty much the same way using the cheapo oster brand blender these are about 25 bucks right now i believe and there's a couple reasons you want oster brand specifically mainly it's because they use all stainless steel drive blender blades uh you can save these you might want to use the blender as a blender but um i just remove all of the plastic pieces they will break down over time if you put them through the pressure cooker especially this part the main thing that you really want is this now this gasket will also break down after four or five uses so what i like to do is use a silicone gasket the other reason that oster brand blender is the perfect choice is because it fits neatly over a regular mouth mason jar these silicone gaskets are made for mason jar lids you can get them nice and cheap and you can use just a regular old canning jar lid to hold that in place and there you are 25 eberbox stirrer i find that liquid culture more so than almost any other mushroom cultivation process is highly susceptible to contamination from yeast bacteria and mold yeast in particular is a real culprit because it's very well adapted to that growing environment whereas the mycelium of most mushroom producing species really hasn't evolved to live in fast-moving liquid frankly i find it quite amazing that it works at all in order to keep it clean we're going to need to use sterile culture technique so there's a few different things that we'll need first of all you'll want to have a good pressure cooker you can make do with a water bath canning technique simply using a large pot but the rates of success are a little bit lower pressure cooker is an invaluable tool for any mushroom cultivator and you don't have to get anything fancy i in fact find that the old-fashioned presto and national brand cookers from the 50s and 60s are a little higher quality casting and hold up a lot better over time they're usually pretty affordable we're also going to need an aseptic transfer space that is somewhere that we can transfer the mycelium into the liquid culture without introducing an opportunity for contaminants one of the simplest techniques is to use a working flame like an alcohol lamp or a bunsen burner because the rising heat of that flame actually creates a small local sterile environment another popular technique is to use a still air box that is a large plastic storage container with some holes cut in the side that allows you to perform some semi-sterile transfers again most of the time it works a lot of the time it still doesn't nothing is going to beat the consistency and the reliability of using a laminar flow hood this is a sterile air filtration device they're typically very large and very expensive so i set about trying to create one that's compact and affordable and this is my prototype here these are available currently on a kickstarter campaign after that i'll be offering them on my website at fungia.life i also have patent pending on this portable battery powered version this allows you to carry a laminar flow hood into the field where you can do a septic transfers in the woods clone wild mushrooms or perhaps simply bruise some liquid culture and grow mushrooms while traveling in your van so that's a fun project i'd love it if you check that out there are a couple other little pieces here you'll want to have a good scalpel and i find it quite handy to have an inoculation loop as well and i'll tell you a little bit more about that in a minute and then last but not least of course you'll need the mushroom culture of your choice i provide a number of different species of gourmet mushrooms through my open source donation-based mushroom culture library at fungia.life but if you're interested in the more magical variety i highly recommend that you check out our good friends over at inoculate the world that is the sponsor of today's video they have fabulous genetics it's a great company and if you use the coupon code fungia at checkout that'll get you an extra 15 off there's a couple of other pieces of equipment that you're going to need you'll want to have a stir plate with a stir bar this is a magnet encased in teflon this is a motor with some magnets on it and a little speed controller so you place your magnet inside of your jar of liquid media you sterilize it and then when you place it on the stir plate you can stir the liquid inside of the jar while keeping everything completely sterile these are the cheapo ones they're about 25 now you can also use your good old-fashioned airport lids just a little poly fill cell feeling injection port there's a lot of other people coming up with cool stuff for filter lids these days personally i like to use these synthetic filter discs they are perfect for their use you can sterilize them repeatedly and then i also get stainless steel jar lids and these are perforated like this that's why i bought them you can also just get regular stainless steel lids and punch holes in them yourself and you can also use regular jar lids they just start to rust after a few uses and that creates some problems so there you have it next we just need to make some liquid media for this fungal feast i'll be brewing half a liter i find that this is the best size for a single petri dish it also leaves plenty of head space in a one quart mason jar my basic recipe is a two percent sugar solution so for 500 milliliters we'll need about 10 grams light dry malt extract is a personal favorite which i usually supplement with a little bit of corn dextrose these simple highly fermentable sugars are best because the mycelium can metabolize them quickly and then spend more of its time and energy growing homebrew supply shops are a great place to find these and other mushroom cultivation ingredients but sugar is not the only thing that a growing fungus needs i use a cheap coffee grinder to powder a variety of other ingredients which not only provide great nutrition but also introduce the mycelium to food sources it might encounter later on i have a deep fondness for rye which is also what i use for grain spawn so i put it in everything wheat straw never seems to hurt and millet is another popular choice i've seen great results from adding a pinch of wild bird seed and as a rule i always finish off with a little bit of nutritional yeast potato flakes are always fun and a touch of gypsum adds an important sulfur component which is a limiting growth ingredient for most mushroom producing species i'm convinced that a complex varied diet is what makes liquid culture incredibly vigorous and dense with mycelium these are just some of the ingredients i like to work with i encourage you to experiment and get creative with your media recipe now i'll add 500 milliliters of clean filtered water then i'll seal the jar and i'll shake it vigorously to break up any clumps of sugar stuck to the bottom i like to make sure that the lid is completely loosened before i put it in the pressure cooker this way steam can escape the jar while it's cooking now i'll grab a small amount of aluminum foil and cover the jar so that when i remove it after it's done pressure cooking ambient spores won't find their way into that unsealed jar then i make a small separate foil packet for my filter lid and my stir bar this way once i'm done inoculating the jar and using the blender base i can simply place this lid on top now we can go ahead and sterilize our liquid media i find it's generally a good idea to add water to the pressure cooker [Music] now since i'm going through this trouble i figure i might as well do at least two batches [Music] so i prepared another exactly the same way as i did the first [Music] allow the pressure cooker to release steam for several minutes before placing your weight on top then once it hits 15 psi start your timer for 35 minutes any longer than 45 minutes or so the sugars will start to burn and become inedible to the mycelium but any less and it won't be completely sterilized this is also a great time to turn on your flow hood and thoroughly sanitize your workspace with rubbing alcohol then allow the pressure cooker to cool almost completely when it's at about 1 or 2 psi it's safe to move it into your transfer space [Music] make sure the pressure is completely vented before you open the pressure cooker but don't allow it to sit too long or it will start to pull a vacuum and draw dirty air inside this means you'll have to unload it hot so be careful not to burn your hands make sure the lids are still loose so the jars don't pull a vacuum as they cool down otherwise they can suck in dirty air when you open them later allow them to cool to at least body temperature okay now for the fun part these jars have been cooling for several hours they're about room temperature now begin prepping your station by lighting a working flame and thoroughly sanitize your hands your scalpel and any other surfaces that could be harboring uninvited guests heat sterilize the scalpel blade till it's red hot and then allow it to cool this first technique i'm going to show you i call the chop and flop it's my favorite but it can be a little bit tricky you can use the petri dish lid to hold the plate in place while you work first cut the mycelium in half from top to bottom then slip the blade below the agar so that you can fold it in half over itself keep the lid on the petri dish whenever possible now you can open the jar just slightly by sliding the lid to the side and you can perch it in place using the aluminum foil to hold it there this creates a protected narrow opening next taking care to keep your hands behind and below the work use the scalpel blade to guide the agar down into the jar slide the blender blades back into place and make sure that the gasket is properly seated on the rim of the jar if it slides inside it can get caught in the blender blades and it'll also create a real mess screw the lid on tightly then holding it firmly give it one quick pulse on the blender allow the chunks to settle for a moment and give it one more that's usually plenty this is a very strange experience for the mycelium so we don't want to stress it by pulverizing it too aggressively now we simply need to remove the blender base and put our filter lid and stir bar in place as with all sterile culture techniques working quickly and smoothly always produces the best results get the lid nice and snug so that it compresses the filter on the rim of the jar i also usually add a little bit of parafilm around the threads for an extra layer of protection parafilm is a breathable wax tape that's usually used for sealing petri dishes then make sure to label and date your jar and you can go ahead and set it on the stir plate but don't start it yet now i'd like to show you another technique this time i'll start the same by cutting the mycelium in half you could also cut it into four or even six wedges then i pry it up and make sure that the agar isn't stuck too firmly to the petri dish this time to give myself more space i'm going to completely remove the lid however this leaves the jar a little bit more susceptible than the other technique i showed you previously now you can simply hook and grab each of the wedges although in this case i didn't quite get them separated all the way not my cleanest work but nonetheless you get the idea one way or another you want to get the mycelium into that jar as quickly and cleanly as possible again make sure that the gasket is seated properly before tightening the lid down give it one quick pulse and let it settle for a few moments and then give it one more it's okay to have large chunks still floating in the jar now just like before i'll go ahead and put my filter lid in place notice the stir bar is nested in the lid and falls into the jar once i place it on for obvious reasons we don't want the stir bar in the jar when we run it through the blender allow your liquid culture to rest overnight after all you did just grind it up in a blender the next day go ahead and start your stir plates because mason jars don't have flat bottoms sometimes you have to slide them around a bit to help the stir bar find the center of the plate get them spinning well and then turn them down to the lowest possible setting that nonetheless keeps the liquid moving constantly you don't need to be creating a giant whirlpool you just want it to keep moving let's head into the lab and i'll show you how to do a streak test [Music] so as you can see the process is really very simple at this point i've run thousands of batches of liquid culture and i've had very consistent success it's also very scalable which is one of my favorite things about this process i even once brewed 10 gallons of morel liquid culture for a custom order a fellow who wanted to get him going in his backyard still waiting to hear how that one turned out the only problem that i run into for the most part is with yeast i live in wine country so i'm literally surrounded by yeast factories so i always make sure to verify my work using a streak test let me show you how that works [Music] okay i'm ready for my streak test i have a sterile petri dish a liquid culture here i have a lit working flame and here i have an inoculation loop so as you can hopefully see that's just a small loop of wire that allows me to grab a drop of liquid first i sanitize everything with isopropyl alcohol especially taking care to make sure i get anything that could be lurking on the outside of the jar or on my hands [Music] next i heat sterilize the inoculation loop until it's red hot then i cool it in my denatured alcohol and quickly burn off any excess [Music] now i simply dunk the loop in and grab a small amount of liquid culture a drop is all that it takes now using an s pattern i'll smear that drop of liquid across the petri dish and that's all there is to it now label and date your petri dish wrap it in parafilm and incubate it for several days all right so it's been a few days we can see how our babies are doing here i went ahead and moved them into the lab because it's quite a bit warmer in here i like to keep stuff at about 75 degrees but these are looking great i don't see any sliminess that looks like yeast i see quite a bit of mycelium that's gathered along the surface here so i usually like to kind of swirl the jar and knock some of that back into circulation here's our streak test it looks healthy and clean you can see how much life is in a single drop of that liquid generally speaking if you see white fluffy mycelium you're good to go if it looks slimy or snotty that's usually a sign of bacteria and yeast which typically manifest within 24 hours mold contamination takes a little longer to show up but it'll turn strange colors like green blue black or yellow [Music] now once your liquid culture has brewed for about five to seven days you can go ahead and use it to inoculate grain spawn fill syringes or you can cap it and store it in the fridge for later you can leave the filter lid in place in the refrigerator for some time but i usually sterilize a jar lid just for a little added protection a good clean liquid culture can stay viable in the refrigerator for as much as six months or more here's that same jar of pearl oyster spawn just seven days later as you can see liquid culture leads to incredibly rapid growth because it contains thousands of distinct points of inoculation that are evenly distributed throughout the grain they all grow simultaneously they quickly find each other and fuse back into a single unified organism well folks there you have it thanks so much for checking out this video i hope it's been helpful i hope it gets you quickly started growing lots of great liquid culture of your own personally it's one of my very favorite parts of the mushroom cultivation process and i think it's a relatively easy technique to master some of my friends try to discourage me from giving away this trade secret but personally i believe that a high tide raises all ships and i also believe that education should always be free my personal life dream is to start a free school and i'm hoping that this video could be a step in that direction i'm also hoping that it can be the first of many like it i've got a lot of ideas for techniques i'd like to share different processes um so to help me encourage the continued creation of this content i'd love it if you'd go ahead and like subscribe share this video go over and show some love to our sponsor inoculate the world is a great company not only because they are one of the foremost providers of philosophy and pinellas varieties on the internet but also because they provide the most consistently clean sterile spore prints and syringes that i have ever come across from any other company i can tell you as someone who spends a lot of my time helping and encouraging other people to grow mushrooms running into contamination is the one thing that often derails people in their process it discourages them from trying again and i can also tell you that most of the time that contamination is a result of bad genetics in the beginning so if you start off on the right foot and you start off with clean spores and clean cultures you're a lot more likely to succeed have a great rewarding experience and love it and do it again and share it with your friends and teach them how to grow mushrooms and inoculate the world so go to the right place invest in some really good clean genetics this gorgeous spore print here is enough spores to last me an entire lifetime you can start a pretty comprehensive library without a huge upfront investment and it is absolutely worth every penny and then as you grow into your skills and you develop and you learn you're going to find that the one thing you want above all else is to be able to rely on consistent quality and to know that you're starting off with the right material to begin with so don't waste your time go on over to inoculate the world make sure you use that coupon code fungia that'll get you an extra 15 off and it will also tell them that you saw this video that you enjoyed it and that you're stoked to see more so as you grow and learn we're here to help and we cheer you on and say mush love keep it growing thanks for what you do [Music] you

Channel: Fungaia

Views: 420,155

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Id: wxbbpDPg4tc

Length: 27min 21sec (1641 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 24 2021