How To Make Mushroom Grain Spawn: Preparing the Grain

hi I'm Tony from fresh cat mushroom Stockholm and today I want to show you my process for making grain spawn at home no grain spawn is pretty much just grain usually either rice sorghum millet or combination that's been sterilized and then inoculated with the mushroom culture this mushroom culture then works its way through the grain and fully colonizes it and then you can use that grain spawn and add it to a bulk substrate in order to finally grow mushrooms now there's two basic requirements for grain spawn it needs to be sterilized and it needs to be hydrated and to do this properly it's about five basic steps first you got to get the grain you got to rinse it and clean out all the extra debris after that you need to soak the grain for full 12 to 24 hours this allows the grains to soak up some water and it also activates some of the mold spores and stuff so further down the line it can be more easily killed off by sterilization so after soaking you want a similar grain for about 15 to 20 minutes and all this does is further allow the grains to absorb water after simmering you got to completely drain the water off of the green one all the water to be contained within the actual grain kernel and no excess water to be present on the outside of the grain the best way to do this to steam it off or just allow it to drip dry after all that you can finally load your jars or your spawn bags and you've got a pressure sterilize the grain it takes usually about 90 minutes at a full 15 psi today we're going to be using rye grain to make a spawn you could also use sorghum or millet lots of different types of grains work really well the best screen for you might just be what is most easily available in your area now grain works really well for spawn first of all because it's really high in nutrition but second of all just because of the structure of the grain it really easily absorbs water and contains it within the grain which the mushrooms will later use to expand so since grain soaks up so much water during soaking during the simmering you only need to use about a third of the grain by volume than you think you're going to need so for example today we're going to be making about 10 of these quart jars of grains ponds so I'm going to use just about three and a half quarts of dry grain to start with so when you first get your grain it's likely to be filled with all sorts of debris which isn't all that desirable to have in your spawn so just give the grain a quick ranks to try and remove the excess debris rinse it about four or five times until the water starts running clean so once the grain is relatively freed to you just go ahead and fill it with water you want the grain to be completely covered by quite a margin just so that it can soak up a lot of the water so we're going to let the grain soak in this bucket overnight you want to soak it for at least 12 to 24 hours so it can absorb a lot of the water and also so it can activate some of the mold spores and other contaminants which will later easily be killed off by sterilization but the other thing I like to add in the bucket is actually a little bit of coffee coffee it's not to kind of help with your yield the other thing I like to add is gypsum what gypsum does is it acts to prevent your grain kernels from sticking together in your incisor jars or inside your spawn bags it helps to keep them separated after sterilization so I like that about you know a tablespoon or so of gypsum for this amount of grain and about a cup of coffee so now all I'm going to do is put some saran wrap over that bucket and just let it sit [Music] so the grains have been soaking overnight now what I'm going to do is I'm going to simmer them for another 10 to 15 minutes I'm gonna bring em up to a boil and bring the temperature down and just simmer them and what this does is just further allows the grains to absorb more water it also allows you to dry out the outside of the grains because once you drain it the grains will be hot and the water's going to steam off now I'm doing this outside in a large pot here with a propane burner but you can just as easily do this on your kitchen stove with a normal pot mushrooms and mushroom spawn requires a lot of water but with grain spawn we want all that water to be contained inside the grain and have very little water on the outside of the grain so another advantage of simmering them like this that when they get super hot when you go to drain them you can kind of steam them off you can spread them over a screen or in a strainer and kind of shake them up and down and the water will steam off the outside of the green leaving the outside of the grain pretty much moisture free while the inside of the grain is full of water so the grain has been simmering for about 15 minutes now and as you can see the grain is puffed up quite a bit now there's a few broken grains in there which is expected well you want to try and minimize the amount of broken grains that you have so at this point the grain is ready to drain and to dry off they want to leave it like this for about 10 or 15 minutes depending on what the conditions are until the outside of the grain is completely dry so we're going to be growing our grain spawn on these quart-size mason jars they're pretty much just a perfect size for first-generation grain spawn and I've modified the little little bit all I've really done is drilled a quarter inch hole and pulled in some pillow stuffing and all that does is it acts as a filter allowing the mushroom mycelium to breathe as it's growing throughout the grain well at the same time preventing contamination from entering the top the grains aren't taking long at all to dry off most of the moisture is off the outside of the grain and they're pretty much ready to load up into the jars to load your grain jars pretty much just take a scoop and load them up you only want to load them about 2/3 full no more than 3/4 now the grains are going to expand anymore or than they already are but you want them a little bit loose inside so you can still shake your jar and whatnot as the spawn is growing throughout it [Music] now you can put your jar lid on with either the rubber side down or the metal side down some people like to put a metal side down just because then it's easier to take it off while you're inoculating your grain jars I like to put a rubber side down just because it creates a better seal but really I don't think it makes that much of a difference you can also just use the screw on lids which I actually like a lot better because it just makes it a lot easier to kind of one handedly open them up when you're trying to inoculate your spawn one final step before sterilizing is to go ahead and put a piece of tinfoil on the lid of your grain jar all this does is it stops water from potentially leaking into your filter and changing the moisture content of your spawn so you can now go ahead and load up your sterilizer this particular sterilizer can hold 10 of these quart-size mason jars you also want to check the water level in your canner as well you want enough water in there so that you have enough time for sterilization but you don't want the water to go too much past halfway up the jar so this particular canner I can fit seven on the bottom I put an extra three on top you want to sterilize your grains at 15 psi for a full 90 minutes it takes this much time for the heat fully work its way through the grains and completely sterilize them if you do it for any less than this chances are pretty good that you're going to get some contamination so put it on the stove and once it hits 15 psi set the timer for 90 minutes and at the end you should have some perfectly sterilized grain so there you have it now these grain drivers are ready to be inoculated with a piece of mushroom mycelium you can either use a piece that you cut out from an agar petri dish or you can actually inoculate this with the liquid culture or even a spore syringe if you have that so you can see all the individual grains are kind of broken up and it's nice and loose in there that's one of the advantages of making grain spawn in this way and properly preparing it by simmering it and soaking it and drying it off properly all that stuff seems like maybe it's not unnecessary to do but what you end up with is a jar of sterilized grain that's perfectly hydrated and ready for the mushroom culture and it's going to make some really nice grain spawn for you so we're going to be doing that in the next video we're going to be taking a little slice of mycelium from a agar fill petri dish and we're going to be inoculating these grain jars to grow so much from grade spot so that's all for the next video until then i'm tony from fresh cut mushrooms calm thanks for watching and we'll see you next time Oh

Channel: FreshCap Mushrooms

Views: 560,610

Rating: 4.9095211 out of 5

Keywords: grain spawn, how to make grain spawn, growing mushrooms, rye grain spawn, spawn for mushrooms, grain for mushrooms, sterilize mushroom grain, mushroom spawn

Id: BNtANzcc9yg

Length: 8min 17sec (497 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 10 2017

Reddit Comments

[u/-I-C-Y-]

Saved thx

[u/jimmyjazzisdead]

Tony from Freshcap...is fantastic!! I have emailed him with numerous questions and he always responds with a simple, easy to digest answer. His videos are some of the best for those looking to get started.

[u/dontletmedaytrade]

Yep! Used him for my agar and my grain. Between him and Myco Willy, you’re all sorted for knowledge and great visual instructions.