I see too much exposed grain in your bags. It’s not ready until every grain is covered in white mycelium. If it is fruited too early it simply won’t produce. The wait is definitely worth it.
My grain looks like this before I move to the next stage. 100% colonized. It can take several months if colonizing a whole grain bag.
Dang. I just didn’t realize I was that early. 
but now understanding I should probably go ahead and get some new syringes ordered and I’m thinking about the mason jar way. I have a pressure cooker. To inoculate popcorn.
I inoculate popcorn jars. It takes about 6 weeks for a half-pint jar to colonize. I then transfer the colonized popcorn to bulk substrate and then set them aside for another 3 weeks to colonize the bulk.
My LC jars are about 6 months old now and they are probably running out of food. When I inoculate the popcorn jars tomorrow I am going to inject some LC into new jars. I use a tablespoon of Karo syrup as food for mycelium in 6 oz jars.
Jars are inoculated. Here’s a jar tutorial:
Spray the tops of your jars with iso alcohol and let them dry. They must be dried before proceeding to the next step to prevent a fire hazard. Spraying alcohol near an open oven may well generate a fireball in your kitchen.
Turn off you house furnace or AC to limit airflow while you inoculate.
Preheat an oven to 225F. It will serve as a source of sterile air while you inoculate.
Your work area is the open oven door near the hot sterile air. Inject spores or LC. I use half-pint jars and go with 3ml of spores per jar or 1.5ml if using LC. Do not put too much liquid in the jars. If done so, then water will collect at the bottom of the jar and that area will fail to colonize.
Set the jars aside in a dark area with temps ideally maintained at 78F. It takes ~4 weeks for a half-pint LC jar to colonize. Jars injected with spores will take ~6 weeks to colonize.
Well she looks fruitful but hopefully it does? I don’t know at this point. Pulled her out of the bath and put her back in the fully automatic tub with humidifier. 90-92% on the humidity dial. 77*f. Hit the automatic fan on for 30 seconds twice a day?
Also with a 12/12 light cycle 5k screw in led light bulb.
I run mine 24/0.
Damn thing turning colors. Think it’s safe to say pitch it?
if not white toss it out…
I tossed it. How long for the all in one bags to be fully colonized? Anyone have an idea? I thought this one was ready but guess not. Have to rely on these two.
I am not sure… I have not followed anyone who just does the grow in the same bag…
I don’t know anyone who has tried to colonize a whole grain bag. I’d expect that it would take 4 to 6 months given that it takes 6 weeks to colonize a half-pint jar.
my one and only success took 2 months to colonize the grain bag that I moved to the tub to finish out the grow that took another month to harvest… I have a bag going right now that I started 1 september and I can just see the white starting and clumps… thought he was asking about growing out in the bag
125 grams wet, so ~12.5 grams dried for the 3rd flush. The cakes look healthy so will go for a 4th flush. The peroxide trick in the humidifier seems to help a lot, as I rarely make it to the 3rd flush without contamination. The cakes didn’t produce many shrooms, but those that did come up were large. A 4th flush won’t produce much, but it will be fun to see what happens.
I’m going to experiment and order a grain bag and inoculate it with LC since I have plenty of LC available. LC will colonize grain 30 to 50% faster than spores, so keep that in mind when I post results on colonization time. It’s a question worth answering since it comes up occasionally.
For reference: the grain bag will be colonized at 78F. I have no idea what is published out there as an ideal colonization temp, but I have been growing for a few years and have found 78F to be optimal after experimentation.
So it’s an all in one grow bag with the grain at the bottom and substrate at the top. I inoculate the grain bc that’s where the injection port is. After it colonize 30% per instruction then do the brake and shake to mix the substrate in with the grain and put back in the dark. I used what they call magic bags. “The magic bag”. I also used LC. For GT’s. No spores. That would be cool if you could do one. You’re a master that’s for sure. And like I said I can’t wait to do it how you all are doing it. I just didn’t do as much research of that part to do it from the get go.
Do you get LC syringes or grow it yourself?
