New to the hobby
So about a month ago I innoculated 6 wholegrain uncle Ben’s rice packets with king oyster mushroom liquid culture. But instead of cutting the packets’ corners like every guide says to, I followed a random comment’s advice to simply poke the syringe through the packet and cover the syringe hole with micropore tape. A week later I had a try with making a few grain jars using the same liquid culture.
Fast forward to today, and my grain jars are ready to use, yet the rice packets look and feel unchanged. I suspect the poor gas exchange from a tiny syringe hole caused the mycelium to suffocate. I’ll have to try going back to those packets and do it properly this time.
So I guess I’m posting to say don’t try to cut corners, and instead you should cut corners ✂️
Yeah it’s call broke boi tek or uncle ben’s tek. The /r/unclebens subreddit is dedicated to just that method and has some guides, or you can just search the web for instructions. I’m sure the shroomery has plenty of guides too. The theory is simply that brown microwave rice packets have good nutrients, are sterile, and have the right amount of water content. A lot of people complain that the water content is actually too high so you need to be sure not to add too much extra liquid via syringe when inoculating, but it’s meant to work out anyway.