So far everything has been going well with my mycelium aka I haven’t killed it and I haven’t contaminated it. The following image is a depiction of my planned fabrication process.
Mycelium Fabrication Process
Unlike the picture above, I already started growing mycelium from store-bought oyster mushrooms. This meant that I could skip step 1 (buying mushrooms) and step 4 (chopping up mushrooms) was changed to scooping out and breaking up the already growing mycelium with my hands.
Already growing mycelium
Used coffee grounds from Pekoe
Molds for the mycelium (used Tupperware and some scrap 3d printed shapes from the BTU)
The mixture of mycelium and coffee grounds (top beaker), leftover mycelium (bottom container)
Mycelium mixture placed in the molds and watered
Covered with aluminum foil
Placed inside a box and placed in a dark cabinet
It is very important to keep the mycelium in a dark, humid environment. The box and cabinet provide the darkness, but I need to go and manually water the plants with a spray bottle every couple of days. Because I am using a healthy mycelium culture versus store-bought mushrooms, the molds should completely grow in less than 10 days (in theory). Thankfully I started the process very early on in this project and I have a few different sizes of molds to choose from.
Abigail Angwin
Adlai White
Alexis Cisneros
Alex Fitzgerald
Alex Gebben
Alex Reynolds
Aj Terio
Andres Serrano
Aryan
Ari Matrajt Frid
Arjun Mody
Barrett Lister
Ben Clairday
Benjamin Hyde
Blake Wilson
Lavender Giebner
Brandon Phillips
Cannon Leitz
Chris Wachuta
Colton Huff
Collin Kendall
Cole Metcalf
Collin Ruprecht
David Li
Duncan Laird
Dylan Breglio
Efrosini Krokos
Emilee Novak
Ethan Polacsek
Ethan Sanchez
Ethan Silverman
Fin McKemey
Garrett Miller
Grreshan Ramesh
Hailey Usher
Helen Do
Ian Farrar
Ian O'neill
Jason Allshouse
Jace Aschbrenner
Jarod Ocampo
Jadin Zaccagnino
Jess Corbitt
Josh Beijer
John Bileschi
Jon Ezell
Jonathon Gruener
Josh Gregory
Josh Sweeney
Juliette Goubeaud
Katie Schutt
Kevin Kim
Kelso Norden
Kyra Anderson
Kyle Hashiro
Kyle Pohle
Luke Nicol
Luke Prins
Max Lantz
Maddox Mitchell
Matthew Osborn
Max Palish
Michael Becerra
Michael Gray
Nicholas Gotlib
Nick Olguin
Noah Howell
Oliver White
Peter Arnold
Riley Menke
Sam Biehle
Sammie Duran
Sam Gluskoter
Sarah Pepper
Sean Riddle
Sierra Greeley
Sophie Berry
Sophia Montie
Tim Hellweg
Tiana Vitry
Trent Bjorkman
Travis Mulford
Tyler Brown
Venkata Sanyasi Krishna Vidhan Rallapalli
Vincent Tang
Yuting Wang
Aryan Gandhi
Jean Hertzberg
Shrey Naresh Solanki
2 Comments. Leave new
Fiona, This is really awesome. Mushrooms are absolutely incredible, I love it. The way that you outlined the process and showed all of the pictures of your steps so far was perfect. I was able to follow the process and actually understand what is going on with no questions. The first picture of the steps was key to all of this. It really ties together the rest of the pictures and tells your story how it should be told. I’ve learned about some of the process of growing mushrooms and have learned that contamination is the biggest issue. What steps have you taken to minimize contamination of the mycelium? If there is one thing I want to know more about, it is the sterile processes, how they were done, and what each steps purpose was. And even if you do it right, without the proper equipment, contamination is almost inevitable. Can you speak more to your experience with keeping a sterile environment?
Hi George! You make a very good point about contamination. I am currently growing this mycelium in a lab, which has all the necessary equipment (gloves, isopropyl alcohol, coats, etc.). Funny enough though, I took all of these necessary precautions, but there were mold spores in a previous set of mycelium samples that contaminated all of my new mycelium samples. This being said, I am starting from scratch with another material and idea.