Your level of knowledge and ability to articulate it is impressive. You seem quite young, you will go far in this world. Thanks for sharing, subscribed and hoping to see more content, mushroom or otherwise.
The last time I used Uncle Ben's tek, The mushroom was fruiting before I even added substrate. I just let it cook and got 9g of dried mushrooms out of it.
I have never had any luck with the uncle Ben tek! Always been contamination! The brown rice has vegetable oil added, and that I believe will cause problems!
Interesting, the bags are sterilized after they're sealed so I don't think the vegetable oil could be the source of contamination. Are you sure you have clean LC? Are you inoculating in a still air box or in front of a flow hood?
@@camsurbanfarm I used a spore syringe and not liquid culture but still didn't have any luck ,I was raising those golden teachers and I wasn't lucky enough to find liquid culture and had to use spores, but I wanted to try to raise the cordyceps and hope to find a market for them I used a still air box for my inoculating jars and the uncle Ben brown rice I'm going to get a flo hood soon I hope lol
True, they're also very hit or miss because you never know what genetics you're going to get. It's a good idea to germinate your spores on agar dishes and try to isolate fast growing mycelium before putting it to substrate.
@@camsurbanfarm it's my first time trying to grow them I hope I do it correctly 😆. Oh and a different question this one about a lion's mane block, it stalled so should I put it in the fridge to shock it back into growing or what could I do to start it back up after my first flush?
@@CarlKeeling1881 Depending on how long it's been since your first flush, I'd just wait it out. My lion's mane usually gives me a second flush around 3 weeks after harvesting the first without any intervention. If it's been more than 2 weeks and you see no indication of growth, cold shocking in the fridge could be a good idea. You could also try increasing your humidity levels or even soaking your blocks in cold water overnight. Best of luck with the cordyceps jars!
Yes, cordyceps requires much more liquid culture than other mushrooms. It needs to colonize as quickly as possible to promote fruiting and prevent the contaminant Calcarisporium cordycipiticola, which is a fungus that lives inside cordyceps mycelium and expresses itself if colonization is too slow or temps are too high. Rot shouldn't be an issue if you use sterile technique.
other growers say you need a special grow solution to grow them. You grew them straight on- just rice. That is amazing, does it affect their nutritional value?
Cordyceps can make use of a wide variety of different supplements, some it responds better to than others. On a basic level, it essentially just needs carbohydrates and nitrogen. Rice contains both these things, and with the addition of the 12 mL of liquid culture (which contains around 4% sugar), they seem to do just fine! This isn't to say that you couldn't get better results by adding all the supplements people recommend (and I normally use a few for other methods), but I think in general that starting basic and then adding supplements to your recipe for specific purposes as needed is the way to go for beginners, especially for cordyceps since cultivation techniques are constantly evolving. As to whether it effects their nutritional value, it'd be difficult to say without lab testing, but I'd be curious too! I know there are things you can add to the substrate to increase cordycepin production (a major medicinal component of cordyceps), but my guess is that even with this method, levels are sufficiently high to give you benefits.
Thanks! Once dried, cordyceps can't be cloned, so making a liquid culture would be very difficult. You could theoretically still collect spores and breed them, but it would be much easier to collect them before drying, and even then the process for breeding cordyceps is complex and difficult. The best way to get a large amount of liquid culture is to buy a syringe and expand it. You could also clone a fresh cordyceps and make liquid culture out of it, but cordyceps senesces very quickly so it likely wouldn't be as strong of a culture. LC syringes are typically made with first or second generation cordyceps bred from the ascospores, and it's a very tough process unless you have a lot of experience with mycology and a lab.
The harvest window is somewhat flexible, you can harvest them as soon as you see some texture on the cordyceps and for at least a week after that point. If you wait too long though, they'll run out of nutrients in the rice and begin to die. Once harvested, they'll stay good for around 5-7 days in the fridge if you wrap them in a wet paper towel and place them inside a sealed container. If you dry them, you can store them in a jar or other sealed container with a desiccant and they'll pretty much never go bad.
CS-4 is a strain of Cordyceps sinensis that's usually cultivated as a liquid culture on a large scale (sort of like the liquid culture I use here). It's not really 'synthetic', just a strain that grows well in liquid. The liquid is then strained out and the mycelium is used, so it's not cultivated into fruiting bodies like I do here. This is cordyceps militaris, which is a different species of cordyceps to cordyceps sinensis, and can be cultivated commercially. Cordyceps militaris is still relatively expensive because it's still not easy to grow on a large scale, but much less expensive than cordyceps sinensis.
If you have a flow hood to work in front of or a still air box that could work, but IMO it would just add unnecessary contamination risk. There are tons of other ways to grow these that involve bins, especially if you have a pressure cooker, but if you're using uncle ben's tek it's best to just leave it in the bag.
@@sporemuse Depends how bright the bulbs are. If they're incandescent, I recommend a minimum of 75 W per square meter of grow space, or 12 W if they're LED. I run a 42 watt LED for every 2 square meters with good results.
Using rice packets seems like a great idea, and many have OK results, but the failure rate is very high. People assume that the rice is sterile, but it is not. Shelf-stable food does not mean sterile. There are other disadvantages too. They are difficult to work with relative to other methods (inoculate/vent/shake) and you can't really see what is going on until you open the packet (which is often a slimy green mess in the middle).
You make some good points, but I'm wondering what source says the rice is not sterile. It's packaged in a retort pouch, which is a sterile process that allows it to last years. The excess moisture in the pouch, especially when using as much LC as I did here, can definitely increase the chances of contamination from other sources, but the packets should be starting off sterile. There are for sure limitations to this method, but it's meant for beginners who might not have the tools or experience to grow any other way.
It's just rice aseptically packaged in anoxic conditions. Microwave rice only needs to be shelf-stable and not sterile. When you add extra water and O2 to the packet the bacteria or mold will start to grow. Brown rice flour/vermiculite cakes are far superior in every way.@@camsurbanfarm
I've inoculated at least 30 bags of this stuff ( Magic Mushrooms) in the last 3 months as clean as humanly possible and EVERY single one of them ended in green mold! I had a few that turned green 3 days into it. Its garbage full of flaws and HUGE waste of very expensive syringes of product!
What kind of syringes were you using, liquid culture or spore syringe, and are you sure they were clean? Did you test the cleanliness of the syringes on agar before using them? Were you inoculating in a still air box or in front of a flow hood? Did you cover the hold with micropore tape? This method has worked well for many people, and the bags themselves are sterile before use so the contamination must be coming from either your syringe or getting pushed in during inoculation. If it happened to every single bag, I'd guess it's the syringe.
you know the starbucks coffee girl voice? you have that.. great video, very informative but please talk normally babs x if thats your normal voice then im sorry that nobody listens to you but now you know why x
Your level of knowledge and ability to articulate it is impressive. You seem quite young, you will go far in this world. Thanks for sharing, subscribed and hoping to see more content, mushroom or otherwise.
Thank you, I really appreciate your comment!
Instant subscriber here 👍🏿. Nice video, amazing editing skills, cool & soothing voice and a wide knowledge of the topic.
Thanks for the sub!
The last time I used Uncle Ben's tek, The mushroom was fruiting before I even added substrate. I just let it cook and got 9g of dried mushrooms out of it.
Nice, gotta let them do their thing!
Fantastic! nearly liked this more than your Lion's Mane tincture vid, many thanks! Can cordyceps give more than 1 flush?
Thanks for your support! It’s one and done with cordyceps unfortunately
Another great video! Thank you❤
Glad you enjoyed it, thanks for watching!
I have never had any luck with the uncle Ben tek! Always been contamination! The brown rice has vegetable oil added, and that I believe will cause problems!
Interesting, the bags are sterilized after they're sealed so I don't think the vegetable oil could be the source of contamination. Are you sure you have clean LC? Are you inoculating in a still air box or in front of a flow hood?
@@camsurbanfarm I used a spore syringe and not liquid culture but still didn't have any luck ,I was raising those golden teachers and I wasn't lucky enough to find liquid culture and had to use spores, but I wanted to try to raise the cordyceps and hope to find a market for them I used a still air box for my inoculating jars and the uncle Ben brown rice I'm going to get a flo hood soon I hope lol
@@timbowen8749spore syringes are intrinsically dirty because it isn’t possible to fully sanitize spores without killing them.
True, they're also very hit or miss because you never know what genetics you're going to get. It's a good idea to germinate your spores on agar dishes and try to isolate fast growing mycelium before putting it to substrate.
I just started some in a jar yesterday
Awesome! This is another great method which I use a lot!
@@camsurbanfarm it's my first time trying to grow them I hope I do it correctly 😆. Oh and a different question this one about a lion's mane block, it stalled so should I put it in the fridge to shock it back into growing or what could I do to start it back up after my first flush?
@@CarlKeeling1881 Depending on how long it's been since your first flush, I'd just wait it out. My lion's mane usually gives me a second flush around 3 weeks after harvesting the first without any intervention. If it's been more than 2 weeks and you see no indication of growth, cold shocking in the fridge could be a good idea. You could also try increasing your humidity levels or even soaking your blocks in cold water overnight. Best of luck with the cordyceps jars!
A full 10cc's per bag? Is this specific to cordyceps? Does that not promote rot in the UB rice bag?
Yes, cordyceps requires much more liquid culture than other mushrooms. It needs to colonize as quickly as possible to promote fruiting and prevent the contaminant Calcarisporium cordycipiticola, which is a fungus that lives inside cordyceps mycelium and expresses itself if colonization is too slow or temps are too high. Rot shouldn't be an issue if you use sterile technique.
other growers say you need a special grow solution to grow them. You grew them straight on- just rice. That is amazing, does it affect their nutritional value?
Cordyceps can make use of a wide variety of different supplements, some it responds better to than others. On a basic level, it essentially just needs carbohydrates and nitrogen. Rice contains both these things, and with the addition of the 12 mL of liquid culture (which contains around 4% sugar), they seem to do just fine! This isn't to say that you couldn't get better results by adding all the supplements people recommend (and I normally use a few for other methods), but I think in general that starting basic and then adding supplements to your recipe for specific purposes as needed is the way to go for beginners, especially for cordyceps since cultivation techniques are constantly evolving.
As to whether it effects their nutritional value, it'd be difficult to say without lab testing, but I'd be curious too! I know there are things you can add to the substrate to increase cordycepin production (a major medicinal component of cordyceps), but my guess is that even with this method, levels are sufficiently high to give you benefits.
Your video is very good, can I make a liquid culture with dried cordycips militaris?
Thanks! Once dried, cordyceps can't be cloned, so making a liquid culture would be very difficult. You could theoretically still collect spores and breed them, but it would be much easier to collect them before drying, and even then the process for breeding cordyceps is complex and difficult. The best way to get a large amount of liquid culture is to buy a syringe and expand it. You could also clone a fresh cordyceps and make liquid culture out of it, but cordyceps senesces very quickly so it likely wouldn't be as strong of a culture. LC syringes are typically made with first or second generation cordyceps bred from the ascospores, and it's a very tough process unless you have a lot of experience with mycology and a lab.
do the cordyceps ever go bad? How long can I leave them attached to the uncle bens rice block before I need to remove the actual cordyceps.
The harvest window is somewhat flexible, you can harvest them as soon as you see some texture on the cordyceps and for at least a week after that point. If you wait too long though, they'll run out of nutrients in the rice and begin to die. Once harvested, they'll stay good for around 5-7 days in the fridge if you wrap them in a wet paper towel and place them inside a sealed container. If you dry them, you can store them in a jar or other sealed container with a desiccant and they'll pretty much never go bad.
is the LC the synthentic Cordyceps CS-4? or actual cordycep, bc that goes for like $9k a lb due to how difficult it is to cultivate.
CS-4 is a strain of Cordyceps sinensis that's usually cultivated as a liquid culture on a large scale (sort of like the liquid culture I use here). It's not really 'synthetic', just a strain that grows well in liquid. The liquid is then strained out and the mycelium is used, so it's not cultivated into fruiting bodies like I do here. This is cordyceps militaris, which is a different species of cordyceps to cordyceps sinensis, and can be cultivated commercially. Cordyceps militaris is still relatively expensive because it's still not easy to grow on a large scale, but much less expensive than cordyceps sinensis.
What if I dump the rice into a sterile bin and inoculate it?
If you have a flow hood to work in front of or a still air box that could work, but IMO it would just add unnecessary contamination risk. There are tons of other ways to grow these that involve bins, especially if you have a pressure cooker, but if you're using uncle ben's tek it's best to just leave it in the bag.
Are the grow lights necessary?
Thanks for the great video! Been wanting to try UB with cordyceps for a while, it’ll be my first try with cordy’s.
@@sporemuse It's a great tek to start with! Yes, cordyceps does need light to initiate pinning, especially the blue wavelengths.
@@camsurbanfarm i’m wondering if the light in my wine fridge will suffice. What do you think?
@@sporemuse Depends how bright the bulbs are. If they're incandescent, I recommend a minimum of 75 W per square meter of grow space, or 12 W if they're LED. I run a 42 watt LED for every 2 square meters with good results.
@@camsurbanfarmthanks for the info.
Did you delete one of my comment replies from a different person’s comment?
Using rice packets seems like a great idea, and many have OK results, but the failure rate is very high. People assume that the rice is sterile, but it is not. Shelf-stable food does not mean sterile. There are other disadvantages too. They are difficult to work with relative to other methods (inoculate/vent/shake) and you can't really see what is going on until you open the packet (which is often a slimy green mess in the middle).
You make some good points, but I'm wondering what source says the rice is not sterile. It's packaged in a retort pouch, which is a sterile process that allows it to last years. The excess moisture in the pouch, especially when using as much LC as I did here, can definitely increase the chances of contamination from other sources, but the packets should be starting off sterile.
There are for sure limitations to this method, but it's meant for beginners who might not have the tools or experience to grow any other way.
It's just rice aseptically packaged in anoxic conditions. Microwave rice only needs to be shelf-stable and not sterile. When you add extra water and O2 to the packet the bacteria or mold will start to grow. Brown rice flour/vermiculite cakes are far superior in every way.@@camsurbanfarm
@@camsurbanfarmidk ive had a 90% success rate with my rice bag teks maybe yall houses are contaminated or smth
I've inoculated at least 30 bags of this stuff ( Magic Mushrooms) in the last 3 months as clean as humanly possible and EVERY single one of them ended in green mold! I had a few that turned green 3 days into it. Its garbage full of flaws and HUGE waste of very expensive syringes of product!
What kind of syringes were you using, liquid culture or spore syringe, and are you sure they were clean? Did you test the cleanliness of the syringes on agar before using them? Were you inoculating in a still air box or in front of a flow hood? Did you cover the hold with micropore tape? This method has worked well for many people, and the bags themselves are sterile before use so the contamination must be coming from either your syringe or getting pushed in during inoculation. If it happened to every single bag, I'd guess it's the syringe.
you know the starbucks coffee girl voice? you have that.. great video, very informative but please talk normally babs x
if thats your normal voice then im sorry that nobody listens to you but now you know why x
It's called vocal fry and I agree it's not pleasant to listen to. Great video though!