Packing Gourmet Mushroom Crates for Distribution
Currently we are just making up some six pound mixed flats of uh our gourmet mushrooms or exotic mix so this would be an exotic mix that goes to a restaurant it's usually six pounds and it consists of multiple varieties uh that we have growing currently at the farm so that can switch up from time to time so basically whatever we we are we're harvesting that week so that's pretty cool it allows us to just prepare the six pound flats so we have some elm oyster going in this is like a nice white beige colored oyster mushroom we'll harvest some lions made as well yeah we have some nice meaty lions main mushrooms throw in some of the piapino mushroom that's kind of like a garnish we have a bit of chestnut going in all right this flat's ready to go so usually i'll just put the more denser mushrooms in first so the lion's mane is going to be more of a a weight mushroom it fills up the flats Really easily.
Oyster mushrooms are a little bit, a little bit more loose, so you kind of, I try to go more heavy on the denser mushrooms and kind of finish them off with a couple pounds of oysters. So, just trim a little bit of sawdust off of these mushrooms if there is any. I'll throw these Piapini in there. This is a really nice mushroom to add into an exotic mix because the chefs seem to love it. It's a mushroom that you really don't see too commonly.
As far as I know, the chefs that I work with really don't see it too commonly unless they kind of order it in from a bigger mushroom company out of state, so it's nice being able to provide some cool local mushrooms that people don't really get to see out here from from our grow rooms. We harvest our, you know, everything's grown out on our sterilized hardwood sawdust based, uh, substrate blocks, so we'll harvest them up. We'll put the name of the Strain and the date harvested, if it's just going into our cold storage. So these were just harvested yesterday. Right now, it's pretty busy, so usually the mushrooms are harvested and distributed to restaurants or to the farmers markets within about 24 hours after harvesting.
In the case of like the lion's mane today, we're harvesting it straight into the flats, and it'll be picked up here in probably like 30 minutes to an hour, so fresh from harvest straight to straight to the restaurant. Really doesn't get better than that. So yeah, this is like the elm oyster mushroom, and it produces these really lovely off-white colored beige colored caps, so I think it's a good addition to the oyster varieties that we grow here. So yeah, with the oyster mushrooms, usually those will last. We try to get these ones sold really quickly.
Written protocol
Lion's Mane Commercial Cultivation SOP
175 pages on this species specifically, from culture to harvest.
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As soon as we can get them get them down from harvest, we try to try to get them out the door because they really don't have a long shelf life, as do most mushrooms. But oysters typically last, with the pinks, you're usually looking at five days, and then with like our blues and whites, we can get usually about seven days out of them. But we like to get them into the hands of the restaurants or distribution within at least two days after harvest. That way, they get the maximum shelf life and the freshness of the product as well, and they get to experience that. So just close that up.
So, and then anything that we don't move to our distribution throughout the week, we take to our farmers markets on Saturdays. So we have two of those that go, one in downtown Phoenix and one in central Phoenix, and that basically helps us move any extra product to the markets. And also, we do grow products specifically for the markets because we do have a a big clientele base and people that do rely on these mushrooms for their basically to to utilize in there in their diets. I'll come Back here later and kind of go through what I have for the markets. Also harvest any leftover lions made.
So yeah, I've spoke about this before, but I like to top fruit the lion's mane, especially when I need mushrooms quickly. I kind of just let the lion's mane overgrow in the bag, and then once it gets a couple inches above the substrate, I go ahead and put it in the grow room, because that makes for for a clean harvest where you can kind of just trim away, really not take up any substrate. You just have this clean lion's mane that's ready to go, and the benefit to it is, compared to putting the block in the grow room and slicing it, feels like it takes a little bit longer, like an extra week, to actually get the crop. And another bonus, I feel like this, uh, produces a nice little biomass, so this can be trimmed away. This is what I would like to do.
This could be trimmed away and utilized for, like, mushroom powder, lions made mushroom powder, and who knows the benefits of it. It could have, uh, you know, a very high potency of, uh, NGF factor and stuff like that. Like, uh, you know, kind of like the mycelium is said to contain basically compounds that you don't find in the fruit body. What if this is kind of the same thing, where it contains really novel compounds and stuff that you don't find in the finished fruit body? So I think it's good to add into the to the powder production.
So kind of just trim that off, and I'll have like a harvest bucket here, but kind of just showing you guys what this stuff looks like. So you get a good amount of this stuff, and accompanied with a couple pounds of lines made on your first flush. I'm gonna just try to cut it as close to the block as possible, because I don't want to take any any sawdust with me. Then after that I kind of just will peel it away and get ready for the next flush. So just simply clean off the block, just give it a nice, nice cleansing of any old sub shape, and then I can go ahead and get multiple subsequent flushes out of this block by just covering up the top like so.
And then I'll make a couple incisions on the block and just put it back in the grow room, and that way I can get the most out of this, uh, substrate. So it'll, it'll continue fruiting. Lion's mane really, uh, maximizes the substrate, I found. I mean, I've been able to get multiple flushes and all producing really quality lines made fruit bodies. So yeah, this is just the stuff that I wouldn't really use for, for culinary.
This would just be like medicinal, medicinal pieces. Just salvage what I can and get it ready for the next round. Usually that occurs within seven to ten days, so get a good crop every seven to ten days after harvesting. And, uh, with the blocks just kind of, I like just making a little slice. That way the lion's mane doesn't get trapped in the bag as it grows out for its next flush.
I found that if you make smaller slices, the line's made can kind of start growing inside the bag, and you get a lot of mushrooms stuck in the plastic trying to find its way out. So this slice makes it really easy for the lion's mane to find its way out, and I'll get those into the grow room here here in a minute. All right, I'm gonna get some labels printed out for these cases that we'll be heading out here soon. So each box gets a label that ensures, uh, basically in the case of anything, everything has a batch code so they can trace it back to the day it was harvested, even who harvested it, and just helps everybody stay organized. You always want to make sure that everybody knows where their mushrooms are.
Coming from, and then we'll just get this in the fridge until they get here. So we have like a little pickup fridge, so we can put orders in here while, uh, so they can stay cool until they're picked up. It just helps us stay organized. Usually our fridges are pretty full, so that's that.