Setting Up New Wheat Grain Spawn Trials
Today we're, uh, working with some grain spawn. So this has been sitting out since last night. Um, basically just measured out some grain into these, uh, bags. Uh, at that point I added some water to bring the moisture content between 38 to 42%, and, uh, just let it soak so these grains can kind of absor absorb that water before I add them into the sterilization process. That way we get a nice even moisture consistency throughout the grain.
And, uh, we're just running some experiments with some different grain types. This is all from a local farm called BKW Farms. They grow a lot of different varieties of wheat, so we're just testing out several different varieties that are that are locally sourced, and just trying to see if, uh, one of them might be, you know, have benefits over the others. So, uh, at the very end we have some soft white, uh, wheat. So that's another wheat berry that we could use. Here's a classic one that I've, uh, used for a while in the past, and, you know, time to time, it's called hard red winter wheat. Uh, then we have some red five wheat, some ink horn, and some spelts. This one right here is some white Sonora wheat. So then we have some Durham wheat and some Corin wheat. So this one's kind of interesting. It has a longer, um, Bally, a longer grain to it kind of. And, uh, this is just a BKW Farms blend. So it's just like all of them that we had left over. We just combined it in a bag. So we'll get this sterilized and, uh, inoculated, and we'll just kind of monitor them and, uh, just see what we notice.
So when I do soak the grain, uh, before I fold it up and add it to the sterilizer, just make sure that I give it one last, basically like a nice shake. So that way we can mix the grains. Uh, the bottom layer, uh, can basically mix up to the top and We can make sure we don't have any dry spots in the grain when we go to sterilize, and really the only thing that'll do is just make it a lot more, uh, tedious to work with when it comes down to shake. Uh, the grain will kind of get hard and form like a brick. Um, but by doing this, it prevents that and just have a nice easy grain to work with.
They have a bunch of different varieties of wheat that they grow, so we're just, uh, basically running them through some tests and just seeing, um, which ones might, you know, if there's anything beneficial, um, using one versus the other. Um, but mainly we use Milo and Millet. That's our grain that we use for most of our production around here, uh, just due to those grains being, they're my favorite grains to use for spawn, uh, due to the spherical shape of the grains. You get to a lot more inoculation points. Um, but when that's not available, I I do like to opt in for wheat, and typically in the past it's been U like a hard red winter wheat that I like to use, or a soft red winter wheat, um, but since, uh, there's a lot of varieties that this Farm produces that I've actually never had the chance to try yet, figured we'd just run them through so and see, see what's going on.
Uh, so these are going to be inoculated with, uh, just a variety of some of the Gourmet species that we grow, um, mainly Lion's man. Uh, we'll be inoculating a lot of this with Lion's Man, actually, uh, because we're going to be growing a lot of lion's man. Uh, right now it's kind of like the bulk of our upcoming production, um, so we're going to be doing a lot of lions man. We'll be testing some oyster on this as well. Um, we'll just do a lot of, uh, little bit of the library, and, uh, if everything works out well, we'll kind
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Of just start applying every strain to these these grains. Typically with mushrooms, though, um, I find that, you know, as long as the moisture content is correct and everything's sterile, most most mushroom species will basically take to any grain. Um, I've used, you know, different wheats, rice, oats, different Milos, millets. Um, I've even used like flax seed before. You can, you know, really good experimental rice. Um, oats. So it's really all up to preference at the end of the day and availability. Um, if you could source something locally, uh, that's the best bet. I know a lot of the millet, uh, comes from, well, out here in Arizona, a lot of our millets grown in Colorado, so it can rise the cost up a little bit.
Um, so I actually just just met the, uh, this farm, uh, recently, and they came, uh, well, David from BKW actually came up to do a little facility tour and, um, saw that we were us using grain and decided to bring in some, uh, different samples that he, uh, he grows at his farm. So some of these, like the Durham wheat, is, you know, used to make pasta and stuff like that, and I believe they they shi that out to Italy. Uh, so that's grown out here, and, uh, you know, we have the white Sonora, so maybe that's a, it's like a local Heritage Grain or something.
Yeah, we could see the wheat berries, uh, kind of have hydrated, and you can see like the different sizes on some of them. And yeah, I mean, they do look really good. Uh, wheat is a great grain for using as spawn. I actually like it, you know, better than Rye, better than oats. Um, for me, it's just right right there, kind of right under Milo and Mill it. I feel like the melium really, uh, breaks it down once it's hydrated. Grains like oats, uh, seem like they have like a hard outer shell, and, uh, you know, I guess that could be a benefit to people that are newer to cultivation, where you kind of have a little bit of a forgiveness when it comes to overhydration. Uh, with like oats and stuff like that, wheat berries is one that, you know, if you do overhydrate it, the grain can actually get real soft, and it can create a lot of, uh, starch, and it could actually hinder growth. But if you can really dial in the, uh, moisture content, then I think wheat is one of the one of the good grains to use. It's really nutritious, and the mycelium really loves it.
And we noticed after the after the overnight soak, the grain has actually doubled ins siide. So I add the dry grain, the water, and, uh, at this point, we don't even see any water moving around in the bag. So the grain is really absorbed all that all that water, and, uh, we just have a really good hydrated grain that is ready to be sterile ize and, uh, basically receive some healthy mycelium. Go from there. So yeah, this grain right here, I'm familiar with. This is the hard red, so a, I already kind of know what to expect from from this one cuz I've worked with it quite a bit.
And then yeah, right now, I'm using the 3T, uh, bags. So this is like a 3T growing bag made by Unicorn, and it contains the or basically has A2 micron filter patch. So this is the this is the filter that I would use for any of our grain. So this one will provide like the optimum filtration rate for contaminants and stuff like that, allowing, you know, air exchange and colonization. The 3T spawn bag I like to use for like spawn bags up to six, maybe 7 lb. And then we also have like a 3tl, which is a little bit longer, and we can actually get about like 8 n lbs of grain in that bag. So this will, these will all be g1s. They'll receive a fresh culture, and then
You know, I'll use these if I want to take it up a notch, make a bigger spawn bag. I'll just go for the 3tl and make like an 8 to n lb spawn bag.
Then we have the soft white. So, something about this grein right here, it has a nice white color. Um, that could be, you know, a disadvantage to newer cultivators when, you know, you're watching the mycelium grow. Um, you know, I guess it depends, but a lot of people like a nice darker grain. That way, you could kind of see the mycelium, and if there's any, anything else that you would notice, uh, it, it'd be really easily visible.
All right, so I'll just stack those right there. I'll make sure everything is, uh, kind of organized so I know which grain is what, and we'll load these accordingly.
This is an interesting looking grain. It's, uh, it's a wheat. It's called Carin, but it kind of looks like a hybrid variety of, uh, I don't know, looks like something that you would see in like a rye grain and a rice. You know, it has like a long, it's a longer grain than you would usually see with, uh, other wheats, like that one, for instance. And that could be, um, for me, I personally like the smaller ones. So, like one handful of grains from this bag compared to a handful of grains from that bag, and the same handful, I'm going to have more inoculation points with a bag with a grain like this due to the smaller size. And when I pour that into a bag of sawdust, I'm going to have a lot more points that are going to basically be a point for mycelium U growth.
All right, last bag, and this is just some, uh, spare grain that was left over from making all this. So it's just like a blend of everything, and, uh, just go ahead and make sure we don't just use everything we, we have. So, all right, so we'll get that in the sterilizer here soon, and, um, probably within the next day or so, it'll be ready to, well, by tomorrow, it be ready to start inoculating it, and we going start looking at, uh, the growth and monitoring, uh, the spawn.