Making my own brown rice flour PF Tek substrate
Apparently oyster mushrooms love brown rice flour.
I couldn't find any in the stores, so made my own from organic brown rice ground in a cheap coffee grinder. The ratio of vermiculite, brown rice flour and water which I used was 1/2 cup, 1/6 cup, and about 60ml water, mixed in a bowl.
Everyone uses mason jars or even whiskey tumblers covered with tin foil, but I had some other jars, those jam jars. I do not know if they're appropriate, but we shall see. Might be a bit difficult to get the cakes out, because the edges taper to the insides. I also tried a plastic container in which my dog's food is packed and I have so many of them. They're like, flat kind of rectangles and I can picture pretty block-shaped cakes by making these.
![Sterilising PF Tek substrate](/assets/IMG_7558.jpg)
Last night I sterilised the jars, and today I sterilised the plastic tub. I drilled a hole in each jar's lid, squeezed in an injection port in each hole (what a mission, wow) and for the tub, I simply melted a hole in each corner with the same method as I used with making the still air box - metal rod heated on the gas stove. Works like a bomb.
![A small jar with a red and white lid, filled with brown rice flour substrate](/assets/IMG_7560.jpg)
The injection ports work quite well, but we shall see about the substrate and jars...