Tubby is in the fruiting chamber

Published on Oct 12, 2021

I left it for another night so that I could make sure the mycelium covers the entire cake.

The next morning, I did the thing. I birthed the baby, left it in water to soak for about 8 hours.

A photo of a mushroom mycelium cake in water — Taking a bath

You have to put a heavy thing on top of the cake, in order to make sure it is completely submerged for maximum water absorption. I used a heavy pot. The water temperature is room temperature.

Next, I rolled it in some vermiculite, which provides an extra layer for moisture retention and placed it on top of a piece of tin foil to keep the perlite off the cake.

A mushroom mycelium cake rolled in vermiculite inside a shotgun fruiting chamber — Kind of looks like a block of cream cheese rolled in nuts

I'm keeping it humid and hot, the temperatures have been rather high here lately ranging between 16°C to 33°C during the day. The shrooms LOVE this heat, it seems. I do not. The thing is, I don't know how pure the tap water is here. It's drinkable, but I don't know if I want to expose my mushrooms to chlorine that's definitely in this water, so I use distilled water to mist it. Perhaps I need to purchase some kind of thing that tests minerals and chemical concentration in water?

The fruiting chamber is now on a bookshelf in a well-light corridor in the house. I used to keep it in my study, but I want to keep my door open, because of the heat, so I needed to move it out of the airflow. I don't want it to dry out.