Erik Drews

S.O.S. ComAlt

Week 2 Mushrooms:

The first substrate that will be used is the spent grains that were produced in the making of the Rye Pale Ale. The grain will be divided into six quart sized jars for sterilization and inoculation. Each jar will consist of roughly:

• .9 lb of Marris otter malted Barley
• .16 lb of Malted Rye Grains
• .08 lb of Caramel 60 Malted Barley
• .05 lb of caramel 20 Malted Barley

These six jars will undergo pasteurization in a 16 qt pressure cooker for 45 minutes at 15 psi. After Pressure is released and the pressure cooker is safe to open, the jars will be shaken while they are still warm to avoid clumping of the grains. Once the jars have cooled to room temperature, they are each placed between four candles to create a sterile environment. As lids are removed, they too are placed between candles.

Using gloves, mushroom spawn is removed from spawn bags and added to each jar, then filter lids are secured.

The result is three jars of Rye Pale Ale grains inoculated with oyster mushroom mycelium and three jars of Rye Pale Ale grains inoculated with Shiitake mushroom mycelium. These Jars were inoculated on January 16, 2017.

The Oyster mushroom jars will be referred to as jars 1,2 and 3, while the Shiitake Mushroom jars will be referred to as jars A,B, and C.

Noticeable colonization of the grains by both species took place on January 21, 2017 however, the Oyster mycelium seems to be colonizing at about twice the rate of the Shiitake mycelium.