Erik Drews

SOS ComAlt

Week 6 Mushrooms

 

The fourth mushroom substrate that I have inoculated was grains from my smoked raspberry red ale. Once again, I added a teaspoon of gypsum to the grains before steeping them in the mash tun during the brewing process. I did an experiment during week two to help me determine the effect of supplementing gypsum and alfalfa meal into four of my wheat spawn jars while leaving the remaining two unsupplemented. Since a few weeks have gone by I have concluded that supplementing gypsum and alfalfa meal right before inoculation could be harming the mycelium’s ability to colonize the substrate. While supplementing gypsum during the brewing process seems to not affect the colonization rate whatsoever.IMG_0374

The smoked red ale substrate was loosely packed into six quart jars each containing approximately:IMG_0364

  • .3 lbs 2-row
  • .3 lbs Maris Otter
  • .16 lbs Caramel 60
  • .16 lbs Beech Smoked Malt
  • .08 lbs Rye Malt
  • .08 lbs Biscuit Malt
  • .04 lbs Cherry Smoked Malt
  • .04 lbs Melanoidin Malt

These Jars were pasteurized in a pressure cooker at 15 psi for 45 minutes and then inoculated with both Oyster and Shiitake mushroom mycelium on February 18, 2017.  IMG_0370