How to Grow Psilocybe Cubensis in Your Own Home

by The Seeker

What do we need to grow magic mushrooms? Well here is a list of all the necessary items to grow your own.

1) Fertile Psilocybe cubensis spores.
2) About twenty sterile plastic petri plates.
3) Malt-Agar medium.
4) Alcohol lamp containing methyl or grain alcohol.(Alcohol wipes do fine as well.)
5) Inoculating loop.(Wire bent in a loop with a handle is good.)
6) Agar knife.
7) Test tubes. Filled one-third with grain ( birdseed ) and plugged with cotton.
8) Two lbs. of compost. It should be cow manure, preferably leached, although you can also use natubased composts such as Douglas Fir mulch or pine mulch.
9) Casing soil. It should be a bag of peat moss mixed with a cup of lime. 10) A big can of Lysol or other disenfectant.
11) A glass container at least 10 ounces or 300 ml which can be plugged with cotton, capped with alul and pressure-cooked.
12) Pressure cooker. The smallest size, 10 1/2 liquid quarts, can be used, and it should have a prege.

Almost all of these items can be ordered by these companies:

Fungi Perfecti
P.O. Box 7634
Olympia, WA 98507
206-426-9292

Mushroom people
Box 159
Inverness, CA 94937
415-663-8504

HOMESTEAD (They sell $50 mushroom kits.)
P.O. Box 31608
Seattle, WA 98103
206-782-4532

MATERIAL PREPARATION AND WORK SPACE

To begin, start with a clean table top, plastic or formica, in an area free from drafts. Wipe the table with Lysol, and when doing transfer work, cover your nose and mouth with either a hankerchief so you don't breathe germs onto the sterile media.

To insure sterile conditions, you may wish to use a transfer chanber. A transfer chamber can be constructed out of simple materials, plywood, glass or plastic for the top, and a clt nrwy I cardboard is used, line the inside with aluminum foil to protect the chamber from burning when you use the alcohol lamp. The box need not be air tight, the idea is to prevent contamintion from daft an brathng in the media. The inside of the box should be wiped down with Lysol and your hands shoud be cleaned with Lysol before putting them into the box. Gloves may be used if your hands are sensitive to strong chemicals.

STERILIZING MALT MEDIUM AND POURING

Next, we prepare the medium, or food substances, on which the mycelium will grow. Place the malt-ag into your flask or bottle and add eight ounces, or 250 ml of water. Stir or shake slightly. The lgteflask or bottle with cotton and cap it with a piece of aluminum foil.

Now put the flask into the pressure cooker on the rack or trivet provided with the cooker. Turn on and bring the cooker up to fifteen pounds. Keep it there for twenty to twenty-five minutes. oio h rcess in order to keep the cooker at the proper pressure and to make sure you don't oerhet. Ate teny inutes, turn the heat off and let it cool down to zero pressure naturally. o nt rleae te pessre.

Wipe down your transfer area, either the table or chamber, and place the petri plates inside your chon your table. Using a mitten, take your flask out of the cooker and place it next to the ptipae. how away the aluminum foil. You are now ready to pour the medium into the plates.

Remove the cotton and grasp the flask with your mittened right hand. With your left hand, take a pe and hold it slightly open. Pour the medium into the plate, just covering the bottom surfac n hncoethe plate. Repeat the process for nine more plates and set aside to cool. Before yu o nt te ex sep you may want to let the plates sit for a few days to check for contaminatio. f, fte tw das, ou otie anything other than tannish-brown medium in the plate, discard tha plae. ow yu ar reay tostrek th plates with spores.

SPORE STREAKING

To keep spores fertile they should be stored in a cool, dry, dark place. The spores should remain v at least six month, perhaps indefinitely.

Wipe your table or transfer chamber with Lysol; also wipe your hands. You should have the petri discooled medium inside the area. Light the alcohol lamp, and have your inoculating tool bent noalo n eady to use. Remove the piece of paper containing spores and place it face up on th tbl.

Open one of the petri plates, holding the top right over the medium to prevent contamination. Flameulating loop, then cool it by placing it in one part of the medium on the plate. Scrape som prsoftepaper with your loop and smear them in an 'S' configuration onto the medium in your eti lae. Imeiael close the plate and proceed to the next one. I recommend that you streak to t for pate. ou antto ave the rest for two reasons:

1) The germination might not take.

2) The plates might be contaminated.

If this happens, repeat the entire process.

INCUBATION AND IDENTIFICATION OF CULTURES

Set aside your inoculated plates in a warm area, approximately 70 to 75 degrees F. A heating pad or useful for maintaining this temperature.

In ten days to two weeks, you should notice a snow-white, fluffy, cottony growth on your plates. Th psilocybe mycelia. In a few more days, it should develop long threads, ropey fibres reachigott h uside of the plate. At the end of two to three weeks, the entire plate should be covre wthths ur-wit mass.

Chances are you will have some contamination also. Do not be discouraged; it's a common hazard and n you work with more than one petri dish. Contamination takes many forms. The two most como r eiilum and neurospora, or bread mold. Pencillium will appear as a dark green spot, the in yu eeonstlebrad, and it can be dealt with in two ways:

1) If the white mycelia overgrows it, you can flame your knife and cut out the contamia.

2) Or, if the penicillium overruns your plate, it is wise to discard the entire petri urospora is a grey-white hairy mass, darker than the psilocybe mycelia, of a type you also see on hs is a very strong fungus, if discovered discard the entire dish.

Other contaminants are dealt with in the same way, and if you wish to identify them we suggest you cphotographs in 'Growing Wild Mushrooms' by Bob Harris.

TRANSFER AND ISOLATION OF PURE CULTURE

Again wipe down your transfer area, clean your hands, and light your alcohol lanp. On the table youave your petri plates grown out with mycelia and the other six plates which contain only meda Faetekife, cool it in the unused media, and cut out a small section of mycelia. Stab the mal iee f ycli ad place it in the middle of a plate containing only growing media and cover he ishquikly

Transfer these sections into three more dishes, and incubate again as indicated in the previous sectow a few weeks to grow out and you are ready to transfer to the spawn. If you have any diffclyo otmnation, remember you have twelve dishes left that you haven't streaked yet, so if yo hveprblmsreea te streaking process and begin again.

If you have gotten this far, you isolated a pure culture, one that will be easy to maintain and makisible to not having to return to spores for several generations. You are now ready to starttesan

PREPARATION OF SPAWN

Our spawn medium can be rye or other grains, but I use a combination of milo and millet, commonly usd seed.

Make sure your test tube is filled with one third grain. Then add half again an amount of water. Ptton back in the test tube, cover it with aluminum foil and place it on a trivet in your presr okr Fllow the cooking procedure as indicated in the section sterilizing malt medium.

Take the test tube out of the cooker, shake up the grain inside and put it aside to cool. Transfer ium from the petri plate to the grain in the same manner as indicated in the previous sectio. e sd h test tubes at 70 to 75 degrees F. to incubate. After three to four days, shake up hegrininth tbean allow another seven or eight days for the mycelium to spread through the grin. One te gainis ompetey run through with fluffy, white mycelium, you are ready to use it t innculae th comost. If ou nticeanything that looks like contamination, begin again by inocuatinganothr tes tube

INOCULATION AND INCUBATION OF COMPOST

Break up the grain in the test tube eith by shaking it or using chopsticks, and spread the mixture iompost. You can inoculate and incubate the compost in a flower pot or plastic container.

An excellent method is to put the compost in a tray and place it in a fish tank with a loose lid. Fre and humidity control, put wet cat litter in the bottom of the tank. The compost should b lgtywt o that you can squeeze it in your hands and it will leave a faint mark on your hands f ousqeee utwaer it is too wet and if you can't feel or see a mark on your hands it is toodry I a eekto en ays th compost should be completely run through, full white, with mycelia. Maitaina colishtempratue, prhap between 65 and 75 degrees F. for this process. We keep it his col beause he myelia eneraes a ot ofheat when it grows out and heat will kill it. You kow it' too wrm whe you ntice ayellowng of he myclia and a yellow liquid around and through te growig media That eans its dyingand youmight hve to bgin again.

Some misting might be required to maintain moisture. Once the mycelia is run through, spread a one inch layer of casing soil on top of the compost. This will induce fruiting.

FRUITING AND PICKING

Place the compost/casing mixture in a closet free from drafts but allowing some circulation. Put in a normal flourescent light and leave on a typical day/night schedule. The lights can be left oncniuly although I don't recommend it, nor do I recommend incandescent lights.

Maintain a 65 to 75 degree F. temperature and keep the casing soil slightly moist as noted earlier. In a week to ten days, tiny pinheads will appear on the casing soil and will soon begin to sprout mushrooms. At this point, the mushrooms will grow rapidly, just as it is not unusual to see a newly-sprouted mushroom on your lawn almost overnight.

Wait until the caps break the veil and then pick, scooping them out from the bottom with a chopstick, then wait until the cap flattens out and the mushroom gets bigger, but at this point the mushrom will be growing spores on the growing surface and this may inhibit later flushes. Mushrooms hold spores for about four or five days in abundance, then over the next week or ten days you will otie to t for more flushes. The mushrooms in these later flushes will be smaller and less abundent. At this point our growig medium is exhausted.

MAINTAINING THE CULTURE

You now have a basket of mushrooms and a pure culture in your petri dishes with which to grow again. You have lost the culture, you can clone the mushrooms you have by taking flesh from it. This process is described in 'Growing Wild Mushrooms' by Bob Harris.

I hope you all have an electric ride and the walls melt like butter in a microwave with your home-grooms.

Now I would like to thank the people who made this file possible: HomeStead's Deluxe Shroom Kit, Ale course Mother Nature!