Pie Tin Casing Tek

Nan's Nook : Archives : Casings : Casing Teks : Pie Tin Casing Tek
  Subtopic Posts Updated Creator
All Casing Teks  -    
Casing Overview  -    

By Nan (Nanook) on Friday, October 26, 2001 - 04:38 am:

Pie Tin Casing V1.00B
By Karl Brooks

Objective: Massive multiple flushes using easy to find materials.

Materials required:

Pie Tin; available at any grocery store.


Peat Moss; available at any garden center.


Vermiculite; available at most garden centers (US).


Calcium Carbonate/Gypsum: available in small containers at better Home Brew Stores.


Organic spring water


The following formula is perfect to make enough casing material to case either one Quart of Grains, or 3 PF-Style cakes, or 2 9er Tek style cakes.

* Directions: *

Take 1.5 cups verm. 1.5 cups peat moss. In 350 mls organic spring water, mix 1 tsp. gypsum and a few tablespoons calcium carbonate. [50/50+ and Straight Verm also work well]

Add water to mix and stir.

Sterilization:

First lay out a section of aluminum foil. Dump the pre-mixed casing material into the foil. Close at the ends, until a square is formed. Bake in over for one hour at 250 degrees. This method has been tested extensively and is Completely Effective.


Casing:

Take your Quart Jar of grain. Break it Thoroughly. Empty the contents into the bottom of the tin. Spread it as evenly as possible, using a Sanitized fork. Try to get a uniform coverage. Next take your casing material (which at this point should already be cooled down from the baking) and again, using a sterilized fork, spread it as evenly as possible.

See: Water Delivery to Casings - by Nan

Post Casing Care:

At this point, people do one of two things. Some place the cased pie tin directly into a Terrarium. Others cover it with Saran wrap and let it colonize. Either way, the goal is for the mycelium to poke through the casing layer. You want this colonization to be as uniform as possible. Generally, certain areas will poke through quicker than others. If this occurs, you can "patch case" them. This is done by placing a small amount of casing material on top of the early mycelia. In a number of days (can be between 7-14), the mycelia will have overtaken the layer. If it's still in Saran wrap, then remove the wrap and place in the terrarium.

Note concerning the terrarium. Many methods are used, some more elaborate than others. The main point is to keep a Humid Environment. This means keeping your moisture up and the air in. It can be an Aquarium Converted for the purpose. Or it can be a Tupperware, preferably with a clear top. There are several common ways to keep the humidity up in the terrarium. The easiest are: Hand-Misting with a spray bottle, or putting several inches of moist Perlite in the bottom of the container. Or a combination of both.

Maintenance:

At this point, one has a 100% per cent colonized casing, and is now looking for fruit. One needs to initiate pinning. Cubensis is an aggressive strain, and certain methods normally work. The most important are Air Exchange and Light. A great idea is to have a Fluorescent Light of some sort directly above the casing. This helps initiate pins and helps the shrooms grow straight. Again, you can use more elaborate methods to increase air exchanges, but these methods have been proven successful countless times. If your using this simple method, here's what to do: at least twice daily, in the morning and at night, fan out your terrarium. Do this for at least 10 minutes or so. If you can open a window, weather permitting, better still. After you're done fanning, spray with your hand spray, getting fresh humidity back in the setup. Use organic spring water if you can. How can you recognize the pinning? You'll see hyphal knots form. Then you will see tiny pinheads appear. Before long the entire casing will be covered with these. Then these will form into shrooms. The speed of this is dependent on a number of factors, but it can happen amazingly fast.

Harvest:

Always clean your hands before picking from a casing layer. Be gentle, but firm. Pick your mature specimens (before sporulation). Clean off any Abhorts. If you're careful with this, you can get 5-6 BIG flushes using this method. Spray the casing layer to bring the humidity back up. Your casing layer may start to pull away from the edges. So what? It will still produce. Once your casing is completely exhausted, or completely contammed, simply bury it outside and cover with some potting soil and you should get one more flush at least.

Since you now have such an abundant harvest, you will need to preserve some. Dry them out. You can dry them in Front of a Fan, air dry them, or use a Dehydrator with the lid removed. Next, place them in a sealed container, on a screen, above a layer of Damp-Rid (available in grocery stores, used to removed moisture from cabinets). They will last a long time

FLAT CAKES : 50/50+ Casing Formula : Coco "Coir" Tek : Flat Beds

By Ron (Clubbenguy) on Wednesday, November 28, 2001 - 07:18 pm:

For example - Thailand - Koh Samui on Birdseed cased with 50/50.

http://lilshopofspores.com/ks3.jpg

Shroom Glossary

By quote: (Quote) on Saturday, November 17, 2001 - 02:32 pm:

you don't dunk crumbled/cased cakes,
the casing itself provides the needed moisture,
which you'll supplement by misting it as needed.

By Nugdumper (Nugdumper) on Tuesday, December 11, 2001 - 09:45 pm:

Ok, so I was using half-pint brf cakes and wanted to make a casing using one of those aluminum bread pans. I am using straight verm for my casing, and was wondering what depth you would make each layer of the casing. Thanks

By jared (Jared112) on Tuesday, December 11, 2001 - 09:59 pm:

I'm sure that most people use 1/2" with verm.

By Nugdumper (Nugdumper) on Tuesday, December 11, 2001 - 10:06 pm:

Jared, no offense or anything, cause I appreciate your help, but I'd like to hear from someone with experience. thx

By Cragith Kilbonith (Kilborn) on Tuesday, December 11, 2001 - 10:57 pm:

1/2" - 1" inch for the bottom layer of verm
then whatever amount of your broken/sliced cake
3/4" to 1" ontop.
please correct me if im wrong.

By Patrick (Valence) on Tuesday, December 11, 2001 - 11:03 pm:

I use 1/4" or maybe a little larger. To little and it dries out real fast. To much shrooms might not break through. I think that less is better but it is more time intensive. So if you don't mind the time, put a nice even, thin layer but water it again when it dries out. But this is what I do and this is the way I like it. Works for me everytime.

By Nugdumper (Nugdumper) on Wednesday, December 12, 2001 - 12:49 am:

Cool, I'll try 3/4 of an inch on bottom and 1/2 inch on top, sound ok?

By quote: (Quote) on Wednesday, December 12, 2001 - 02:17 pm:

sounds ok, assuming about 1 inch or more of substrate inbetween.

By Quote (Quote) on Sunday, April 29, 2001 - 11:07 pm

one-cake casing hmm ?
get a small foil pan like a pie tin, for example,
leave off the perlite bottom, you won't need it if you don't over water anyway,
crumble your cake into many small pieces as you can, you can even toss it in the blender for a few seconds with a little vermiculite, then pour the material level in the pan, and thinly cover with moist potting soil/compost/worm castings.
place in a terrarium and fruit.

By Scugs (Scugs) on Monday, April 30, 2001 - 09:15 am

Will this yeild more fruit in comparison with just birthing the jars? See, I inoculated three jars 3 weeks ago, and they only colonized two holes each. Now, they are a little more than half colonized. I thought about taking them out and cutting off the colonized part and crumbling them up and casing them in a pan. Would this work?

By Quote (Quote) on Monday, April 30, 2001 - 12:17 pm

leave them to finish.
you must be patient.

By Oldtimer (Oldtimer) on Monday, April 30, 2001 - 01:30 pm

Let it grow... If you expose cakes to non-sterile environments with incomplete colonization something nasty will take over on the uncolonized areas.

By Scugs (Scugs) on Thursday, May 03, 2001 - 08:44 am

Thanks for the advice. My jars just all of he sudden exploded with rhyzomorphic growth. Two are about %80 colonized, one about %40.The rhyzomorphic growth is about twice as much as the picture posted by PF. Does this mean it should fruit really good? And is there a difference between the time it takes for a regularly colonized cake to start pinning after complete colonization apposed to a cake with Rhyzomorphic growth? Thanks again

By Quote (Quote) on Thursday, May 03, 2001 - 01:00 pm

lol
don't get too excited, friend.
rhizo growth is good, but not a miracle.
don't expect a dramatic increase in yield, etc.

By Scugs (Scugs) on Friday, May 04, 2001 - 04:01 am

cool. can't wait til I'm a little more experienced. Since this is my first experience with mushroom cultivation, any change that I notice makes me nervous. I took the tape off of the jars and turned them upside down. Some condensation, but I don't think its anything to be alarmed about. No discoloration. Dunking takes place after the first flush right?

By Quote (Quote) on Friday, May 04, 2001 - 11:07 am

yup.

Casings : Troubleshooting Casings : Shroom Glossary