Growing psilocybin mushrooms is illegal in the U.S., even as various studies point to their potency in dealing with mental illness. Medicinal and edible mushrooms can be homegrown and are rewarding and fun. With the first, licensed psilocybin treatment center now open with crazy high prices, we wanted to look at how it worked to start growing mushrooms at home!
Here is a step-by-step process of producing shrooms for you without spending more than your monthly lunch money.
Before you start, you need to obtain a few things. They are:
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One bag of a sterilized substrate (substrate can be said to be mushroom dirt)
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Micropore tape
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a sterilized rye berry grain bag
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Duct tape
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Non-powdered latex gloves
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A bottle of 70% isopropyl rubbing alcohol.
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Two very clean spray bottles
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Two 66-qt Sterilite clear plastic tubs
Knowing the right Shrooms to Grow
This is a bit tricky, but you'll have to find mushroom genetics, specifically Psilocybe Cubensis "Golden Teachers. This strain is famously regarded as one of the most straightforward and highest-yielding varieties.
Mushrooms grow into "mycelium" from spores in Petri dishes, which are then moved to a jar of liquid, mainly water combined with a bit of honey or light malt extract. The mycelium transforms into a liquid culture.
Then inject the liquid culture into a bag filled with the grain, where it ultimately grows into mushrooms. Also, you might want to have a few additional grain bags because the probability of 1 or 2 bags ending up contaminated before the mushrooms begin to grow is high.
This is the reason it should be grown in a plastic tub. It cultivates a restricted ecosystem and protects your muscles from harmful substances.
Anything you notice sprouting in the tub contrary to healthy white mycelium, especially any patch of green, blue or black mold, refrain from opening it in your home. Move it outside, and dispose of everything except the tub itself into your trash or compost waste
As soon as you have supplies, you'll have to create a still air box, a plastic tub with arm slots in it, creating a sterile workspace.
For the next step, you prepare a cleanroom.
Before you begin, turn off your heater or air conditioner to ensure no air is blowing around your home. The smallest bathroom in your home is ideal for use, and you should thoroughly clean it with 70% isopropyl rubbing alcohol or Lysol from head to bottom. Endeavor to clean every surface possible, and don't inhale too many fumes. Use Lysol spray when leaving.
Take your sterile grain bag, spore syringe or liquid culture syringe, some alcohol, the airbox, and a pair of gloves, and head to the cleanroom.
Clean your hands, wear gloves, clean with alcohol, and sanitize all your supplies with alcohol, particularly the still air box. Ensure all the surfaces are sanitized while working. After sanitizing the exterior of your grain bag, put it in the still air box alongside your liquid culture syringe.
Clean your hands and the work area again before sterilizing the tip of the syringe with a flame.
Disinfect the self-healing injection port, the rubber piece on the bag that permits you to inject the liquid culture without the bag being opened. Half of your liquid culture should be injected into the grains through the rubber port.
Preserve the bag in a dark place, and let it colonize (grow).
For the next couple of weeks, the white mycelium will grow all over the grain. When it's around 30% caked up, work the outside of the bag using your hands and scatter the cake up so the mycelium can develop more rapidly. When it's wholly colonized, you need to prepare a tub for the mushrooms to grow in.
Bore two two-inch holes at the bottom of each extended side and just a hole beneath each handle. You can use a circular saw for this, or scissors and a lighter would do the trick. Wipe the edges and ensure there are no lingering pieces of plastic. Clean the outside of the tub using rubbing alcohol and proceed to cover each hole using a portion of duct tape.
Exactly prepare the cleanroom as the first time. The still airbox isn't needed this time. What is required is your colonized grain bag, a substrate bag, and a knife. Put on gloves, clean everywhere using alcohol, then with the knife, open the substrate bag, ditching all that decent dirt into the tub. Repeat with the colonized grain. Mix, scattering all the grain lumps with your hands to produce an equally mixed flat coat of substrate and grain. Place the lid on the tub, and you're finished.
Keep it somewhere dark.
The tub should be kept someplace that remains around 75 to 80 degrees. In 10 to 14 days, the tub should be encompassed in white mycelium, and, hopefully, you will start to see small pins setting (baby mushrooms). When that happens, return the tub to your clean space and switch the duct tape for microphone tape. This permits oxygen to enter the tub and stimulates mushroom growth.
At this juncture, you should provide light for the tub for a few hours at least each day. You could use a desk lamp for this. After one week or thereabouts, you should have matured mushrooms ready for picking and drying. You know it's time to pick when the veil that joins the cap to the stem rips and the lid opens up. Continue picking until the growth stops.
Bottom Line
The entirety of mythology is very complicated. This article is the easiest and quickest way I could explain it to people who do not know about it. There are a million different ways it could be done. It has been said that people grow it straight out of bags of Uncle Ben’s Rice. The probabilities are vast, and we still understand so little about fungi and how they function. It’s an enjoyable hobby. You can read about it and listen to an interview with Paul Stamets if you’re interested.
I hope for a future where Americans will be able to cultivate these devices for healing right from their homes without worrying about legal consequences.
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