Open Air Grain Spawn? Attempting Lactic Acid Ferment Pasteurization with Corn for Growing Mushrooms
Channel: OneEarth Mushrooms
Date: 2020-06-23

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A while back, I was researching methods to create grain spawn without a pressure cooker.  I stumbled across an old post on the Shroomery of this dude who was doing lactic acid ferments and apparently was able to colonize grain spawn in open air, free of contamination.  I decided to give it a try.  

The basic of this procedure are to soak grain for a day, boil it quickly so that it doesn't germinate, then take advantage of the naturally occurring yeast and bacteria thats present in the air around us.  Over a couple weeks, the lactic acid produced by the fermentation should drive pH down low enough to kill off everything we don't want on our grain, then we can inoculate with our culture of choice.  

While I haven't been able to produce fully colonized spawn yet, I did have some pretty good success by producing grain that stayed visibly free of bacterial and fungal growth for over a month!  

I'm definitely going to give this another shot with some modifications, I'm really hoping to be able to produce some grain spawn without a pressure cooker!