It depends on the type of mushroom you’re trying to grow. To get you a quick answer, most mushrooms grown indoors take roughly 6-8 weeks to grow if you’re starting from spores.
We are going to break down a process, also known as a Tek that will work for most strains of psilocybin. We will also cover the a Tek for growing most oyster mushrooms.
The ones we get asked about the most are Psilocybin. Here’s the process and how long each step typically takes.
The steps to follow and how long it takes to grow psilocybin mushrooms...
Before we do anything else, we are going to make agar (or buy it pre poured here). Agar is simple to make but requires a pressure cooker to sterilize the medium. It’s also helpful to have a flow hood (see our previous article) to keep out contaminants out, which is the most important part. This process takes about an hour to make plus time to cool and pour into plates.
Why start with agar? The agar which also has yeast and dry malt extract mixed in to it, makes a dense nutrient rich substrate the spores can germinate on.
Once we have applied spores (in a sterile environment) we wait for them to turn into mycelium. This usually takes 7-10 days. You should start seeing growth in a few days but some spores are stubborn and take longer.
After your mycelium has colonized the plate, (you can transfer when it’s grown over 3/4 of the plate) find the fastest growing part of the myc and transfer it to another plate. Now you’re growing just the fast part from the original plate. You will keep doing transfer until your mycelium is growing over 3/4 of the agar in 5-6 days. Typically 3-4 transfers needed.
The next step is to make liquid culture. This just another way for your mycelium to eat and stay alive while it gains strength. Once you inoculate your liquid culture with a tiny piece from your agar plates, it will take about 4 days until it can be used to inoculate sterile grain spawn. Hang in there, you’re almost to the fun part!
Now that your Liquid culture is about a week old, it’s take to make up some grain spawn. Some people call these rye berries. Rye berries cost a lot of money on amazon BUT if you go to your local feed and tack store you can get “whole Oats” for 1/4 the price you pay on amazon and they’re both the same thing. You’re welcome!
You will need to use your pressure cooker to sterilize your grain spoaw before inoculating with Liquid Culture.
If everything is going well, in 14 or so days you should have fully colonized grain spawn. Once your grain is fully colonized you will be ready for “Bulk Substrate” which is just another medium that has plenty of food and water to keep your mycelium happy.
Now we need to make a bulk substrate. Most all of your mushrooms grow the same until this step. If you’re going psilocybin or “dung-loving” mushrooms then you can make a bulk substrate using coco coir, vermiculite and water. No pressure cooking needed, just pasteurize for 24 hours.
Finally it’s time to mix your bulk substrate with your fully colonized grain spawn. Give the myc about 2 weeks to fully colonize your bulk substrate, then the myc will think it has run out of food. Just like it does in the wild, when mycelium runs out of food it produces mushrooms as a way to spread is spores. These magical mushrooms will also let you meet aliens and maybe even your soul. Have fun.
Are you starting to figure out the process but still have a bunch of questions?
I have an online course that fills in all the gaps that I couldn’t cover for this article. I go over step by step how to do everything from your kitchen. Here’s the best part, its only $10 a month for access to the course and you can cancel at anytime. I’m only in this partly for the money. Mushrooms need to be shared and I want to help you start growing your own. For more info go here
Have you received my equipment list yet? Why not???? I give you an equipment and material list for each tek. I even include links so you don’t have to spend time searching. You’ll find a place below to enter your email address and get my equipment list.
Hardwood-loving Mushroom Bulk Substrate
If you’re going to make Oyster mushrooms or Lions Mane you will want a hardwood bulk substrate instead of coco coir. This will require a pressure cooker. The mix is simply hardwood pellets, wheat bran and water. This only takes a few minutes to mix up and a few hours to pressure cook.
Your bulk hardwood substrate will mix together with your fully colonized grain spawn and go into a grow bag instead of a monotub. You will also want a martha tent or something that can create a microclimate with lots of humidity. It usually takes 10 or so days for oysters to colonize this bag. Lions mane is a couple of days slower.
And now you’ve grown some hardwood loving mushrooms. After the bag is fully colonized it takes about 6 days until you can harvest your mature fruits.
How to Grow Mushrooms Start to Finish
The video below is place to start your growing journey. Each subsequent video in this “series” is the next video you will need to grow. In the description you will find links to growing supplies. Almost everything can be found on amazon.
