Strange development

[Harry]

Please help my 3 toed sloth with a problem.

The sloth inoculated 4 rye/water quart jars and 2 brf/verm/water (no verm
cover on top) jars on 6-17-03. The pressure cooking was done with a filter
disk and no cover (foil or tape) of any kind. This dried out the grain so
much that growth was thought unlikely. The 2 brf jars seemed to be moist
regardless. One of the brf jars showed signs of growth about 3 days ago,
yellow "sweat" appeared then the green attacked, a total lose but a learning
experience. The second of the sloth's brf jars has to date shown nothing
that can be seen with the naked eye.

The question is this, three of the, now VERY dry, rye jars are showing
growth in several areas after a good shaking last night. The shaking was
done mainly to hear the tinkling of dry grain against glass with little hope
of anything happening. Now what? Can he somehow moisturize the jars without
total contam or is it better to just sit and wait for more growth then use
this to inoculate more jars? Is there a chance that the grain isn't as dry
as it seems? He has no experience and would love some opinions.

[Buggin69]

Harry wrote:
> Please help my 3 toed sloth with a problem.
>
> The sloth inoculated 4 rye/water quart jars and 2 brf/verm/water (no
> verm cover on top) jars on 6-17-03. The pressure cooking was done
> with a filter disk and no cover (foil or tape) of any kind. This
> dried out the grain so much that growth was thought unlikely. The 2
> brf jars seemed to be moist regardless. One of the brf jars showed
> signs of growth about 3 days ago, yellow "sweat" appeared then the
> green attacked, a total lose but a learning experience. The second of
> the sloth's brf jars has to date shown nothing that can be seen with
> the naked eye.
>
> The question is this, three of the, now VERY dry, rye jars are showing
> growth in several areas after a good shaking last night. The shaking
> was done mainly to hear the tinkling of dry grain against glass with
> little hope of anything happening. Now what? Can he somehow
> moisturize the jars without total contam or is it better to just sit
> and wait for more growth then use this to inoculate more jars? Is
> there a chance that the grain isn't as dry as it seems? He has no
> experience and would love some opinions.


I'm not sure about answers to all of your questions but I'm pretty sure
re-watering the substrate is out of the question. It takes a lot of
soaking time and some boiling to get grain to absorb water effectively.

If growth continues in the jars I don't see why you couldn't do a grain
transfer.

As far as how dry the grain actually is. I only have experience with
popcorn grain but I can tell my kernels are wet enough because they do
not ting on the side of the glass and there are usually excess water
drops all over the sides of the jars. This has yet to affect anything so
I've made no attempts to make the substrate any dryer.

[Molly]

>
>
> I'm not sure about answers to all of your questions but I'm pretty sure
> re-watering the substrate is out of the question. It takes a lot of
> soaking time and some boiling to get grain to absorb water effectively.
>
> If growth continues in the jars I don't see why you couldn't do a grain
> transfer.
>
> As far as how dry the grain actually is. I only have experience with
> popcorn grain but I can tell my kernels are wet enough because they do
> not ting on the side of the glass and there are usually excess water
> drops all over the sides of the jars. This has yet to affect anything so
> I've made no attempts to make the substrate any dryer.
>
>
>

SO can you use rye grain spawn to innoculate popcorn jars?
Molly

[Buggin69]

Molly wrote:
>> I'm not sure about answers to all of your questions but I'm pretty
>> sure re-watering the substrate is out of the question. It takes a
>> lot of soaking time and some boiling to get grain to absorb water
>> effectively.
>>
>> If growth continues in the jars I don't see why you couldn't do a
>> grain transfer.
>>
>> As far as how dry the grain actually is. I only have experience with
>> popcorn grain but I can tell my kernels are wet enough because they
>> do not ting on the side of the glass and there are usually excess
>> water drops all over the sides of the jars. This has yet to affect
>> anything so I've made no attempts to make the substrate any dryer.
>>
>>
>>
>
> SO can you use rye grain spawn to innoculate popcorn jars?
> Molly

I don't see why not but according to some people (because I really have
no clue) changing the substrate can cause for a weaker mycellia
structure or something like that. Yachaj explained it better (replying
to me I think) a while back but I can't recall what thread and don't
know where to find it. But all in all, yeah it'll work, and if there are
any negative effects you probably won't be able to tell.