Expand Into a Bucket
This is the workhorse method. It multiplies your yield for a few dollars of straw and one bucket, and it works for both oysters and Lion's Mane. You can run a bucket indoors or outdoors, but outdoors in a shaded spot is better. Indoor air often carries much higher CO2, which gives you longer stems and smaller caps. Outdoors, the fresh-air ratio is better and mushrooms come out stockier and fuller. If you must go indoors, pick the airiest spot you have.
- 01
Drill the bucket
Use a quarter inch bit. Drill 20 to 30 holes in staggered rows up the sides, about 4 inches apart, keeping at least 3 inches from the top rim and 3 inches from the bottom. Then drill 4 to 6 small eighth-inch holes in the very bottom for drainage so water cannot pool and sour the substrate. Sand or trim any burrs.
- 02
Sanitize the bucket
Wash with warm soapy water and wipe the inside with 70 percent isopropyl alcohol before you pack it.
- 03
Pasteurize the straw
Soak the straw in hot water at 160 to 170 degrees for one hour, then drain it well so it is damp, not dripping. Use straw, not hay. Hay is full of seed heads that invite contamination.
- 04
Break the spent block into golf-ball chunks
Golf-ball sized pieces spread the mycelium best. That white network running through it is what you are planting into the straw.
- 05
Layer straw and block, one to two ratio
A few inches of straw, a scatter of block chunks, more straw, and repeat, ending with straw on top. Roughly 1 part spent block to 2 parts straw. Pack each layer down firmly.
- 06
Plug every hole with poly-fil
Stuff each drilled hole with poly-fil, or cover with a strip of micropore tape. This keeps fungus gnats out and holds humidity in while the mycelium spreads. Leave them plugged during colonization.
- 07
Colonize in the shade for 2 to 3 weeks
Put the lid on and set the bucket in a shaded spot, ideally outdoors, out of direct sun and wind. In 2 to 3 weeks the mycelium will have run through the fresh straw and the first tiny pins will appear at the holes.
- 08
Unplug, mist, harvest
When you see pins at the holes, pull the poly-fil out of every hole. Mist the open holes 2 to 3 times a day. Mushrooms fruit right out of the sides. Harvest each cluster by reaching behind it, twisting, and pulling free.
A bucket will give several flushes over months from one spent block and a few dollars of straw. When it finally slows, empty the spent straw into your compost or a garden bed. Nothing goes to waste.
Nothing here requires buying anything. But if you want more material to expand from, a fresh kit or refill is the fastest way to stack another cycle on top of this one.