Equipment for making a mushroom lab at home
Having a workable sterile space as a mushroom laboratory is one of the best ways to kick start your mushroom growing venture off towards success.
When you have a sterile environment to work in and the right tools, all your usual mushroom work like poring plates, isolating strains, cloning, inoculating blocks ect becomes a lot easier and you have a much higher chance to succeed.
These are some of the things you will need to set up your own mushroom lab at home.
A Workable Clean Space
A mushroom laboratory can be as simple or as complicated as you want it to be with the basic idea of providing a clean and workable space free from contamination.
Choose a table with a smooth easily cleanable surface. It should be large enough for you to work on allowing you to be able to have space to place your still air box on top of and also have room to put all your tools and equipment like jars and fruiting blocks. Having everything in arms reach will help reduce any unnecessary chances of contamination.
A still air box or “SAB” is a large plastic tote that has two holes cut into the side just big enough for your arms to fit through. The inside of the tote is sterilized with isopropyl alcohol and provides a contained area free from falling contaminants and bacteria. The idea of the SAB is to make it easier to for newer and even more experienced mushroom growers to have a clean space that is easy and affordable to make while small enough to travel around.
A SAB is mostly recommended for small scale lab work and contamination is not entirely eliminated. Because of the small space you have to work in, the amount of what you can achieve is limited.
Equipment You Will Need
Here is a list of what you will need to have.
Petri dishes
You can buy plastic pre-sterilized, disposable petri dishes or you can purchase glass reusable ones. Alternatively you can buy disposable sauce condiment cups which do the trick nicely.
Nutrient Agar
Agar provides nutrients to your growing mycelium and allows you to spot contamination.
Click here for some agar recipes
Parafilm
Parafilm is a stretchy plastic film that allows you to seal your petri dishes while still allowing them to breathe. It can be cut, stretched and adheres to most surfaces.
Pressure Cooker
You will need a good pressure cooker rated 15PSI. This is absolutely essential for sterilizing grain, agar and fruiting blocks to make sure all contamination is completely killed off to allow new mycelium to take hold with out competition.
Scalpel and Blades
Owning a good scalpel with extra replacement blades will make it easier to cleanly cut wedges of agar for transfers and inoculations.
Isopropyl alcohol
Alcohol is used to sterilize your work space and equipment and help eliminate contaminants. You can buy Isopropyl alcohol in a range of different strengths, although I use 90%, many people use 70%.
Alcohol Spray Bottle
This goes without saying, You will need a spray bottle or squeeze bottle to place your alcohol in.
Flame Source
This can be a lighter or a flame lamp. You will need a flame in order to flame sterilize your scalpel and tips of needles when doing lab work.
Disposable Gloves
Your hands are constantly being contaminated with dirt and bacteria and is the most likely source of contamination when doing lab work, so make sure you always have a box of gloves on hand.
Impulse Sealer
An impulse sealer makes sealing bags a lot easier after you inoculate them. It works by using heat to melt the plastic of the bag together, making a seal. Be carful when choosing an impulse sealer some on the market are rubbish, so spend the money and get a good one.
This is an impulse sealer we use and recommend.
Mushroom Filter Bags
You can purchase mushroom bags online with different sizes available.
Canning Jars
Don’t forget to save your jars or you can buy canning jars from most stores. You will need these to put grain in to sterilize or to house liquid culture.