# Spent Barley Used To Grow Mushrooms



## kenworthy (15/3/09)

Hi thinking about using my spent barley to grow some mushies been reading about it but wondering if any other members have taken the step .I was thinking the barley should be sterlie after been boiled for 60 odd minutes so could use it as a mulch over the growing medium, im going to give it a go and see what happens any advice would be appreciated regards


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## Adamt (15/3/09)

You shouldn't actually be boiling the spent grain... but many people use it for mulch, it doesn't need to be sterile.


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## kenworthy (15/3/09)

Adamt said:


> You shouldn't actually be boiling the spent grain... but many people use it for mulch, it doesn't need to be sterile.


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## kenworthy (15/3/09)

Hi what I meant was that the spent grain has already been boiled so should be sterlie


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## Mantis (15/3/09)

kenworthy said:


> Hi what I meant was that the spent grain has already been boiled so should be sterlie




The grain is mashed at around 65-68C but never boiled.


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## Fourstar (15/3/09)

Adamt said:


> but many people use it for mulch, it doesn't need to be sterile.



Also a sure fire way to keep the Relgious door knockers away. They probably think im one with the devil when they smell the rancid rotting spent grain on my front garden! :lol:


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## kenworthy (15/3/09)

Mantis said:


> The grain is mashed at around 65-68C but never boiled.


Oops forgot about that.no more beer for me.


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## GMK (15/3/09)

I use the spent grains as Chicken Food for my chickens - They LOVE IT!


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## QldKev (15/3/09)

another spent grains chook feeder


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## Sunshine_Brewer (15/3/09)

if you need to grow mushrooms... cow pats are the best. But it's best to leave nature to run its course... :icon_cheers:


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## barls (15/3/09)

it goes well in the compost heap.


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## braufrau (15/3/09)

Here's link to page with various uses for spent grain ... but bulk spent grain from a brewery.
linky

The spent grain has to be composted. If you had a worm farm you could use that. I just fling some over the fence at the chooks and the rest goes in the compost bin along with all our other compostibles. Wouldn't make very good mushroom substrate, but if you put it through a worm farm it would be I'm sure.

Oh wait .. here's a link showing how to grow oyster mushies including grain in the substrate.
linky

but where would u get spores here?


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## loikar (15/3/09)

kenworthy said:


> no more beer for me.



SHUTUP SHUTUP SHUTUP!!

The only reason I spew after a MASSIVE session is to make MORE ROOM FOR BEER!!


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## braufrau (15/3/09)

Here's an international site that reckons it can send "spore prints" into Oz.
linky

OT - here's a site where you can buy an oak tree inocculated with truffles and grow your own!

linky


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## loikar (15/3/09)

braufrau said:


> but where would u get spores here?




You can go to your closest mushroom farm and buy spent compost. They buy moist wheat\barley caked in spores in bulk.
Pack it tight into some of those foam vegetable containers you get from the markets, throw some peat moss over the top, keep it cool, moist and dark.

Viola, Shrooms!

(I used to be the compost manager of a mushroom farm....many, many moons ago)


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## pdilley (15/3/09)

:icon_offtopic: 

OT:

What type of mushrooms are you going to grow on spent barley?

Different type of mushrooms perform best on different substrates. Shiitakes and similar love wood based substrates, I used grain to create grain masters for inoculation of the final substrates. Barley would definitely be out because it tends to clump and is claggy and invites growths of molds and other nasties. Most of the nutrients are in the husks of grains, the central sperm and seed kernels are usually too nutrient dense. The mycelium produce enzymes to break down the cellulose fibers and grow berserk on the hulls while stall and halt when encountering the kernel inside.

And good luck with Oak/Truffle trees. Truffles are symbiotic which means you need to culture the entire environment, if you don't have the *specific* soil bacteria required for that species of truffle you won't get anything. Unless there is a new breakthrough in truffle culture, the success rate in the past with inoculated tree saplings was extremely low.

If you're into mushrooms, then a start would be
http://www.mykoweb.com/articles/cultivation.html

And if you're seriously into it as a hobby make sure you get Growing Gormet and Medicinal Mushrooms by Paul Stamets on Amazon if not available locally. (One of the mushroom bibles).

Now if I only had my entire laminar flow wall forced air hepa filtration unit, I could do some serious playing with yeasts and agar plates and strain isolation, culture and cataloguing  -- ok evil scientist mode ebbing away... would cost me a bomb to get bacticinerators and other lab gear over here to set up. Could get by with an old fashioned glove box, could build that with parts from bunnings


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## pdilley (15/3/09)

braufrau said:


> Oh wait .. here's a link showing how to grow oyster mushies including grain in the substrate.
> linky
> 
> but where would u get spores here?



You don't or don't really want to try. I'm not sure what the laws are here, but its not worth it or needed.

If you have fresh oyster mushrooms or other mushrooms you wish to clone you simply in a glove box or in front of a laminar flow hood slice the mushroom open then with a sterilized scalpel cut a small square of mushroom material from the stem or other area. Transfer this to a agar plate or sterilized jar of grain and in a few weeks the mushroom mycelium grows through the entire plate or jar.

With jars, using grain you can shake up the jar making lots of broken up chunks. You can then use this to make other new jars or to inoculate the growing substrate directly.

Just like yeast, mushrooms bought in the store are selected "strains" that are bought specifically for vigor, fruiting ability, etc. Starting with spores is like pitching every single packet of yeast in a LHBS into a beer wort. You end up with hundreds of multiple strains and then have to go to all the work of isolating them and growing them out to test for vigor, fruiting, etc.

Save time and bypass the spores and harvest the mycelium directly.


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## dug (17/3/09)

Oyster mushrooms would love spent grain as a "grow-out" media.

Most mushroom mycelia (sp), that the white stuff from which the mushies fruit from, is grown on a grain based media, (typically bird seed), after growing on agar.

if you can grow oyster mushrooms on spent coffee grinds you can do it off spent grain.

I don't think the spent grain would smell bad because all the "bugs" would be killed off during boiling.

I'll have a read up in my paul statments book when I get home and see if there is more info in that


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## toncils (18/5/14)

Anyone have any luck with growing on spent barley?


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## Florian (18/5/14)

Never tried it, but I had to laugh really hard while reading the first seven posts...


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## ArgM (18/5/14)

Has anyone tried growing mushrooms from a mycelium sample taken from store bought mushrooms? Mainly the organic ones I notice it on...
The spent coffee doesn't seem to have a large success rate with lots of infected batches from what I've read online


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## Judanero (19/5/14)

A friend of a friend mixed spent barley into a bulk substrate, ~50/50 horse manure/barley and it worked fine when innoculated with jars of rye spawn..

They only did it once though so not sure if it was a fluke, the horse manure provided all the necessary nutrients or if it is a reliable substrate filler.

If you have even a minimal amount of mycology experience, namely sterile technique and whatnot it would be fairly easy to try as a 100% substrate (added gypsum), not sure how it would go being used as spawn ie-whether the extracted sugars would render it unsuitable?


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## mr_wibble (19/5/14)

What's the gypsum for ?

There's a mushroom cultivation course on in Sydney on June, but it's ~$500 for the weekend. (milkwood permaculture)


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## niftinev (19/5/14)

ask punkin, he's probably tried it. He used to grow mushrooms and sell them (spores that is)
I think he's on holidays at the moment though


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## toncils (19/5/14)

Couple of weeks ago I put down a store-spawn packet. I hadn't read anything about pasteurising the soil, so I don't have high hopes.

Keen to hear from Punkin about using fresh mushrooms. Do you think it's similar to yeast; the more spore you put in the quicker it will take over, the less chance of infection?


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## Judanero (19/5/14)

toncils said:


> Do you think it's similar to yeast; the more spore you put in the quicker it will take over, the less chance of infection?


Yes. They're both fungus, it is more or less a numbers game. 





Mr Wibble said:


> What's the gypsum for ?


pH stabiliser and provides nutrients for the mycelium.


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## niftinev (21/5/14)

don't forget you can even do your own spore prints saves you having to fork out for spores and very easy to do


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## Hoops (21/5/14)

I think there would be too much nutrient for use as a casing layer, but may be good as a supplement, the same way coffee is used.
If you were going to give it a try, I would definitely start with an oyster mushroom - they grow fast and will out compete other contaminants.
I've been growing White oyster mushrooms on sugar can mulch, as well as on 100% spent coffee grounds with good success


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## TimT (21/5/14)

I remember hearing about a guy who used straw bales to grow mushrooms on. He'd just hose water through the bails which had spores in them and they'd spread right through, from memory. Might follow up that link Braufrau posted for mushroom spore sellers, looks good!


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## jafa5 (9/6/14)

I have a few dozen logs innoculated in the garden with shitake and oyster. They should be fruiting in November but we had a cheeky first flush a couple of weeks ago. Nice and easy to do and good for insects int he garden. Good for NZ insects anyway, they don't tend to kill you here 

We brewed this weekend and tonight's job is to make up the compost using the spent grain to have our first go at mushrooms. It seems pretty straight forward from the research I've done and so long as the compost gets up to temperature to kill off any other spores you're good to go. I have about 70kg of spent grain from yesterday (we knocked out 180 litres of beer which was a huge day for us) and I have three massive bags of oak and cherry chips from a cutting up the firewood a month or so ago.

30% spent grain
40-50% oak wood chips and shavings
10-20% twigs for structure and allow air into the mixture

I'm not going to add any lime or gypsum unless the pH is very acid and as spent grain is pretty good at breaking down I don't think I'll need an activator to get the composting going. 

I just need to turn it every other day to keep it hot and maintain reasonable moisture content. Should take from 2-4 weeks to compost and once the amonia smell is gone I'll bag it for Oyster mushrooms and lay it out into trays for Shaggy Ink Caps and Burgundy.

Be good if we can compost each month to match the frequency of brew days. 
50kg of compost should give us 5kg yield on 'schrooms 

I'll let you know how we get on.

Liam


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## jafa5 (16/6/14)

Compost is a little slow to start for some reason, going to tip it out and put it back in again tonight, hopefully the aeration will kick start it into action. Smells nice though, week old spent grain is usually pretty honking.


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