4 ms·

How "easy" is it to grow poisonous mushrooms in one's coffee waste? What sort of care do enthusiasts have to take?

by bmer 8y ago

kartoffelmos 8y ago
Very simplified: 1) Make sure that the growth medium is as close you can get to being sterile 2) Make sure that only spores from the desired mushroom is "planted" in the medium If done properly, the desired mushroom will outcompete the others, deploy its own defence mechanisms to keep others out.
tren 8y ago
This is my main hobby outside my software gig. You're extremely unlikely to grow poisonous mushrooms, the main problem you have is with unwanted moulds or bacteria. As kartoffelmos says below, you need to sterilise the coffee (creates a blank slate) or pasteurise it (keeps beneficial bacteria in the coffee). A lot of the time, if you get super fresh coffee, it's effectively already been pasteurised and you just need to introduce mushroom spawn to it. If you like experimenting and growing your own food, it can be a really interesting hobby
- rando444 8y ago
  Do you have some more information or links for anyone that would like to get started? Beginner info / what type of environment to use or is ideal / tips for dealing with mold, bacteria / common beginner mistakes / etc.
  - dylanz 8y ago
    Not OP but I have a bunch of books from Paul Stamets who is pretty much the mushroom king. I think one of them is very much a “how-to”.
  - Taylor_OD 8y ago
    I am also interested.
  - tren 8y ago
    Not sure where you're based, but as a first step, I'd probably recommend buying a oyster mushroom grow kit locally or online. All you need to do is mist it daily and you'll get oyster mushrooms in about a week. It will give you an idea of what success looks like. If you like that, then the next level of difficulty is creating your own fruiting kits using mushroom spawn. I'm in Australia, but you can buy it from somewhere like here if you're in the US: http://out-grow.com/live-mushroom-spawn-c-12/ http://out-grow.com/live-mushroom-spawn-c-12/. You basically mix the spawn with treated straw or sawdust and put it in containers, the spawn will colonise and shortly after you'll get mushrooms. Most sites will recommend you sterilise or pasteurise the straw/sawdust (they call this the substrate), but the easiest way to grow without pasteurising/sterilising is using paper, see here as an example: http://re-thinkgreen.com/2016/02/24/mushroom-kit/ http://re-thinkgreen.com/2016/02/24/mushroom-kit/ Stamets is regarded as the guru, but I think "The Essential Guide to Cultivating Mushrooms" (https://www.amazon.com/Essential-Guide-Cultivating-Mushrooms-Techniques/dp/1612121462 https://www.amazon.com/Essential-Guide-Cultivating-Mushrooms...) is a better starting point for the beginner. You don't need to be as much of a clean freak as he makes out, there are plenty of low-tech methods. I'm in the process of writing a short guide on growing shiitake at home, it's harder than oyster mushrooms but once you get the basics it's pretty easy too. It's pretty crazy the amount of mushrooms you can grow with basically no space, you can see my son here with some we harvested recently: http://www.mushroom.guide/ http://www.mushroom.guide/ If you're in a bigger city, there should also be day courses to learn the basics, search for something like "grow gourmet mushrooms [cityname]"
  - alisson 8y ago
    The Radical Mycology book is the book for me: https://radicalmycology.com/ https://radicalmycology.com/ Also Paul Stamets's shop have a lot of resources: http://www.fungi.com http://www.fungi.com
- oceanghost 8y ago
  This is the HN post I've been waiting for all my life. I'm a software engineer by day, amateur mycologist by night. Glad to see there's another one out there.
Alex3917 8y ago
Out of the 2,000 or so species of mushrooms in North America, only 5 - 10 are deadly poisonous, and none grow in coffee grounds. If you get sick it's going to be because of bacteria or mould. But you can smell if your oysters are infected. They mycelium is supposed to smell like almonds or anise if it's healthy. If it instead has a foul smell then just toss it. That said if you want to grow them at scale, I would use shredded newspaper rather than coffee grounds. Much easier to get.

How "easy" is it to grow poisonous mushrooms in one's coffee waste? What sort of care do enthusiasts have to take?

by bmer 8y ago

How "easy" is it to grow poisonous mushrooms in one's coffee waste? What sort of care do enthusiasts have to take?

Very simplified: 1) Make sure that the growth medium is as close you can get to being sterile 2) Make sure that only spores from the desired mushroom is "planted" in the medium If done properly, the desired mushroom will outcompete the others, deploy its own defence mechanisms to keep others out.

tren 8y ago

This is my main hobby outside my software gig. You're extremely unlikely to grow poisonous mushrooms, the main problem you have is with unwanted moulds or bacteria. As kartoffelmos says below, you need to sterilise the coffee (creates a blank slate) or pasteurise it (keeps beneficial bacteria in the coffee). A lot of the time, if you get super fresh coffee, it's effectively already been pasteurised and you just need to introduce mushroom spawn to it. If you like experimenting and growing your own food, it can be a really interesting hobby

rando444 8y ago
Do you have some more information or links for anyone that would like to get started? Beginner info / what type of environment to use or is ideal / tips for dealing with mold, bacteria / common beginner mistakes / etc.
- dylanz 8y ago
  Not OP but I have a bunch of books from Paul Stamets who is pretty much the mushroom king. I think one of them is very much a “how-to”.
- Taylor_OD 8y ago
  I am also interested.
- tren 8y ago
  Not sure where you're based, but as a first step, I'd probably recommend buying a oyster mushroom grow kit locally or online. All you need to do is mist it daily and you'll get oyster mushrooms in about a week. It will give you an idea of what success looks like. If you like that, then the next level of difficulty is creating your own fruiting kits using mushroom spawn. I'm in Australia, but you can buy it from somewhere like here if you're in the US: http://out-grow.com/live-mushroom-spawn-c-12/ http://out-grow.com/live-mushroom-spawn-c-12/. You basically mix the spawn with treated straw or sawdust and put it in containers, the spawn will colonise and shortly after you'll get mushrooms. Most sites will recommend you sterilise or pasteurise the straw/sawdust (they call this the substrate), but the easiest way to grow without pasteurising/sterilising is using paper, see here as an example: http://re-thinkgreen.com/2016/02/24/mushroom-kit/ http://re-thinkgreen.com/2016/02/24/mushroom-kit/ Stamets is regarded as the guru, but I think "The Essential Guide to Cultivating Mushrooms" (https://www.amazon.com/Essential-Guide-Cultivating-Mushrooms-Techniques/dp/1612121462 https://www.amazon.com/Essential-Guide-Cultivating-Mushrooms...) is a better starting point for the beginner. You don't need to be as much of a clean freak as he makes out, there are plenty of low-tech methods. I'm in the process of writing a short guide on growing shiitake at home, it's harder than oyster mushrooms but once you get the basics it's pretty easy too. It's pretty crazy the amount of mushrooms you can grow with basically no space, you can see my son here with some we harvested recently: http://www.mushroom.guide/ http://www.mushroom.guide/ If you're in a bigger city, there should also be day courses to learn the basics, search for something like "grow gourmet mushrooms [cityname]"
- alisson 8y ago
  The Radical Mycology book is the book for me: https://radicalmycology.com/ https://radicalmycology.com/ Also Paul Stamets's shop have a lot of resources: http://www.fungi.com http://www.fungi.com
oceanghost 8y ago
This is the HN post I've been waiting for all my life. I'm a software engineer by day, amateur mycologist by night. Glad to see there's another one out there.

Alex3917 8y ago

Out of the 2,000 or so species of mushrooms in North America, only 5 - 10 are deadly poisonous, and none grow in coffee grounds. If you get sick it's going to be because of bacteria or mould. But you can smell if your oysters are infected. They mycelium is supposed to smell like almonds or anise if it's healthy. If it instead has a foul smell then just toss it. That said if you want to grow them at scale, I would use shredded newspaper rather than coffee grounds. Much easier to get.