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as a home mushroom cultivator I can tell you that this device is pretty much the Juicero of the mushroom world. from what i'm reading this device accomplishes n
by pline 4y ago
as a home mushroom cultivator I can tell you that this device is pretty much the Juicero of the mushroom world. from what i'm reading this device accomplishes nothing that one can't do with a homemade monotub composed of a 32 quart storage tote, a spray bottle and some polyfill. if you are interested in growing edible gourmet mushrooms look up a local mushroom farm in your area, most of them sell blocks that you can fruit at home.
- TheBlerch 4y agoCould you recommend any types of mushrooms you'd recommend for home cultivation and online sources for blocks? Already grow vegetables and it would be great to add mushrooms to the mix. Also are there any communities you'd recommend that share good advice?
- pline 4y agolions mane and oyster are both great for home cultivation. if you look for a local mushroom farm in your area you can likely buy blocks from them. I've purchased blocks from Fat Moon Farms and had good success with them growing several pounds of mushrooms from a single block. https://fatmoonmushrooms.com/ https://fatmoonmushrooms.com/ there are a variety of mushroom/mycology related subreddits and Southwest Mushrooms on youtube has alot of informative well produced video content https://www.youtube.com/c/SouthwestMushrooms https://www.youtube.com/c/SouthwestMushrooms
- idiotsecant 4y agoI have found that pink oysters are absolutely impossible to fail to grow in a wide variety of conditions, very robust to storage and handling, and very good to eat. They are very hearty little mushrooms (or big mushrooms sometimes!) I honestly have no idea why pink oysters are not sold in grocery stores or used in more dishes, they are very cheap to grow and add interesting color.
- anewpersonality 4y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224
- pline 4y agoi think you are giving this device far too much credit to backhandedly imply that it is as groundbreaking as the introduction of cloud storage.
- folkrav 4y agoPerfectly fair, it's obviously not really a good comparison. I'd however rather pay a bit more to have something a bit prettier than a spray painted monotub sitting on my shelf, when possible. Function over form, but I don't totally discount form either, I like pretty things. This one in particular is a good example of connected for the sake of it though lol
- vgatherps 4y agoHN does love to dump on anybody doing anything but I don't think that home mushroom growing tools are in the same boat as easy to use cloud file access.
- detritus 4y agoheh, as amusing as that reference is, it's a bit of a difference between buying a big ol' tub and a spray mister. About £200, apparently. I'm curious to know how repeated use of the device will deal with sterilisation, which was always the tricky part.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- s_dev 4y agoI don't think these smart boxes are for mushroom growers (agriculture) but for magic mushroom growers (recreational drug use). Where a "Click&Grow" equivalent is needed. With a hydrometer and water sprayer instead of a timed light.
- pline 4y agoi fear coming off as a hostile know it all, but i think this company is simply parting a fool from their money (see Juicero). i don't think that a click and grow equivalent is needed in the cubensis cultivation space. with the advent of uncle bens tek around 2019 and pf tek years before that the flood gates for at home cultivation psilocybe cubensis have already been opened.
- imiric 4y agoYet there's still no begginer-friendly way of doing any of that without diving head-first into the DIY home growing literature. Your comments are coming off as gatekeeping for no other reason than speculation and the fact you're already familiar with the space. This product seems to simplify the entire process of home growing, which is a bit more involved than squeezing juice out of fruit. As long as it's priced and marketed appropriately, I don't see a reason why it shouldn't exist. Whether there's a market for it is another question, though.
- rdtwo 4y agoMy local farmers market begs to differ. At 15$ you just soak the block and spray.
- 0_____0 4y agoIn terms of complexity, IMO basic home cultivation is somewhere between baking a simple loaf of bread and assembling an IKEA shelf unit and installing it on the wall. It takes basic web search skills to find info on front-to-back DIY technique, and one can find colonized media online or at the farmers market. That being said, every level of simplification grants a hobby a new audience. I think the objection here is the attempt to create a Juicero model, where you get a fancy machine that requires (maybe DRM'd? not sure) media pods in perpetuity if you want to keep using it. (edit: doesn't appear to be vendor locked media, but the machine is $299... I spent less on that for my pressure canner, mason jars, fruiting chamber, and food dehydrator put together. sort of puts into question who this is for.)
- itslennysfault 4y agoYeah, this was my initial reaction as well. Growing mushrooms is not difficult. This feels like a solution looking for a problem.
- throwawaymaths 4y agoIt does look nice enough to use it as a conversation piece when you throw parties, so there's that, over juicero. I think that must appeal to a certain type of person.
- elif 4y agoYea if I was cooking for someone I would feel better about harvesting food from this device than "hold on a second while I get this bucket out of my cupboard."
- 7952 4y agoI agree. Mushroom growing needs to be hygienic but depends on conditions that are not normally considered hygienic. Having some help in terms of the inputs and conditions would provide reassurance. There are lots of products like that in the kitchen that take something relatively easy and make it more consistent.
- giantg2 4y agoI don't see this device really providing any hygiene benefit. If anything it looks like it would be harder to clean than a tote.
- unicornporn 4y agoThis thing looks extremely rough when examining pictures and video at highest resolution available. Take a look at the left edge of the display cut out, as an example: https://i.imgur.com/ttZZhwa.png https://i.imgur.com/ttZZhwa.png This hobbyist level of machining does not go very well with the slick design and marketing.
- aliqot 4y agoWow I recognize this! That stuttered uneven spot is what happens when I try to flatten the edges with a dremel with the cylinder bit on and the speed up too high. It catches and digs in and makes the little dip.
- Closi 4y agoIt's a prototype, so not necessarily indicative of the final finish. That looks like it's been cut by a craft knife, which is unlikely to be the final manufacturing process.
- dymk 4y agoThis doesn't even look like a prototype, it looks like a foamboard mockup
- antoniuschan99 4y agoalso looks like it's using a dht (probably 22) sensor which is not accurate. In high humidity environments should look for a sensor with a ptfe membrane.
- csteubs 4y agoGood call out. I respect the effort put into the aesthetics of the prototype, but the display cut out could definitely have been flush-mounted in a way to disguise the cut out with something as simple as household white quarter inch trim. Slick design comes in time, and the device itself looks quite nice IMO. I just think it reeks of the Juicero "hammering a screw" approach. Monotubs are dead simple and cheap, but do require a bit of research/knowledge/trial and error to get started producing fruiting bodies. Without knowing the cost of Shrooly's replacement boxes, it really comes down to convenience and personal value of having fresh mushrooms on hand. I'd rather have something like this on my bookshelf than a Rubbermaid shoe tote full of dirt and pinheads, though.
- bemmu 4y agoYou got me curious about the growing process (didn't even know it's something you can do at home), and came across this fascinating tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pm1FgFFzQd4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pm1FgFFzQd4
- 0_____0 4y agoWhat I would pay money for is a simple panel -mount device with an ultrasonic mister and a fan, basically a simple humidistat that can sense and flush CO2. I actually bought components to do this but never quite got around to it.
- NERD_ALERT 4y agoThere’s actually a mushroom enthusiast who sells an inflatable monotub so you don’t need to make it yourself. https://boomershroomer.com/monotub/ https://boomershroomer.com/monotub/
- iancmceachern 4y agoI got caught up in a similar thing years ago but for plants (MiT open ag initiative). It was all nonsense. An educational tool at best. I don't know about this particular product, but I do know that growing mushrooms is like growing plants, with a few less steps (no light), and a few other sensitivities (moisture control). The products that are valuable to make in this space have been made and are already commercially available to growers. Grow chambers, climate control stuff, etc. Ultimately we don't need Linux and Microcontrollers to do this, it's using the wrong hammer. Agriculture needs to be dead simple, simple as possible, reliable as possible. These things are not that.
- KennyBlanken 4y agoOpenAg was more than nonsense, it was outright fraud. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/13/business/media/mit-closes-food-computer-project.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/13/business/media/mit-closes... ...and several other NY Times articles covering the mess. It never worked. Period. Which is amazing, considering that several friends have built DIY systems using open-source equivalents, for growing vegetables (and "vegetables").
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- antoniuschan99 4y agoI found sterilizing the jars (in a hot bath), innoculating the (brown rice) and getting the mycelium to take over took the most effort and time (takes like 2 months in the dark for the mycelium to take over the entire jar). Getting it to fruit was easy and all I needed was some vermeculite to place the mycelium block on top of and a plastic container to act as a terrarium so it will trap the humidity from the spray bottle.
- azurelake 4y agoYou’re living in the past my friend! https://old.reddit.com/r/unclebens/comments/el1d8q/part_2_inoculating_uncle_bens_for_colonization/ https://old.reddit.com/r/unclebens/comments/el1d8q/part_2_in...
- ge96 4y ago/r/unclebens bags of rice
- bergenty 4y agoThere is a lot of effort in those simple words though. Based on my experience— 1) Sterilize the substrate/polyfill. This is not trivial. I personally use a bag set in a hot water bath with a sous vide heater. 2) Use food grade buckets and make evenly spaced holes in them. Sterilize those buckets. 3) Prepare the buckets by layering substrate and then a layer of the inoculated material. This is not easy, everything needs to be sterile. 4) Manually spray them down every other day. 5) Control the light. Needs to be dark initially during propagation and then some light so the mushrooms know to grow out. That’s a lot of work. It’s like saying anyone can just set up rsync, what’s the big deal with Dropbox. That being said, it’s silly to buy these preseeded boxes. It’s going to be super expensive and your harvest is going to be tiny. Much cheaper to just buy the mushrooms at the store. The only thing this makes sense for is super rare strains of mushrooms (if they can grow morels I’m sold) and of course psilocybin.
- uoaei 4y agoA tip: sous vide is guaranteed not to get hot enough to kill eg Botulinum nor many kinds of spores, because the heat conductor is liquid water. Pressure cooker (modern teks use Instant Pot) will achieve the necessary thermal properties because they produce superheated steam.
- bergenty 4y agoYes but I was using straw and if the temperature is too high it cooks the straw and then it’s useless. I guess it’s a crap shoot hoping there wasn't anaerobic conditions to grow botulism in the straw bale. For all other spores, the mycelium grows fast enough to make sure nothing else can gain a foothold.
- robbiep 4y agoyou do realise that you aren't sterilising anything though right? It's not a crap shoot - it's a unnecessary step since you aren't actually achieving anything. You might as well not do that step
- giantg2 4y agoLolls like this device won't even fit most blocks.
- grogenaut 4y agoYou don't even need the tub, just a fruiting block and a sprayer. For oysters many places this machine is just way overkill.
- collyw 4y agoWas thinking the same. All you need is a tub and a drill.
- krrrh 4y agoThis looks more like a fun thing to do with your kids if you have a lot of disposable income and either no time or no ambition. It's more comparable to the aerogarden [1], because it's in no serious way going to provide you with food that you can't get with less trouble and expense at the grocery store. [1] https://www.aerogarden.com https://www.aerogarden.com