MycMonster Box Grow Kit

We highly recommend working within a SAB (Still-Air Box). We sell lids that have arm holes laser-cut in them, sized to your preference, so you can easily add them to an IKEA Samla tub and have a SAB! We call them Sabla - check them out here.

At the very least, work in a small, very clean and draught-free room. Make sure you're freshly showered and in clean clothes, then thoroughly clean your hands and forearms.

Prepare your chosen gourmet mushroom spore or culture syringe for use by screwing on the sterile needle we've given you.

Carefully take your box out of its packaging. It's now exposed to the open air and potential contaminants - this is where working within a SAB will greatly reduce your chances of suffering a contamination.

The box comes clean on the outside, so you only need the 70% IPA / 2% Chlorhexidine wipe if fingers or anything else have touched the grey rubber injection port on the lid: then clean it for 40-60 seconds (allow a few seconds to become visibly dry). Don't touch, try to remove or inject through the white filter strips! They provide essential clean air exchange.

Pierce through the injection port and inject 3ml of your gourmet spore or culture solution. Take care not to add any more than 3ml in total to your box.

Now keep your box somewhere clean and safe. Mycelium is living and needs to breathe, so don't ever store your box in an airtight container or block the filters on the lid.

Temperature is extremely important for achieving good colonisation. Being too hot (above 26C) or too cold (below 18C) will very likely cause problems like contamination or slow to no growth.

Aim for 23C (give or take a couple of degrees) if you can, but crucially, do your best to maintain the temperature you're able to achieve. Don't let the temperature go up and down too much.

Using a liquid culture, agar or grain-to-grain instead of spores? Aim for 26C - those are live mycelium, not spores.

Avoid heat mats please! It's a very common mistake. They don't spread warmth evenly, which can cause excessive condensation and water build-up - an easy pathway for contamination to enter your box.

Consider building or buying an incubator if you're struggling to hold these temperatures - it's way cheaper than keeping your home heating on all the time and gives much better results.

At 23C (give or take a couple of degrees), it will generally take around 4-6 weeks at optimum conditions for your box to fully colonise (this means the substrate is completely covered in healthy, white mushroom mycelium) but this depends on a lot of different factors and also just that nature can simply be unpredictable!

Even once the substrate in your box looks fully covered in mycelium, if you have the patience, give it an extra 3-7 days - this will almost guarantee full colonisation in the places you can't see.

MycMonster is a substrate which is intentionally produced on the drier side. This means that prior to first flush, you will absolutely want to get some extra moisture into the colonised cake you have if you want the very best results.

When you're confident the substrate is fully colonised, you are ready to use a method called 'dunking' to prepare for fruiting. Do not ever take the lid off your box before full colonisation.

Fill a pot with fresh water, deep enough to submerge your colonised substrate (known as a 'cake') in.

Open your box and remove the colonised cake - it will be a solid block. Place this in the water and put a couple of plates on top to weigh the cake down and stop it floating. You need it to be fully submerged in water at all times. Put a lid on the pot to stop dust and flies getting in.

Leave your cake dunking like this for anything between 6-24 hours... depending on how much patience you have! Obviously, the longer you leave it, the better your results will be.

Take the cake out of the water and give it a little rinse under a cold tap - it's been sitting in its own dirty bath water for up to 24 hours.

Then it's time for the 'roll'.. Grab the bag of vermiculite we supplied in your kit and empty it either on to a clean work surface or into a bowl big enough to move your cake around in.

Place the wet cake into the vermiculite and work it until every side has a vermiculite coating. Don't be scared to firmly press the vermiculite onto the cake to get it to stick. This vermiculite layer is not mandatory, but it enhances results.

Please cover your mouth and nose when working with perlite and avoid breathing the dust in (it throws off a lot of dust when poured). If you do breathe some in, move into fresh air and rinse your nose/mouth.

Open your XL Grow Tent and pour the 2L of perlite into the bottom of it.

Pour in 4 cups of water and mix it all around with your hand until the perlite is wet.

Snip a small hole on the bottom corner of the tent, just big enough for excess water to drain out.

Place the box lid on the perlite, then sit the cake on top so it isn't directly touching the damp perlite. You don't ever want your cake sitting on the damp perlite, as it can cause contamination.

Perlite can dry out quickly, so every other day, pour some water into your grow tent and mix it around with a clean hand so the perlite becomes drenched. The excess water can be drained from a small cut you have made in the bottom of the grow tent.

Close the tent: Fold the top of the tent over, leaving a gap at one corner for top-FAE (Fresh Air Exchange), and tuck the piece of filter material we give you into that gap. It holds the gap open, helps keep the humidity in and keeps flies and dust out. Use the paper clips we gave you.

Do your best to maintain a temperature of 21C (give or take a couple of degrees) at this stage to get the best results.

Humidity and FAE (fresh air exchange) are extremely important for pinning and healthy mushroom development, as is temperature and light. They all need to work in harmony.

Humidity will build up inside the grow tent from the extra moisture you added to your cake during the dunking stage and the damp perlite, and the filtered gap at the corner of your tent allows for fresh air exchange.

Mist and fan: Misting 3-6 times a day and fanning is recommended for best results. Don't start misting until at least 24 hours have passed since you dunked, as there will be loads of water in your substrate at this point and you could waterlog it. After that, open the tent, give your cake a fine mist until it glistens, fan in some fresh air (a wave of your hand or a piece of card is plenty) and close it back up. If you notice any excess water, dab it up with tissue paper.

The addition of perlite to this kit as well as the kind of substrate MycMonster is means that misting isn't as important as other kits - not misting this kit can still yield excellent results. But if your home is dry, then it might become particularly necessary.

Placing an electric fan somewhere in the room on a low setting will create a gentle air current and help increase the FAE inside the grow tent.

Your mushrooms will need light to grow. Indirect sunlight is fine, but if you want to use grow lights - a 5000-6500K LED or fluorescent light a couple of feet away is recommended.

If you notice the inside of your grow tent looking dry, there are a few things which can cause this. Your perlite is not damp enough, the fan is too close, or grow lights are too close and hot.

Observe what's happening and adjust your setup as required - fantastic results depend on it.

After around 3-7 days you'll begin to see lots of tiny white dots - these are hyphal knots which will develop into primordia, aka mushroom pins... the exciting part!

It should then only take 4-5 days for the pins to grow into fully mature mushrooms ready for harvest.

During this time, they'll let you know if something isn't quite right - fuzzy mycelium at the base of the mushrooms and/or thin stems are an indication that more FAE is needed so increasing the fan speed or opening the corner gap a little wider might be something to try.

When the veil beneath one of your mushroom caps is about to tear off, this is when you should harvest your first flush. If you don't get there quick enough, spores will begin to drop from your mushroom caps and make a mess!

It's best to cut the mushrooms off with a clean scalpel or knife, you can also just pull them off but be careful not to damage the substrate too much.

After you've harvested all the mushrooms from your first flush, you can repeat the dunking stage to get more moisture into your substrate again. No need to roll it in dry vermiculite this time.

You can rehydrate your perlite at this point too if it seems dry. Always be careful the wet perlite never touches your cake though, as it's a contamination risk.

When you remove the cake from the water after dunking, give it a little rinse under the tap (it's been sitting in its own dirty bath water for up to 24 hours) and allow excess water to drain away before placing back into your grow tent.

You should continue to dunk your substrate after each flush, and if you've taken good care of it, you should achieve multiple flushes of mushrooms from your grow kit before the nutrients are all used up.

Thanks so much for ordering our grow kit. We hope you love using it and reap the rewards!

If there's anything you're still unsure about, get in touch through Messages in your account or the chat button at the bottom of any page. We're a friendly bunch!