PF-Tek MycoPots™ Grow Kit

Work in a small, clean and draught-free room. We always recommend working within a Still-Air Box when completing inoculations of any product.

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Make sure you're showered with fresh clothes. Clean your hands and forearms with one of the hand wipes for 40-60 seconds, then fit your face mask and gloves securely.

Prepare your chosen gourmet mushroom spore/culture syringe for use by screwing on a new sterile needle.

Remove your MycoPots from the bag. They are now exposed to the open air and potential contaminants - this is where working within a SAB will greatly reduce your chance of contamination.

Clean the grey rubber injection port on each MycoPot lid with a 70% IPA / 2% Chlorhexidine wipe for 40-60 seconds. Don't touch or try to remove the white air filter strips - they are essential.

Inject 1ml of your gourmet spore or culture solution into the rubber injection port on each MycoPot. We've given you three sterile needles, one for each MycoPot, so use a new needle for each one.

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If you have any solution left and want to store it - put the cover back on the needle and keep the syringe in a cool, dark place - a drawer is ideal.

Temperature is so important for success. Being too hot or too cold may result in contamination or slow to no mycelium growth.

Stay around 23C (give or take a couple of degrees) and try to maintain a consistent temperature, i.e. 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! They will cause excessive condensation leading to water build-up and an easy pathway for contamination to enter your MycoPots. Consider building or buying an incubator if you're struggling to maintain these temperatures - it's way cheaper than keeping your home heating on all the time and gives much better results too.

Full colonisation generally takes 2-4 weeks at optimum conditions (but can sometimes take longer). It depends on inoculation type (spores or live culture), genetics, etc. Nature likes to keep us on our toes and this timeline can fluctuate based on a multitude of factors. Even once it looks fully colonised, 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.

Patience will be your friend here.

When the substrate is fully colonised i.e. completely covered in white mycelium, you are ready to use a method called 'dunking' to prepare for fruiting. Do not ever take the lid off your MycoPots before full colonisation.

Fill a pot with fresh water, deep enough to submerge your colonised substrate (known as a 'cake') in. Open your MycoPots and remove the colonised cakes - they will be solid blocks. Place them in the water and put a couple of plates on top to stop them floating, as you need them to be fully covered in water at all times. Put a lid on the pot to stop dust and flies getting in. Leave your cakes submerged like this for anything between 6-24 hours.. depending on how much patience you have! But obviously - the longer you leave them, the better your results will be.

Just before you're ready to take your cakes out of the water, pour some of the provided vermiculite out onto a clean surface or plate. Don't use it all as you will be repeating this process a few times between each flush of mushrooms!

Lift each cake out of the water, give them a little rinse under a tap (they've been sitting in their own dirty bath water for up to 24 hours), allow excess water to drain off and then place them onto the vermiculite.

Roll them around until there is vermiculite stuck to the full surface area of every cake.

You can fruit each cake on its own in one of the three smaller Grow Tents, or all three together in the XXL Grow Tent - it's up to you.

Pour your perlite into a strainer and rinse under a tap until it's soaking wet, then pour it into the tent (or share it between the tents) you're using - don't worry if it's still dripping wet. Please cover your mouth and nose when working with perlite - it's dusty and nasty to work with (take it from us).

Cut a piece of tin foil slightly larger than your cakes and place this on top of the perlite so the cakes won't touch it - don't ever have cakes sitting on damp perlite.

Keep your perlite wet (recommended, but not totally necessary): Perlite can dry out quickly, so every other day, pour some water into your grow tent(s) and mix it around with a clean hand so the perlite becomes drenched. It's okay to have an excess of water in there, and adding a little bit of 3% hydrogen peroxide to the water can help kill microbes. Just be careful the wet perlite never touches your cakes - it just sits there, so it can bring a higher risk of contamination.

Now carefully place your cakes onto the foil.

Smaller Grow Tents: make sure to fold over the top of each tent to keep humidity inside and the dusty nasties out! A little tape might come in handy if it's not staying closed.

XXL Grow 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.

Maintain a temperature of around 21C (give or take a couple of degrees), this tends to be great for many popular species. When the temperature is right, essential levels of humidity will naturally build up inside the grow tent from the water you allowed to soak into the substrate.

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 cakes a fine mist until they glisten, 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.

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

If you're using the smaller Grow Tents, we suggest cutting a 1cm slit through both sides of each tent, near to the top (the XXL Grow Tent has its corner gap instead). Either way, try placing an electric fan somewhere in the room on low setting. This will create a gentle air current inside the room which will increase FAE inside the grow tent. Your mushrooms will also need light to grow - we recommend indirect sunlight or a 5000-6500K LED or fluorescent light a couple of feet away.

Light and Environmental Conditions

If you notice the inside of your grow tent looking dry, there are a few things which can cause this: The environment is too cold so humidity is not developing inside your grow tent, the fan is too close, the slits you cut in the tent (or the corner gap) are too big (cover excess with tape), grow lights are too close and drying out the substrate... Observe what's happening and adjust your setup as required - fantastic results depend on it.

Pinning and Growth

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'll then only take 4-5 days for them 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 length of the cuts on the tent might be something to try.

Don't worry about any mushrooms growing around the sides and bottom of the cake, you'll still be able to harvest them. If you want to give your mushrooms more room to grow next time, consider using a fruiting chamber.

Harvesting and Subsequent Flushes

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 should dunk your cakes again to rehydrate them for round 2! Remember to rinse them and allow excess water to drain off before placing back into your grow tent(s). It's really important that you dunk your cakes between each flush for best results.

You should also pour your perlite into a strainer again and rehydrate it whenever you're dunking your cakes.

If you've taken good care of your grow kit, you should achieve multiple flushes of beautiful mushrooms 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!