Mushrooms-Incubation

At this point (if you're following along) you should have a sterilized jar of vermiculite & brown rice flower mixture that has small holes punched into the top for air exchange as well as injection of the spores (injecting the spores is referred to as inoculation). Now it's time to incubate your spores and allow for colonization. Don't worry, the hardest part is behind you. All you need to do for this, is take your jars (REMEMBER TO STERILIZE YOUR HANDS) and place them into a storage bin/area (what's important here is you're able to control the environment. For the incubation and subsequent colonization the goal is to keep the jars in a dark place and the temperature below 70 degrees. This process takes around 3 weeks, After 3 weeks, you'll see a sort of white film has formed all along the wall of the jars (pictured below) this is referred to as the substrate. Any bin will do to accomplish this step, but you can find the one I use in the resources section of this page.