hi ashley here and today i'm going to show you how to make straw and sawdust bulk substrate first you
will need sawdust lots of things can work for this i'm just using wood shavings made of pine popular
cottonwood and oak i would get whatever breaks up the easiest then you will need a bale of hay
next sterilize both buckets with alcohol
then scoop eight to ten cups of sawdust and put it directly into your five gallon bucket
next scoop 8 to 10 cups of straw and put it directly into your 5 gallon bucket
i try to do 50 straw and 50 sawdust
i also recommend wearing gloves i got a lot of splinters doing this without gloves
now we need to soak the straw and sawdust
fill the buckets with water and completely cover the sawdust and the straw
also you need some kind of weight to hold down the straw i used a brick it worked well
then add one tablespoon of gypsum and give it a quick stir
then close the buckets with the lid and soak the straw and sawdust for 24 hours
after 24 hours remove the lids and the weight from the straw and then drain the buckets
next mix together the straw and sawdust
into one bucket and thoroughly mixed so they are evenly distributed in the bucket
then fill your bulk substrate bags for the sterilization process i am using a five pound
bulk substrate bag since we are using sawdust we must sterilize the bulk substrate instead of
pasteurize it now we need to sterilize the bags first add a few cups of water in the bottom of
the pressure cooker i am using a 23 quart pressure cooker we need to prepare our bulk substrate bags
fold the bags on the creases with the filter facing out
then place the bags in the pressure cooker side by side
then place the metal safety topper on the bag so that the valve doesn't catch on the bags
if you don't place this in there you could cause a bomb in your pressure cooker
then sterilize at 15 psi for at least two to four hours i did mine for two hours and i think that
was sufficient then after two hours turn off the heat and release the pressure then wait 24 hours
for your bulk substrate to cool down and then it's ready to use if you use it while it's too hot
it could kill the mycelium thank you so much for watching and if you have any questions
please feel free to put them in the comments or reach out to me on instagram or facebook
my oyster mushrooms colonized this straw bulk substrate in five days they really seem to love it
you