Dried Psilocybe cubensis mushrooms.

Beginners, advanced... Growing mushrooms is for everyone!

That’s right! Growing mushrooms isn’t difficult. Still, there’s a growing number of enthusiastic growers who aren’t that into easy growkits. But even if you choose the more unique growkits, you’re still facing quite a challenge. In this article we talk about more advanced cultivation methods such as PF-Tek and other methods where you work from spores or liquid culture, and later we introduce a number of mushroom species that can be next level enough.

Into the lab: growing mushrooms like a pro

Guide: growing mushrooms from a spore print or spore syringe*

*Not to be confused with a liquid culture syringe. That description is further down.

Mushrooms go through different stages in their life. Mature mushrooms slowly open up and release spores that are so light they can be carried by a small gust of wind or on the backs of insects. Those spores are comparable to seeds in plants. When spores germinate, they grow into mycelium: a network of fungal threads that searches through the substrate for food and a suitable living environment. Only when that mycelium is large and dense enough does it switch to the next phase: forming mushrooms. What you want to learn here is how to get that mycelium to germinate and expand with as little chance of infection or, in a fancier word: contamination.

This is what you want to know. Here’s how to germinate mushroom spores and create a clean starter culture.

Shopping list

  1. Wash your hands well and clean your workspace with alcohol. Prepare your agar-agar medium according to the recipe, pour it into Petri dishes and sterilize it all in a pressure cooker until the medium has set clear.
  2. Perform the following steps in as sterile an environment as possible. In laboratories, a flow hood or a still air box is used to reduce airborne contamination.
  3. Heat your knife in a flame to sterilize it, let the knife cool completely before touching the spore material.
  4. Open the spore print, take a very small amount of spores with the sterile knife and place it in the middle of the agar surface in the Petri dish.
  5. Seal the Petri dish with parafilm or tape so no air or dust can get in. Store the Petri dish at a stable temperature (preferably around 20-25 °C) in a dark place.
  6. After a few days to a week, the mycelium starts growing in a bright white network over the agar surface. It should remain entirely white; other colors indicate contamination*.

Compare 2 Petri dishes. Left a contaminated Petri dish with different mold colors. Right a Petri dish with a successful fungal culture.

Left: too bad. This one is contaminated. Right: congratulations, you can move on to the next step.

*Even master growers don’t always get lucky. If it turns a color other than white, you have a contamination. Discard the contents and choose a better dish or start again with the steps above. That’s why it’s wise to prepare multiple Petri dishes. You’ll have a higher chance of success.

Making liquid culture

Liquid culture is a liquid nutrient medium in which mycelium can actively grow. The advantage of liquid culture is that you can easily add it to a nutrient base. That’s called inoculating. Liquid culture grows faster and gives more reliable results than adding spores directly because mycelium is already present. Making a good liquid culture depends entirely on sterile work and the right nutrient solution.

Shopping list

  • 2 glass jars with metal screw lids
  • A resealable rubber injection port
  • A filter sticker with a mesh size of max 0.4 micron
  • Sterile knife or scalpel
  • Alcohol and disinfected gloves
  • Recipe for liquid culture medium (for example water plus light malt extract or other sugars)
  • Pressure sterilizer or pressure cooker

For liquid culture and later substrate, the lid of your jar needs two passages: one for fresh air via a filter and one for the syringe needle. If you also want to grow your mushrooms from a jar, you’ll need at least 2 jars that you prepare the same way. It’s important that you keep at least 1 lid intact.

Modifying the lid for liquid culture and substrate

Cut a hole in the lid just smaller than the filter sticker so the sticker fits tightly. Then cut a hole for the injection port and place it firmly. Use a new filter and injection port for each jar to prevent contamination.

A small glass jar with a metal lid fitted with a rubber injection port and a filter sticker for growing fungi.

A lid with a filter sticker and a rubber injection port that reseals itself after you pull the needle out.

Put agar-agar in a jar and dilute with boiled and cooled water. The ideal ratio is 4% agar-agar to 96% water, so slightly weaker than 1 in 20. Screw a whole lid (without holes) tightly onto the jar.

Place the closed jar with nutrient and the modified lid with holes (but without filter and injection port) in the pressure cooker and sterilize for 15-20 minutes at 15 psi or 1035 millibar. Then let the lid with holes dry on a clean surface (do not dry with a cloth) and then apply the new sterile filter sticker and injection port. Let the jar cool completely to room temperature without opening it.

Next, in a sterile environment, open a fully white colonized agar plate and cut out a piece of agar with clean mycelium using a sterile blade. Put this piece into the jar with the liquid medium. Replace the lid with the lid with filter and injection port. Close and seal the jar with parafilm or tape and store at room temperature. Gently swirl the jar daily so the mycelium distributes through the medium. When swirling, make sure it doesn’t slosh against the filter. Within days to weeks, the mycelium grows into a cloudy culture with white flakes. When this is achieved, the liquid culture is ready to use.

Making your own substrate:

If you make your own substrate (nutrient base) and want to grow in a glass jar, you also need to prepare a lid as described earlier. Fill a glass jar with:

  • Perlite: about 1 part, for moisture retention and airiness.
  • Vermiculite: about 2 parts, for airiness and moisture retention.
  • Nutrients (for example soaked brown rice or rye flour)*: about 1 part, as a food source for mycelium.
  • Water: add water until the mixture is moist but not soaking wet.

*There are many options for a nutrient base. In practice, some form of grain is always used. Sorghum, wheat, barley, rye flour, brown rice and even birdseed work. But you do need to moisten it. Whole grains also need soaking; steeping in warm water. We once had a customer on the phone who had injected a liquid culture syringe straight into a bag of brown rice: that doesn’t work for 2 reasons: you can only use sterile nutrient base and the grains must be soaked. It’s also best to add perlite and vermiculite to improve the properties of the substrate. After all, you’re not doing all this effort for 1 mushroom, but for a large yield. So follow the steps as we describe them and don’t try to cut corners.

Place the closed jar with nutrient and the modified lid with holes (but without filter and injection port) in the pressure cooker and sterilize for 15-20 minutes at 15 psi or 1035 millibar. Then let the lid with holes dry on a clean surface (do not dry with a cloth) and then apply the new sterile filter sticker and injection port. Let the jar cool completely to room temperature without opening it.

Growing mushrooms with liquid culture: inoculation and incubation

If you buy a ready-to-use liquid culture syringe: Needles in a liquid culture kit are sterile packed. Only open them when you’re fully ready to inject.

  • If you’re continuing from the previous section: in a sterile environment, in one smooth motion replace the solid lid with the lid you fitted with a new filter and injection port.
  • You can also buy a growkit with only sterile substrate. It already has an injection port and filter in the lid. After inoculation, you can put it back in the box and store it in a dark place.

Now inject the liquid culture with a sterile syringe through the injection port of the jar or the tray with sterile substrate.

These are the steps for our growkit with sterile substrate:

  1. Disinfect the white circle on the lid of the sterile growkit with an alcohol wipe.
  2. Attach the needle to your liquid culture syringe.
  3. Insert the needle at an angle through the white circle and inject the culture completely into the growkit.

Tip: The fungus grows fastest if you inject on different sides. But don’t remove the needle in between. Rotate the needle in different directions while it’s still in, and empty the syringe completely.

Keep the lid closed up to and including the moment when the entire jar or the entire tray of substrate is white from the continuously growing fungus. Mushrooms will not grow if the tray isn’t completely white. How long it takes for the fungus to fully colonize depends heavily on the base (substrate) and the temperature. The warmer, the faster. But there is definitely a maximum. And because fungus gets a bit warmer as it grows, we don’t recommend using heat during this step, such as a heat mat. Room temperature (19-21 degrees Celsius) should be sufficient. In most cases it takes 4 to 6 weeks for the tray to be fully colonized, but again: it depends on the circumstances.

Mycelium grows in a glass jar with nutrient-rich substrate.

Growing mushrooms

Once you have a jar or tray of substrate that’s fully white-colonized, in the case of your jar you’re faced with an interesting choice. How are you going to fruit mushrooms from it? One method is to place the jar in a resealable plastic bag or plastic container and only open the lid so the mushrooms grow out. Another method is the monotub technique: you gently shake the cake out of the jar onto aluminum foil and place a large plastic tub over it. For fresh air, make a few holes in the tub and cover them with filter stickers. The first stage of mushroom formation needs enough moisture, which you can provide by misting several times a day with a spray bottle on mist setting.

A plastic shoebox in which Psilocybe cubensis is grown.

For a tray with sterile substrate that has turned completely white after a few weeks, you basically only need to follow the instructions from the beginner guide; You soak the kit for 8 hours in water, remove the lid from the tray and place it in the included bag, where you add a small layer of water for humidity.

Tip: Cold shock

We store our growkits in which mycelium has already grown at 4 degrees Celsius. To give your freshly colonized jar or tray of home-grown mycelium the best start, you can simulate autumn by placing the jar or tray in the refrigerator for 24 hours right before starting this step. Soak the kit for 8 hours after it comes out of the fridge.

Whether you choose a tray or a bag: make sure there’s enough moisture by misting 2 or 3 times on the first day with a spray bottle on mist setting.

Now continue with the final steps from the beginner guide. With a bit of patience and attention, you’ll have beautiful home-grown mushrooms within 2 to 3 weeks.

Psilocybe cubensis ready for harvest.

Want to know how strong your mushrooms are? Test them at home with the easy PsiloQ test. It gives you a good indication of the psilocybin concentration in your home-grown mushrooms.

Challenging mushroom growkits

In our blog growing mushrooms for beginners, you read that Psilocybe cubensis is the species of mushrooms for which you have the most growkit options. That’s not for nothing, because this species is exceptionally well suited to growing in a tray with a sterile base. The method is so easy that many hobbyists around the world have already crossbred grow kits with each other to bring new varieties to market. Still, varieties of cubensis are still the same species.

Cubensis

Within cubensis mushroom growkits, there are a few varieties that stand out.

B+ is known to be easy to grow. By “easy” we mean the mushrooms are fairly resistant to contamination, can cope with less-than-ideal conditions and have a shorter time to harvest. The latter also reduces the chance of contamination. Because the shorter the exposure to the environment, the greater the chance of success.

Penis Envy is known to be difficult to grow if you look only within the cubensis species. That’s why it took so long (decades!) before growkits with Penis Envy genetics came onto the market. We were pleasantly surprised it worked out, and proud that we can now sell them to you. What makes Penis Envy “difficult” in our view is that it can take 3-5 weeks before you see the first mushrooms. It also takes time to build those thick stems. They are much thicker than the diameter of other cubensis such as a Golden Teacher or McKennaii. The reward is in the psilocybin concentration. Penis Envy can be significantly stronger than its relatives due to the larger mushroom that needs more time before it can be harvested. Dutch-Headshop cubensis growkits can be recognized by a yellow sticker.

Cubensis varieties can be recognized at Dutch-Headshop by the yellow sticker.

Panaeolus cyanescens (Copelandia / Hawaii)

A species that needs extra attention is Panaeolus cyanescens. One reason is that it’s a species that likes to root around in soil for extra nutrients. If the mushroom doesn’t have soil but is grown on the same base, fewer or even no mushrooms will appear.

Still, there are complete growkits available that let you grow mushrooms with just one extra step: you spread the included soil over the nutrient base before putting the grow tray in the bag. Don’t touch the soil, just sprinkle it over the top.

Panaeolus cyanescens is a delicate, small mushroom. But looks are very deceiving, because these little guys are much stronger per gram than a Psilocybe cubensis! The yield may be smaller on the scale, but you often get more trips out of it.

At the moment, we (still) don’t have Dutch-Headshop Panaeolus cyanescens growkits. But as soon as we do, you’ll recognize this cultivation method by the pink sticker.

Psilocybe azurescens and Psilocybe cyanescens

These species are truly next level. Closely related are Psilocybe azurescens and Psilocybe cyanescens. Azurescens has even been crowned the strongest mushroom in the world at the time of writing.

By the way, you shouldn’t confuse this cyanescens with the one in the previous section. Panaeolus c is so different from Psilocybe c in so many ways that the cultivation method is also completely different. Just look at these photos of the mushrooms in the wild:

From left to right: Psilocybe cubensis, Psilocybe cyanescens, Psilocybe azurescens (note the pointy cap) and the slender white Panaeolus cyanescens.

From left to right: Psilocybe cubensis, Psilocybe cyanescens, Psilocybe azurescens (note the pointy cap) and the slender white Panaeolus cyanescens.

So similar names don’t say much about appearance or cultivation method.

Both Psilocybe azurescens and Psilocybe cyanescens are picky about nutrients. You grow them for most of the time outdoors. Once the “root system” is mature enough, they don’t like a sterile base. In addition, unlike the species mentioned above, they love wood chips. Beech wood is like caviar to them!

These mushroom species are supplied in a container with spawn; very different from colonized substrate. The latter is a fancy way of saying it’s directly ready to start fruiting. Spawn, on the other hand, is a starter that you first use to build a larger fungal colony. You can do that in a large plastic tub that you first fill with moist beech wood that has been sterilized. The fungal threads (mycelium) aren’t yet strong enough to stand up to the big bad world of microorganisms. Sterilizing the beech wood is best done in a large pressure cooker. You can already find one online for 50 euros. It doesn’t have to be high-end, but it should be large.

Beech wood sterilized? Drain off the excess water and tip half of the chips into your grow tub. Dump the contents of your mushroom spawn container in and cover with the remaining wood chips. Put a lid on the tub, but leave a small crack for fresh air. Now leave it for several weeks to months (yes, months).

You can start this process year-round, but some people have managed to start in December and pick a small harvest in September (already) the following year. It takes patience, but in return, after 1 harvest you can pick a large amount of super-strong mushrooms from your own garden every year. Unsprayed, fresh from the ground. The only thing you need to do is add a bag of beech wood chips. The next cultivation steps and tips such as adding grass seeds and covering with soil can be found in the in-depth blog about growing Psilocybe azurescens, but it applies just as well to Psilocybe cyanescens.

Dutch-Headshop outdoor mushrooms such as Psilocybe azurescens and Psilocybe cyanescens can be recognized by a blue sticker and are supplied in containers or bags of spawn.

Outdoor, wood-loving species can be recognized at Dutch-Headshop by the blue sticker.