← Mushrooms H18-02 · Module 2 of 7 · Pages: 23 · Worksheets: 6

Oyster mushrooms on straw

From a bale of straw to a basket of oysters in six weeks: chopping, hot-water or lime pasteurisation, bags, colonisation, fruiting and flushes

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Oyster mushrooms on straw

In short

  • Straw dry, sound, unsprayed, chopped to 3–10 cm (1–4 in).
  • Pasteurise: 65–75 °C (150–165 °F) for 1–2 hours in hot water, or 12–18 hours in lime water at pH 12+. Cool below 28 °C (82 °F) before adding spawn.
  • Straw moisture 65–75 %: squeeze a handful, a few drops fall, no stream.
  • Spawn at 10 % of the wet straw weight for a beginner (5 % once you have experience).
  • Colonisation 2–4 weeks in the dark at 20–25 °C, fruiting in light at 85–95 % humidity with plenty of fresh air.

What's inside

Chapters

  1. What you need
  2. Straw: choosing and chopping
  3. Hot-water pasteurisation
  4. Lime pasteurisation
  5. Filling the bags
  6. Colonisation
  7. Fruiting
  8. Harvest and flushes
  9. Other substrates for oysters
  10. Common mistakes
  11. Printable checklist

Worksheets

  • Oyster mushroom calendar
  • Straw, spawn and water calculator
  • Bag date calculator
  • Batch log
  • Bag cards
  • Shopping list for a run

Fields and checkboxes can be filled in with Adobe Acrobat Reader (desktop and mobile), and the calculator adds up by itself. Filling in may not work in some browsers. A print version comes with the screen PDF.

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