Just a quick note for the intertubes archives and for my fellow shroomers. My experience may support or contradict your own.
I have had about a 50% failure rate with Kroger brand 90 second brown rice. From the ingredients and the Nutrition Facts label, it seemed to be a perfect match to Uncle Bens. It was about 30¢-40¢ cheaper per bag I think?
Of the same inoculation batch (6 UB & 6 Kroger w/ 1-1.5cc LC) under the same conditions, 3 of the Kroger bags either suffered wet rot or contam. The surviving Kroger bags took about twice as long to fully spawn.
I suspect that there is more moisture in the Kroger bags, btw.
(I am anal about keeping things sterile and utilize a laminar flow hood these days.)
This is not a perfect sample size! However, with pure UB Tek, I am still sitting at a 100% success rate for approximately 20 bags total. (No contam, no rot) Your milage may vary, of course. Additionally, I have just completed my lab today, so UB Tek is going to be rare for me from here on out. Regardless, no more Kroger brand rice bags for my mushrooms.
Just .5cc? That is really getting the most out of your syringe, for sure! I’ll reduce the amount of LC I use next time. I am getting ready for a working session tomorrow to get some S2B done, prep some LC solution as well as getting 12 pints + two 2lb millet bags inoculated. It may be an ideal time to play with how much LC to use, actually.
After I wrote this note, I ended up tossing another 2 Kroger bags. What I noticed this time is that the bags seems to fail inconsistently. There was rot visible in most of the fails, with or without visible contam. One bag hardly spawned at all. All of them smelled sweet instead of that lovely earthy smell we all know and love.
Yep just .5! :) I’ve found it takes very little, just make sure your syringes are shaken up very well so you get enough of the good stuff in there.
It sounds like you have a busy day tomorrow, keep us updated!