The second mushroom kit from the May 2013 meeting was the Styrofoam cup filled with sawdust colonized with Lentinus Tigrinus mycelium and prepared by Jim Tunney. Lentinus Tigrinus is reported as a shiitake-like mushroom, but with a gentler flavor and more delicate texture. Note that some books report it as inedible, this may be because of the texture of the cap which can be quite tough in mature specimens or that some people can experience gastrointestinal upset when eating it.
This culture is ready to fruit and a couple of different methods are described here.
- Remove plastic wrap from Styrofoam cup. Leave the lid on and cut a small hole in the center of the lid.
- Then put the whole thing in a plastic bag that is open enough so it lets some air in.
- Mist the bag with water every couple of days.
- Put the bag somewhere that it’s not in direct sunlight.
- After a week or two you should see mushrooms starting to come out of the hole.
The second method requires a plant pot or homemade terrarium.
- Strip the Styrofoam away from the sawdust block, the sawdust at this point will be knitted together by the mycelium.
- Bury the sawdust block in either a flower pot, or make a 2 liter plastic bottle terrarium and bury the block in soil or potting soil.
- Again wait for a few weeks spraying every couple of days for the fungi to fruit.
Instructions on making a soda bottle terrarium are available here.
The WPMC would like to thank Jim Tunney for preparing this mushroom kit.
The cup has fruited a bunch of little short mushrooms — the white puck seems impervious to water, just beads off. A chunk of the big bag of sawdust I was given are fruiting, very leggy though, need to change the chamber conditions. Some dowels are still in the fridge awaiting a few good logs.
Ate a handful of these in white rice about a week ago — couldn’t really taste them, but they certainly are edible!
I’ve now eaten more than twenty of these quarter-size-or-larger caps, and can say: I still don’t taste them, and they’re a bit tough boiled in rice for only ~15 minutes, but they continue to be edible!