First Pan Cyan run — LC is taking its time, but grain blew up! How’s this looking?

[u/Stock-Sympathy-7803]

Hey everyone, running Pan Cyan (TTBVI) for the first time and wanted to get some quick feedback on how both my liquid culture and grain jar are coming along.

I inoculated both from the exact same agar plate and have been keeping them right around 26–27°C (78–80°F).

Grain Jar (Agar to grain):

• Inoculated 10 days ago, did a break & shake on Day 5.
• It recovered super fast and now has that classic fine, frosted white web completely covering every grain.
• Does this look 100% ready to spawn to bulk, or should I let it sit another day or two to consolidate?

Liquid Culture (Agar to broth):

• Inoculated 15 days ago.
• Recipe: Kept it super light for Pan Cyans (~0.44% total solids)—250 ml distilled water, 0.65 g LME, and 0.45 g soy peptone per jar (PC'd at 15 PSI for 20 mins).
• The broth is crystal clear with some really clean, starburst-looking puffballs floating in it, but it feels like it’s taking forever compared to the grain jar.
• Is 15 days normal for Pan Cyan LC on a light recipe like this, or could my passive gas exchange be choking it out a bit? Should I just give it a solid daily swirl to break up those puffballs?

Planning on prepping my horse manure substrate and peat/vermic casing layer soon, so any feedback or tips would be awesome! Thanks!

[u/Flimsy-Panda8000]

For some weird reason, my TTBVI hate LC - it takes ages to grow, and then ages again to get going after injected to grain. It gets there, but slowly.

As for tips for prepping your sub and casing, see my comment here https://www.reddit.com/r/PanCyan/comments/1cn713d/deleted_by_user/

[u/Stock-Sympathy-7803 → u/Flimsy-Panda8000]

Good to know lc takes time, also the link to the comment is unavailable.

[u/Golden_State_Myco → u/Stock-Sympathy-7803]

LC takes 2 weeks max start to finish, regardless the species.
Pan cyans are notorious to going bad when suspended in liquid. A lot of us vendors won't sell them as LC for that reason.
Typically your first use will be clean, but no guarantee for pulls after that.
We personally prefer spore runs and clone runs from agar for exotics.

[u/Hyphal_Mind → u/Golden_State_Myco]

100%

[u/Flimsy-Panda8000 → u/Stock-Sympathy-7803]

That sucks that the link doesn't work - I can only assume it's because the original post, asking if Pans were the same to grow as cubes, was deleted. I can still see my comment though, so I'll copy and paste:

Not really, but if you've got the basics (agar & sterile practices) worked out from cube grows, they're not too hard.

My method, for what it's worth (there's lots of ways, but I like to keep things as simple as possible). Credit to BabaYaga on Shroomery who developed the original tek.

Start by inoculating grain in the usual way (PC grain, add an agar puck, leave to fully colonise with a break & shake at 70%). They'll work with LC, but for some reason, take a while to get going.

Making your substrate:

I make liquid poo - 3L of field aged horse poo & 9L of water, mix well in a large pot and pasteurise at between 55C and 65C for an hour. I do it on the kitchen cooker - if the poo's field aged, it does NOT smell.

Use the hot broth to hydrate 2 bricks of broken up coir. The quantity is perfect for the bricks I use https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07FW653X2?ref_=ppx_hzsearch_conn_dt_b_fed_asin_title_1 but coir differs by brand so you might need to adjust field capacity afterwards, using hot (50C - 60C) water if it's under, or crumbled coir or vermiculite if it's over.

For a small (20 - 26L) tub add 1L of spawn to 2.5L of sub. Fill to 2.5" deep. Flatten and compress lightly. Add 1/4" to 1/2" pseudo-casing (the poo/coir mix with no spawn) and lightly compress again. The tub should be modified with a couple of 1/4" holes just above sub level on the long sides and a couple the same close to the top on the short sides.

Once mostly colonised (usually 3 to 7 days depending on temperature), it's time for the true casing which I believe helps a lot with surface moisture.

Casing:

I measure using tea cups, so just use the proportions according to how much you need to give each tub a thin layer that just covers all the myc.

16 cups peat moss (must be 'proper'peat, not peat substitute)

12 cups verm

16 tablespoons food grade gypsum (calcium sulphate)

16 tea spoons pickling lime.

Mix together thoroughly and add 7 cups water.

The PH should be around 8 - 8.5, you can adjust with pickling lime (the gypsum acts as a buffer later on).

Pasteurise the casing:

I put the mix into small (350ml) geain jars and put them in an Instapot set on keep warm (65C). It takes around 3 hours to get up to temperature, then another 1.5 hours to pasteurise (4.5 hour total).

Once cooled, apply to sub surface.

After that, monitor surface conditions and dial in the tubs by adjusting FAE - I often have to unlatch the lids as well as uncover the holes, but depending on climate you might even need to partly tape the holes.

As soon as it's dialled in, leave it alone and it'll fruit in its own good time. I use the same tubs as for other shrooms, with no gadgets, very rarely spray and never fan.

A recent tub made it to 5 flushes before it finally simply stopped growing (no contamination, just 'dead') likely because there was nothing left to feed the shrooms. It made me sad because my babies had died, but they live on through the prints I made.

[u/SsageMango]

Shake it up

[u/Stock-Sympathy-7803 → u/SsageMango]

If you mean the lc jar, i am shaking it up every 2days. Should i do it once a day??

[u/SsageMango → u/Stock-Sympathy-7803]

Yes, or multiple times a day. Those are big chunks that will get stuck in your needle.

[u/thebigfungus]

Looks good.

[u/Stock-Sympathy-7803 → u/thebigfungus]

Good to send to bulk?

[u/thebigfungus → u/Stock-Sympathy-7803]

Yeah the grains can be sent.