ShroomBucket

SudoBucket is an experiment in creating a cheap, simple, easily reusable, easily replicable (accessibility!) technology for growing mushrooms in, that addresses the challenges of growing mushrooms exclusively on (espresso) coffee grounds. The project is run by User:Factotum and is a part of the Sudoshroom project.

Challenge

Espresso grounds pack too dense, thus not allowing sufficient airflow during incubation. This results in the mycelium populating very little of the substrate besides the surface and immediately "under".

Hypothesis

It is possible to use foodsafe non-substrate materials (ie. galvanized mesh, pipe) to prohibit the substrate from packing so dense, thereby making for a much more effective growing. It is possible for this technology to be very easy and cheap/free to build anywhere in the world, using standard materials. It is possible to build it in a way whereby it is reusable and easy to clean.

How it Works

Containers

The SudoBucket uses two containers that fit into each other (the interior and the exterior) and a lid. These two containers could be buckets of variying size (ie. 5 gallon or 2 gallon), yoghurt "buckets"/containers (american ones), tupperware, and probably lots of other things. The important point is that they fit into each other snugly, having a lid that fits, and that they are food safe.

The interior bucket has holes drilled into it. It is inserted into the exterior bucket. Inside the interior bucket, galvanized mesh (or another material) is used as a mechanism for prohibiting the dense packing, possibly in conjunction with a pipe with holes in placed in the center of the interior container (this pipe in case of bigger containers, ie. 5gl buckets).

The whole thing is sterilized, substrate and spawn is added, and lid is placed on interior container. Once substrate is fully populated (incubation is over), the exterior container is removed and the mycilia in the interior container is allowed to fruit through the holes of the container.

All of the thigns can be pulled apart and cleaned, sterilized and reused.

Iterations

0.1

Materials used: 2x 5 gallon buckets (1 from homedepot, 1 I found in a dumpster), 1x matching lid, 4in x 25ft 1/8inch galvanized mesh (brand Kwikmesh ~$10 in home depot), Pipe ---

Building process:

• Buckets: hole-saw to drill holes in interior bucket.
  • Used 3 different diameters, as I'm curious if hole size matters.
  • Also spaced them differently, to see what might be good spacing.
• Pipe:
  • ... drill holes
• Mesh:
  • Inserting. Spacing.

Results:

Cleaning:

Learnings

Resources

• [where the idea starts]