trench- swim beelieves he has read both 'articles' you are reffering to.
Swim has actually left straight up mycelium water (he ground a cake that was grown out with birdseed- so there where nutrients in suspension as well) alone, out in the light for a few months and actually had fruits growing in vitro! No cold shock, no air exchange, nothing! They were the cutest, teeny tinyiest little critters ya ever layed eyes on.
AWWW...
The mycelium will form a bright white mat and will float on the surface of the water.
Get thee to the bookstore and find that 'recipie', it has all the yummy nutrients the mycelium will ever need. Swim beelieves stamets says that gypsum (or any other pH buffer) is optional- use it! Dont want the mycelium choking in its own waste now do we?
As far as cold shocking a liquid culture-
just throw the fucker in the fridge overnight- better yet- a full day. Cubensis only needs somewhere around a 10 degree drop in temperature. THEN give it some fresh air. Swim reccomends this bee done with prudence (meaning- open the jar in the flowhood, tilt the jar towards the filter for about a minute or so). Try and remember, visualise if you must, CO2 is heavier than air and thus sinks. Swim doesnt reccomend this as an easy way to get some fruits, theyll just bee tiny and not worth the effort. Swim is only saying that he usually doesnt notice much bruising until the pins show- this means that the mass isnt really pumping out the good stuff until its reproduction time- dig?
To reiterate:
stirring is absolutly WONDERFUL for getting the mycelium to grow within a liquid mycelium culture. Think about it, with the proper amount of stirring (its related in stamets book), the fragile little strands of mycelium fragment and replicate so to speak. Think of it in terms of growable surface area. At each spot that is broken off, provided its not too violent, there are now two spots that are producing mycelium instead of one.
- with that beeing said, once there are hundreds of thousands of little growing sites, when the agitation stops, there is going to bee an explosion of growth! Swiy will see little snotty whisps all throughout the liquid beefore a mat will start on the surface. If swiy wants to bee adventurous, he can wait about 3 or 4 days after the stirring, and give one last quick stir to both airate the liquid (get some more fresh air under the surface) and to create another growth explosion. But bee forewarned, at this point- the more ya fuck with the liquid, the higher your chances of introducing contams.
Also, with this 'recipie', dont allow the liquid to go longer than 9 days as they will start to drown in their excriment and bacterial contams are sure to follow.
Swim suggests mixing for 3 days on a hotplate/stirrer at exactly the right temp, using pillow stuffing (cotton- find it in the arts and crafts section at wally's world) in the opening of the flask (rather than fucking with a lid) in order to allow clean gas exchange throughout the process (make sure you plan ahead and figure a way to sterilize EVERYTHING that is beeing used in the process).
Then, let the shit sit for a day or two until a mat forms- then one last 30 second stir and let it sit till day 7. Throw that bitch in the fridge overnight, expose to some blue light (or full spectrum bulb) let it sit for another day then filter through cheese cloth, dry (no heat) then grind/extract.
Swiy will have to use alot of liquid to make this worthwhile, but it is an easier, quicker (which equals safer) way to get to the good stuff.
enjoy.
ps- shallow, wide dishes/flasks will bee better suited for this than tall narrow ones...think in terms of gas exchange/surface area.
There is so much room to experiment with this technique it isnt even funny. Swim suggests swiy finds a way to keep a NON-INCRIMINATING record of each trial and to change one variable each time he makes a go at it. He wouldnt dick around with the nutrient content other than adding a dash of tryptamine, or a dash of some B vitamins...
when someone asks what the sound of one hand clapping sounds like, you should smack them in the ear.