Buongiorno, it's time for another blog post that (hopefully) will help some of the newer people out there with one of life's major decisions; "where should I grow my mushrooms, in the bag or in a tub?" The short answer is: "a tub, of some description". The longer answer is all the words under here!

Like a lot of things in life, it is a great big sexy tradeoff (my rap name) that is essentially resources vs output. How much extra resource (time or money) do you want to put in, and how much extra output (in this case, tasty mushrooms) are you gonna get for those resources? What we’ll do here is explain it a bit more, and then throw you a few options so that you can work out what’s best for your particular needs. This can also differ from mushroom to mushroom, so even though we’ll mention a few on the way through we’re not going to cover every one or it would be a book not a blog post: if you’ve got specific questions on what’s best for the types of mushroom you’re trying to grow, hop over to our Discord and ask away!

The long and short of it is this: mushrooms need a lot of water to grow, as that’s what they mostly are. Again, there’s differences between various mushrooms, but a general rule of thumb is to assume that they are around 90% water. This means that if you’ve got a kilo of just-picked, perfectly fresh mushrooms, you would expect that they’ve got more than a bottle of bourbon’s worth of liquid in them (yes that is how we measure things these days): this liquid doesn’t get sucked up from the ether, you have to provide it in a format that your mycelium can easily access, and this is where the back-and-forth comes from. 

In terms of effort, yes, it’s easier to just fruit in the bag that your substrate came in, 100%, because it requires zero further effort from yourself. It’s been hydrated to the correct level by your friendly neighbourhood MycoPunks, so everything will be lovely, buuuuuuuuuuut with a bit of work on your end, you could up your yields significantly. Technically, you can fruit mushrooms straight from the grain you inoculated, but other than as a bit of fun it’s not the best idea because you aren’t giving your mycelium the additional water or surface area, so yeah maybe do it once for a laugh if you want to, but other than that don’t bother.

The more surface area you have, the more real estate you’ve got for your mushrooms to grow. A tub of some kind (monotub, dub tub, whatever, we’ll discuss it in a mo) will provide your mycelium with a lot more surface area than a bag, but at the cost of a greater rate of evaporation and requiring more space to store. The answer isn’t “have a substrate that is one centimetre thick but two metres long” because that is going to dry out as quickly as a billionaire in a Tesla fire.

There’s also a reduced level of fresh air exchange in most of the tub styles that some gourmet mushrooms don’t often appreciate, so this needs to be factored in. 

Styles of tub come in and out of fashion as well, home mycology is a relatively recently-embraced area of science, so what people swear is the “only sensible way to do things” is often proven wrong given a bit of time and then something else gets popular! Here’s some options though, in no particular order:

Fruit in the (grain) bag:

Just grow them from the bag, whatever that may be - Uncle Ben’s, MycoPunks Sterile Grain, whatever

PROS

• Zero effort
• It’s quicker, I guess
• Maybe you hate mushrooms and this is a great way to get less
• Good for a laugh, once

CONS

• Likely the lowest yield you’ll get. That’s science!

Fruit in the (substrate) bag:

Just grow them from the substrate bag, maybe open the top or cut some holes into it

PROS

• Dead easy
• Actually not bad for gourmets due to the increased FAE
• Lack of surface area helps keep moisture in the sub
• Not a huge footprint so you can get loads of them on a shelf

CONS

• Usually a lower yield
• Probably impossible to rehydrate properly
• Less surface area: less mushrooms
• Probably won’t get many repeat flushes

Monotub

A plastic tub with a lid that you’ve hoyed a load of substrate into and hopefully hydrated properly

PROS

• Still dead easy
• Excellent surface area for mushrooms to grow on
• If you’ve done it right (make sure your substrate is deep enough) it will hold lots of water
• Easy to rehydrate by floating the sub
• Multiple flushes pretty much come as standard

CONS

• You might need to dial in how much fresh air it is getting by cracking the lid/fanning
• You will need to rehydrate it between flushes
• Takes up more room than fruiting in the bag

Dubtub

Not just one tub but two tubs, one is acting as a really tall lid

PROS

• Everyone will think you’re dead fancy with your two tubs
• Loads of height if you’ve grown tall mushrooms
• Basically works the same as a monotub so read those pros too

CONS

• Bit more evaporation due to the way the tubs fit together
• Fuck me it’s tall
• Seems fairly pointless

Monotub but with holes in

Shotgun tub, is what they used to call it. It is a way to try and control the amount of fresh air by having holes in the tub that you plug or unplug as your heart desires

PROS

• Same pros as the monotub
• Really easy to get the right amount of FAE dialled in

CONS

• If you made it yourself it is going to be a twat to get plugs to fit them exactly so floating to rehydrate/harvest is probably out of the question
• More chance of fungus gnats getting up to their usual shit
• Bit of a faff if you make your own

Bucket, full of substrate, loads of holes in

Imaginatively named “bucket tek”. It’s a bucket, it has holes in

PROS

• Grrreat for side-fruiting mushrooms (like Oysters)
• Nice and cheap

CONS

• Not great for top-fruiters at all

Whaddaya reckon? Are we wrong or not? Drop us an email and call us idiots if you like, we’re here for it, and if you'd like to buy a monotub, we've got some if you click these words!