Gourmet mushrooms in an old coffee cup

This is a cheap and easy way to produce lots of tasty fresh mushrooms for the kitchen, while at the same time reducing your own waste and even handling some extra.  The idea is that you will use an old coffee cup as a container to grow oyster mushroom mycelium, which will in turn produce fruit in the form of mushroom bodies.

Step 1: Materials

The best part about this project is that it is dead simple and most of the materials can be acquired easily and for free.  Really all you need is:

Empty coffee cup(s)
Enough coffee grounds to fill your cups
Oyster mushroom spawn

I'll assume you can manage to scare up some empty coffee cups.  Ideally you want the little plastic lid part as well.  It will make things simpler.

Coffee grounds are really easy to procure.  You're gonna need a decent pile of grounds so the best way to get them is just to head to your local coffee shop with a 5 gallon bucket.  Just ask them to throw their grounds into the bucket and tell them you'll pick it up in a day.  Starbucks says on their website that they will always give you grounds if you ask.  I've had great luck hitting the local indie shops.  The people who work in those places tend to be cool with the project.  You don't want to get grounds that have been sitting around because that will only increase the likelihood that mold will start to form.

The mushroom spawn is something that you will probably have to buy.  I would recommend just buying a block of espresso oyster spawn from Fungi Perfecti here:

http://fungiperfecti.com/kits/indoor.html

Comments

[sloamhand]

how important is it to have a sterile growing medium? I know coffee grounds are good for that because they're boiled first.

[imbignate]

Are you saying in this step that you should mix equal amounts of spawn and grounds? The text is slightly unclear.

[zzapatista]

If you're really trying to grow mushrooms in this way I would recommend a high spawn rate. Coffee substrate in coffee cups isn't really ideal so doing 1/3 spawn or so would probably be a good idea. Generally when people are growing oysters on straw or something more common they would use a spawn somewhere between 1:4 and 1:10. Right now I have several very large oyster bags made of mostly coffee and I spawned them at 1:10 tops. It depends on many factors.

[co2wms7whcc]

That would be a buttload of spawn, you should only need a pinch for a cup of coffee grounds.

[darrenchittick]

Just wanted to add a quick comment about the issue with mold in the coffee. The real problem comes if you're using coffee grounds that are more than a day old. It's amazing the difference between grounds one and two days past their initial use. If you have the grounds and haven't gotten around to using them immediately, you can pasteurize them by putting them on the stove in a pot of water and bringing them to a boil. Pasteurization actually happens at 160 degrees, some recommend holding that temp for 10 minutes. Bring them to a boil and let them sit for a while. Drain them and let them cool. If you pour them into your strainer directly, the pouring of the water should take care of anything on there as well. Some boiling water poured into your cups will clean them up as well. I'm a big proponent of rubber gloves while working with the spawn as well. These steps will help keep the mold out long enough for the mycelium to take hold and out compete the mold.

I buy my spawn from www.fieldforest.net and find that their prices are pretty good and their selection broad. I grow on a straw/coffee ground mix.

Thanks for a great instructable!

[hbomb84]

Hi,
I think if you take the whole coffee ground/mycelium cake out of the cup and crumble it up into something bigger like your worm bin, you will get many many more mushrooms. There is much more surface area this way and they don't have to just grow out of the top of the cup!

[paitch]

What about growing in a damp root cellar?

[zzapatista]

Really depends. Is it a damp, moldy root cellar? If so mold will be a problem. And when it comes to fruiting they will need some light and lots of fresh air.

[this1kid]

Was it easy to maintain an airflow? I noticed that you'd had your mycelium in what appeared to be closed containers and plastic bags.

[zzapatista]

I haven't had many issues with it. Overall I found the rubbermade bins were probably the easiest containers to use. I left the lid on while things were colonizing and then when they seemed ready to fruit I just took the top off. The bins tend to live on my back porch so they get quite a bit of fresh air.

I tried the plastic bag thing a couple times but it was pretty much more of a pain than anything. It could work though. Once things are colonized you just cut some small holes in the bag and it should fruit out of them.

[bustedandbroken]

Hello, those mushrooms look great ! How did the mycelium in your worm farm work out ?

[zzapatista]

Depends on how you look at it I guess. The oyster mycelium took off like crazy and colonized the whole thing. I guess in the process it ate all the worms because they were all gone. I got many pounds of mushrooms off the former worm bins so in that way it was a success. They weren't worm bins anymore though so less of a success in that way. I would overall be careful of throwing oyster mycelium into any worm bin that had worms you wanted to keep.

[xc1024]

I'd like to try this but there's a few questions. 1. How probable it is that one of the mushroom containers gets contaminated with something toxic? Toxic as in not exactly good for your body. 2. How can you obtain the fungus good enough for the initial batch? Would just stock supermarket mushrooms be OK? 3. How safe is this procedure in long term? 4. Is it harder to grow them outside? (Asking just in case, see Q3)

[zzapatista]

Well using a process like I describe here there's a decent chance of getting some mold contamination. And you don't want to be breathing mold spores. But I think some comments here exaggerate the dangers. You're not going to unleash a plague or anything. And once you grow out some mushrooms they're not going to be harboring anything unsafe. You should always cook mushrooms for many reasons before eating but again there won't be any danger of nasties in the shrooms. You could start with oysters from the store. The fresher the better definitely but they're a very very aggressive species so you could get away with a lot. You could potentially buy a bunch and break them up into some fresh grounds. Probably higher chance of contamination then starting from fresh spawn but also lower cost so not much to lose. This will only work with oysters though. Shiitake and button mushrooms require much different conditions to grow. Not sure what you mean by "safe long term". Like i say above people like to talk about the dangers of growing mushrooms but they are basically nill. Just don't keep anything moldy around inside your house. Once you see the nasty green mold throw out the grow or at least put it outside. Mold loves stuffy wet environments so fresh outside air can often give your mushroom mycelium the edge to outcompete some mold. It is actually much much easier to grow them outside, Any time you grow mushrooms inside you are fighting their nature and will probably have more problems with mold. Honestly the coffee cup size grow is a neat novelty but I've found it easier to go a little bigger like a medium size rubbermade container. Mix your grounds in that and throw the top on and put it outside somewhere shady and it'll probably love it. Oysters love fresh air and mold hates it so that is another advantage. Plus with bigger substrates there is more moisture and less chance of drying out. Mushrooms are 90% water so a dry substrate will not fruit. I had great luck with the rubbermade containers I would just make sure to keep them moist. Hope that helps. It does take some trial and error so if you get some mold just try again. I had a lot of failures before I got my process down.

[xc1024]

Clarifying, "safe in the long term" means, for example, is there not going to be some kind of allergy from the mushroom spores, whether it won't invade the garden and grow on the fence and so on. Simply put, any consequence of growing those for prolonged period of time.

[zzapatista]

Actually that's a good point oysters drop very heavy spore loads. So in general it's a good idea to fruit them outside if possible. I've heard of people developing allergic reactions after growing oysters inside for awhile. I'm sure it varies person to person but breathing spores is never a good idea. Oysters won't invade your garden or anything like that though. They are very aggressive but are decomposers so pose no threat to plants. In fact that would probably be beneficial to plants if anything by unlocking nutrients. Only danger I found was when I threw some oysters into my worm bins and the shrooms took over and i guess ate all the worms. Otherwise they won't take over your life or anything.

[gnume]

what do you think about growing them in a big old aquarium ?

[zzapatista]

Probably depends on the material. I use an acrylic aquarium as a fruiting chamber so that i can control temp and humidity. You could just fill it with grounds and fruit directly out of it but the weight would bow out an acrylic tank i bet. Maybe not glass though. Also to remember is that there are a few things that trigger the substrate to tell it where/when to fruit. The biggest is probably fresh air but light also helps tell it where to fruit. If you use a clear container you may get it fruiting along the sides of the container which is kind of a pain. It could possibly work though with some tweaking.

[gnume]

i have a big glass aquarium an 1 m panoramic that is sitting empty and it would be easy to provide it with air only from the top and it easy to warp black cloth around the tank to block light from the sides

[gnume]

anyone have idea if it will work ? at last theoretically ?

[zzapatista]

Don't see any reason why it wouldn't work.

[flio191]

My question for you is: can you buy some mushrooms from, say, the organic farmers market, and grow off from them, or is the block really necessary to buy from the intranets?

[zzapatista]

Yep it's doable to go from a fresh mushroom. But it'll definitely be easier to start from some vigorous mycelium that you'll get in a kit.

[joystik]

Yes, it can be done. Its a technique called cloning. Google is your friend.:)

[Mr E Man]

http://fungiperfecti.com/kits/indoor.html OMG So many varieties of mushrooms. Are they all edible? and could they all be grown this way in coffee grounds?

[zzapatista]

I believe all the kits at FP are edibles. Though they're not gonna like to be grown on 100% coffee ground in most cases. A lot of them will be probably fruit directly from the bag they come in. You will just like poke a hole to get the kit fresh air which will trigger fruiting. They will all come with instructions and should be fairly simple.

[aldefork]

I have grown oyster mushrooms from FP with great success. I found in the winter I needed to use an inverted 50gallon fish tank (two bags of 'shrooms) in a light filled room (indirect sunlight) with a small humidifier. the tank was raised quarter inch to allow air to flow - CO2 is heavier than air so it could escape. I harvested three 'fruitings' of beautiful Oysters. Cost was high but there is nothing like picking and sautee-ing your own mushrooms. Thanks for the inspiration to do it again...

[hardipk5]

Just a question of curiosity if i was to try to grow "Magical Mushroom's" doing this would it work?

[joystik]

I do not recommend to grow any illegal stuff. But, for information purposes , growing mushrooms is all pretty much the same. The trick is finding the right kind of substrate for the right kind of muhroom.

[zzapatista]

No for many reasons. Not least of which is the fact that it's illegal to order spawn for magic mushrooms like this.

[Ivraine]

It is actually very easy to come by magic mushrooms in nature, especially in fields in the south, so finding the shrooms isn't a problem, but most need either horse or cow dung to grow, so your house will smell like a cesspit... ... And it will be very easy to locate if hippy shrooms start circulating your city, because of its unique aroma...

[zzapatista]

Wow what a bunch of nonsense. I'm just picturing what you're describing here: ---The man finds magic mushrooms in NYC. He throws his nose up into the wind and loudly declares "I smell a cess pit this way!", and off they go across town to find your apartment where you have some horse dung.--- And besides the fact that anyone who thinks horse/cow manure smells like a cess pit has clearly never actually smelled these substances. Monkey poo != horse poo. Honestly it's amazing how you managed to get so many things wrong in so few sentences. Shrooms do grow naturally in the southeast so way to go on that one. I won't bother correcting the rest because as I've said over and over this guide is not about growing magic mushrooms. There are a million out there that are so you should spread your nonsense on one of them.

[Ivraine]

You are very right, your instructable is about growing legal mushrooms and not magic mushrooms. You are also right when you said that animal dung does not actually smell like a cesspit, I was actually raised on a farm, but we still all used it as an expression anyway, I am sorry for the misunderstanding.

[Jonny Katana]

t's actually legal to order the spores in the USA, as they contain neither psilocybin nor psilocin, the active (and illegal) chemicals in hallucinogenic mushrooms. However, let me discourage you from trying to grow them, as... A: The process is much more complex than this Instructable. If you make a mistake, you can end up cultivating any number of extremely poisonous mold species, which can contaminate the mushrooms and possibly kill anyone who ingests them, not to mention fill your home with their spores, contaminating your food and air. B: Hallucinogenic mushrooms are a Schedule 1 substance in the United States. This means that if you get caught, you are no different from a meth cook in the eyes of the law, and you will most likely go to jail for quite a while. In short, it's quite stupid, and not worth it.

[Beta_Orionis]

Probably not. They're much more sensitive and require a very clean, controlled, and balanced growing environment.

[thepelton]

Pleurotis are best before the edges of the cap curl upward.

[braindead]

The oyster mushroom spawn - who supplies this or does it grow naturally in the growing medium? Thanks :)

[zzapatista]

Nope you can't rely on mother nature colonizing your medium with good things ;) You can buy the oyster spawn from many different sites online (google 'oyster mushroom spawn'). The spawn I used above came from FungiPerfecti. It was the 'Espresso Oyster' kit. It comes as a block of colonized sawdust that you can then break up and mix with coffee grounds. It'll cost you $20 or so bucks.

[thepelton]

Fungi Perfecti was the source of the Pleurotis spawn I grew in sawdust.

[thepelton]

Some mushroom species are easier to grow than others. I had a lot better time growing Pleurotis Pulmonatis (Oyster mushroom). It requires a good cellulose source for food. It was suggested that it be grown on coffee grounds, but I was able to grow it on hardwood sawdust. It mades a good addition to cooked food dishes, and I think it tastes best with a fish dish.