450ml BioSeal mason jars, honey from a local colony, supermarket shiitake and a sterile scalpel are all you need. I used a liter of tap water. Ideal would be pure h2o.

On a whim I decided to sacrifice a few fingernails of tissue material of these beautiful shiitake (Lentinula edodes) which my mum had brought home from the supermarked. They tasted phenomenal in the veggie stir fry I whipped up accompanying her baked salmon.

So I fetched some mason jars left over from my last experiments, cleaned them as thoroughly as I could and prepared the mushrooms, a sterile scalpel, some honey and boiled a liter of water.

Roughly a liter tap water boiled up to dissolve 4% honey.

I then dissolved about 4% honey in the boiling water and filled it into the jars after letting it boil for a while. Then I closed up the jars and waited for them to cool down to a temperature that feels warm to the touch. Heat would kill any live mycelial cells in an instant.

This protocol is far from anywhere sterile. It's clean at most. I only rubbed down the jars with dishsoap thoroughly, used a sterile scalpel and boiled the nutrient broth for a bit. Ideally the nutrient liquid would be filled into the jars and then the whole shebang sterilized in a pressure cooker. Then the sterilized jars would be ready for inoculation with the mushroom tissue.

The nutrient solution poured into the jars. Left on the counter to cool.