textfiles/drugs/ricecake.shr

                            The Rice-Cake Technique

                        by Dr. Steven H. Pollock, M.D.


This technique is extremely easy and highly recommended for its convenience in 
growing Psilocybe cubensis mushrooms. All that is needed is a pressure cooker,
some canning jars,  uncontaminated live mushroom starter (mycelia),  and brown 
rice.  Either long grain or short grain brown rice may be used.  The former is
usually more economical.  Do not use white rice.  It is inferior in quality to 
brown rice because most of the vitamins have been lost in  converting brown to
white rice.

Into each quart jar place 1/4 cup  brown  rice  and between 1/3 to 1/2 cup tap 
water. One-half cup or more of water is too much because the rice will turn to 
mush  rather  than  a  cake.  One-third  cup water leads to a dry cake that is 
adequate,  but mycelia grow much faster on the wetter cakes resulting from the 
use of more than 1/3 cup of water.   Up to 1/8 teaspoon of agricultural gypsum
(calcium sulfate)  may be added to each jar prior to sterilization to serve as 
a buffer,  but  gypsum is not really necessary.  Some cubensis strains seem to 
prefer it, but so do many contaminants.  It seems more practical not to bother 
using gypsum except  except  for  purposes of experimentation to find out if a 
particular mushroom strain will fruit more aggressively with it. In most cases 
it probably will not make any difference.

Invert the dome of each two-piece lid and place it on the mouth of the canning 
jar with the rubber seal facing upward.  Then  loosely screw on the lid bands. 
Presssure cook the jars at 15 lbs.  pressure for an hour.  Actually 45 minutes 
at 15 lbs. pressure is adequate,  but an hour gives an even greater likelihood 
of complete sterilzation.  Allow  the  pressure  cooker to cool and remove the 
jars, screwing the bands tighter until  ready to inoculate the rice-cakes with 
mushroom mycelia.  Using  a flame-sterilized probe, carefully transfer a piece 
of agar medium containing  live  uncontaminated  mycelia into each jar.  It is 
best to loosen the jar lid before-hand so that  it  will  lift off easily.  To 
make the transfer, cut out a section of agar medium containing mycelia using a 
flame-sterilized scalpel or probe.  Then  spear  the  agar  block  of mushroom 
starter with the probe,  lift up the lid of the jar,  and drop in the piece of 
mushroom starter.  Close  the  lid  but  do not screw it too tight since it is 
necessary for  growing  mycelia  to  breathe.  To  enhance the rate of mycelia 
growth, very soon after the jar is inoculated the lid can be screwed tight and 
the jar shaken to bring the piece of  mushroom  starter into contact with more 
of the rice-cake surface.  Then loosen the lid before setting the jar in place 
to incubate. In about four weeks mushrooms will start to grow.  Sometimes they 
commence after only three weeks,  but they may frequently take up to six weeks 
to appear. This depends a lot on the strain and room temperature.

The mycelia can be grown in the  dark  but light is needed when it is time for 
the fungus to make mushrooms.  As  little  as five minutes twice a day from an 
overhead incandescent light in a closet can be sufficient to initiate mushroom 
formation.  But  much better crops seem to come when fluorescent "grow lights" 
are used for longer periods during the day. When mushrooms are growing, the 
lid of eacj jar should be very loose since much condensation occurs as the 
mushrooms breathe.

Some growers remove the lids completely at this time or replace the domes with 
a double layer of paper  towels.  The  towels can be secured in place with the 
lid bands and the jars may be set near a window for natural light. Paper towel 
tops should be sprayed with water at least once a day to help maintain a humid 
enviroment. As the rice-cake dries,  fruition is promoted.  But if the dome is 
left very loosely in place, fruiting continues much longer. Sometimes fruiting 
occurs for three months or more!  Mushrooms will keep appearing after harvest-
ing of previous crops.

To harvest the magic mushrooms,  a fancier can  reach in throught the mouth of 
the jar and pull them out.  It  is best to grasp each mushroom near the bottom 
of the stem and to give it a twist.  If  the mushroom cap is tugged,  it might 
just break off from the stem.  Alternatively,  a long knife may be used to cut 
the mushrooms at the bottom of the stem.  Still  another  method is to the jar 
facing down so that the cake will fall near the orifice.  This makes it easier 
to grasp the mushrooms.  Sometimes  it is advantageous after a second of third 
harvest to flip the cake over in  the jar before putting the lid back on. This 
maneuver often promotes a  luxuriant fruiting from the newly exposed rice-cake 
surface.

When the cakes have dried  out  too much for mushrooms to appear,  they can be 
squited with water froma spray bottle to induce another fruiting or better yet 
used as spawn for a mushroom garden on compost. If there is absolutely no sign 
of contamination, the cakes themselves may be fried or broken up and cooked in 
mushroom soup or  other  cuisine  for  a  psychedelic experience.  One cake is 
usually sufficient for two to four enthusiasts.

The rice-cake technique is very efficient.  A  14  ounce package of brown rice 
can be obtained often for less than fifty cents  and is enough for seven quart 
jars.  When  the cakes have completely become covered by mycelia, small pieces 
can be cut out  with  a  sterilized scalpel or probe and transferred to newley 
prepared rice-cakes in other jars.  This will not interfere significantly with 
mushrrom production and will insure a  continuing  supply  of magic San Isidro 
mushrooms.