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How to grow mushrooms in coffee grounds
What you need to know:
- Mushrooms are easy to grow, and coffee grounds make an excellent mushroom growing medium. This is because mushrooms can get all their nutritional needs from coffee grounds. Also, coffee grounds have enough air spaces to allow mushroom spawn to spread.
Growing mushrooms is easy to process with a little guidance. Although you can’t use regular garden soil, you can use spent coffee grounds. Growing mushrooms in coffee grounds is an easy and fun pastime for anyone interested in the mysterious world of fungi. It is a good starting point because it uses a sufficient medium in many homes.
Why coffee grounds?
Coffee is an excellent gardening and composting ingredient, a carbon-generating product that can help balance soil and compost piles. But coffee is also an excellent substrate for mushrooms because it is already pasteurised. When growing mushrooms, pasteurised soil is essential to prevent competing bacteria, fungi, and insects from growing inside.
Conditions required
Nutrients: Mushrooms obtain their nutrients from organic matter. Some essential nutrients for mushrooms include nitrogen, protein, fat, lignin, starch, and sugar. In addition, coffee grounds are rich in nutrients, making them suitable for growing both button and oyster mushrooms.
Moisture: Like other fungi, mushrooms thrive in moist environmental conditions. Humidity conditions for growing mushrooms range from 35 to 45 percent.
Temperature: It will be best if you grow button mushrooms at 12 to 16°C. To maintain these temperatures, you should also remember that dry air and strong drafts can stunt or kill pre-grown mushrooms. Shiitake mushrooms grow at temperatures from 4 to 32°C.
Easy to source substrate
Waste grounds are often just thrown in the bin, and if you provide them with a bucket and arrange a collection time, most cafes will be more than happy to give you their grounds. It makes an excellent free source of substrate, especially if you are in a large city or town with a lot of waste.
Coffee grounds are often thrown into the bin. Most coffee cafes will easily grind your used coffee if you don’t have any at home. Ground coffee is an excellent and free resource for growing mushrooms.
Generally, the substrate should be pasteurised or sterilised when cultivating mushrooms. Pasteurisation with hot water or steam is the most popular method of removing impurities from the substrate, which is either a small-scale contaminant or a costly and energy-consuming one. Instead, growing on coffee grounds have already been pasteurised through the brewing process, allowing you to skip this energy-intensive and expensive step altogether.
Guide
Step 1: Get the coffee grounds
Mushrooms growing from coffee grounds is a fun project that helps utilise coffee grounds that would otherwise go to waste. Coffee grounds are a very excellent growing medium for mushrooms, especially Oyster mushrooms, because they have already been sterilised by the coffee-making process and are rich in nutrients. For 500 grammes of mushroom spawn, you will need 2.5 kg of fresh coffee grounds. The best way to get this amount of fresh coffee grounds (brewed that day) is to go to a cafe and ask nicely. They are more than happy to give it.
Step 2: Get the right materials
You will need the following materials to grow mushrooms in your home coffee fields. Firstly, a good supply of coffee grounds; make sure you use fresh coffee grounds, a container to put the coffee grounds substrate, and a mushroom spawn of the desired mushroom species you want to grow.
You can buy a fully colonised mushroom spawn from us, and we recommend using grain spawn or sawdust spawn. A container can be a myriad of things. It can be a plastic bottle you cut open and clean the inside.
Step 3: Find a container for the mushrooms
The best thing to use is a filter patch grow bag, which can usually be bought with mushroom spawn. Alternatively, you can use a large, resealable freezer bag, sterilised milk carton, or ice cream tub with four small holes in the sides.
Step 4: Transfer the spawn to the container
Please wash your hands thoroughly with antibacterial soap, then mix the mushroom spawn with the coffee grounds, breaking them up with your hands to ensure they are evenly distributed. Finally, place the inoculated coffee grounds in a plastic bag or container and seal them tightly.
Step 5: Place the mushrooms in the right environment
Store the bag or container in a warm, dark place, somewhere between 18 to 25°C, such as in an airing closet or under a sink. Leave it here for two to four weeks or until it turns completely white—this is due to a colony of coffee-grinding mycelia. Again, cut off any green or brownish-black spots on the colonising substrate, as this can make you sick.
Step 6: Transfer the mushrooms
Once the contents of the bag or container are completely white, move it to a bright spot (but not in direct sunlight) and cut a 2 by 2 hole in the top. Next, wash the contents of the container with water twice a day to prevent them from drying out—mushrooms will not grow in very dry conditions.
Step 7: Prepare the mushrooms for fruiting
You should see little “pinheads” of mushrooms growing (at the 2-to-3-week mark). Place your bag in a bright spot or on a windowsill with indirect sunlight. Now you can start sprinkling the bag with a light coating of water. It should be done twice a day, once in the morning and once in the evening. Be careful not to water the straw; this can inhibit mushroom growth and promote mould.
This is to increase the humidity of the air around the bag rather than watering it directly as you would a plant.
Step 8: Harvest the mushrooms
Over the next five to seven days, small mushrooms will begin to grow. Keep washing them with water; they should double in size daily. Mushrooms are ready to harvest when their cups begin to turn slightly upward. When the mushrooms have stopped growing, ground the coffee grounds and plant them outside under bark mulch or compost, and new mushrooms may develop depending on the season.
Mushrooms are easy to grow, and coffee grounds make an excellent mushroom growing medium. This is because mushrooms can get all their nutritional needs from coffee grounds. Also, coffee grounds have enough air spaces to allow mushroom spawn to spread.
