Dan Lipow is the founding father of specialty meals purveyor Foraged Feasts. Lipow and his crew forage mushrooms and greens, which they then promote at farmer’s markets, however along with foraging within the wild, in addition they domesticate totally different sorts of mushrooms themselves, together with shiitake mushrooms.
That course of begins by taking oak logs and drilling holes into them about six inches aside. Lipow then inoculates the logs by injecting them with sawdust spawn, mycelium grown in hardwood sawdust.
“The faster it could actually colonize the log, the safer, the higher it’s,” says Lipow. “You don’t get contamination from another type of mushroom making an attempt to develop in in your shiitake logs.” The filled-up holes are then lined with molten scorching paraffin wax to verify the shiitake logs are additionally secure from animals.
“This mushroom spawn, for those who simply left it out, there are many animals and birds and issues who would discover it fairly enticing,” says Lipow. “It’s a nutrient-rich supply so that you’ve bought to seal it. It additionally retains the moisture within the log.”
The crew additionally marks each single log with a steel plate containing the initials of the pressure of mushroom that was injected into the log and the 12 months. The logs are then taken to what they name the “laying yard,” the place they hold logs in varied phases of their mushroom rising course of.
“All the inoculant we simply put in, is now going to begin feeding on this wooden,” says Lipow. “It’s going to begin spreading its mycelial community.” After between three and 5 years, the logs develop into shiitake mushrooms.
Watch the total video to see how Lipow and his crew develop mushrooms and search the forest to identify them within the wild.
