Harvesting and Storing (maximizing lifespan of mushrooms)

You’ve been waiting for 5 weeks and are finally ready to cut your shrooms! There’s a 1000 ways to skin a cat. Sure, but some are better than others. We’ll look at a range of ways to harvest and store.

Before you harvest, which is part cutting, and part drying, there are many variables to consider. How much are you harvesting? What will you place your shrooms on? What will you cut them with? Where do you cut them?

You are likely harvesting a tub, or bag, and should take somewhere around 3-5 minutes to harvest from opening of tub/bag, to placing final shroom on the surface. For ideal mushroom quality, cut above the surface of coco coir, to reduce the amount of substrate in your final product. You don’t want the bottom of your mushroom to have a parcel of substrate hanging from it. To choose the right scissors, a spring loaded small garden sheer is best. Regular scissors work just fine as well. And in a pinch, if skinny enough you can just use your fingers. There is really no right or wrong way, and time will tell based on the strains you grow, and what your comfortable with, as to which methods you see fit.

(Fungi Fanatics Harvesting Video)

Now that you’ve cut your shrooms, you’ll need a place to place them on something to dry. You can use a plate with a paper towel on bottom, placed in front of a fan for 24-48 hours. This length will dry most shrooms, but probably not large strains like Penis Envy or Melmac. There are levels to this like anything however. If you own a food dehydrator, you may load them in there, and play with temperatures and times to formulate the best drying in your environment. We have found around 140-150 degrees for 8-12 hours will dry just about any mushroom. In general, the faster you can dry them, and get them stored in as low oxygen environment as possible, they will maintain as high a potency as possible. Freeze drying may be employed as well, but is very expensive and cost prohibitive.

For storing the shrooms you can lightly vacuum seal. Be careful not to go all the way and crush the shrooms too much. If you can’t be bothered, simply toss them in a zip up plastic bag and call it a day. If you can, store in the fridge. Now they’re in storage and you’re good to go.

If you haven't caught up on the rest of the process, here is a tutorial on the whole process up to HARVEST.

(Fungi Fanatics GROW tutorial)