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I'm not sure which species of wood you're using, but around here folks doing shiitakes use tan oak (not a true oak), but you can't just use any tan oak. The diameter of the log doesn't matter as much as the thickness of the bark. The thicker the bark, the better.I fell down a rabbit hole. In my area for what ever reason I have trouble getting *s-wordake (S-H-I-I-T_a_Ke) mushrooms, and of course it's usually when I want to make something that calls for them. So I decided to google mushroom growing, I thought to myself I have somewhat of a green thumb.
What seemed easy at first I got over whelmed as soon as I figured out there were so many strains of the same species. Not like oh three different common varieties of oyster. No like sub categories to those varieties. At that point I just ended up calling the second company I was looking at and they were a great deal of help and they had a special going on. They had pretty specific listing on compatible woods for their mushrooms and strains and I was worried about it being live oak. Thankfully they had customers in the coastal south and they were well aware of it and I'd probably see an additional two to three months for it to start fruiting.
I also didn't realize how little of wood I needed, Diameter (3 inches on the small side). If I had known I would have started this years ago. All the small limbs that I either chipped or burned I would have saved to make mushrooms lol.
Also the special going on (What I bought), it's this. If you are interested I would recommend the thumb tool version and you can make note of what strain of mushroom/strain you want. (Be aware some mushrooms from my limited research can be pretty picky)
The reason for the thumb tool is you can either use it as a thumb tool or palm it with a slight trade off in comfort, and I don't see the getting my thumb over the palm version. It may say $15 but for me the shipping was about $20 if I didn't do that. So I saved quite a bit.
And yeah. the grinder attachment was an absolute god send. I knew it was going to be faster. But running it I was blowing through the logs and I'm thankful I went that route vs sitting there will a drill.
Bundles: Field & Forest Products
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I didn't take much photos but those logs were about a quarter of what I still need to do from my pile (I got the delivery in the evening) I'm going to finish out the rest tomorrow and I still have quite a bit of the sawdust spawn left. I'm also going to see if I can use some of the spawn and make a "Starter batch" I'm wondering if I can use chips or worst case take a circular saw and make dust then introduce some of the spawn.
So I can continue this for the future hardwoods I cut down.
EDIT: it didn't like the species name lmao.
Best of luck! I'm hoping in a year or two to be able to do oysters and shiitakes. We need to get our potatoes/onions/garlic/leeks and strawberries figured out first.