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Price: $15.00
Our Chicken of the Woods is a first-generation Laetiporus isolate, the sulfur-yellow to orange bracket fungus that's one of the most recognizable mushrooms in North America. Harvested young, its dense, fibrous flesh is one of the few that truly works as a whole-cut meat substitute.
Broad, overlapping brackets in sulfur-yellow to vivid orange. Nothing else we sell looks like it.
Dense and fibrous like poultry. Some taste chicken, others lobster or crab. It breads, grills and pan-fries well.
No waiting to stumble on one in the woods; run it on supplemented hardwood at home.
Let the syringe reach room temperature, then shake it gently to break up and spread the mycelium through the broth.
Flame the needle until it glows, let it cool a few seconds, and wipe the injection port with the included alcohol pad.
Use 2–3cc per quart jar or 3–5cc per 3–5 lb grain bag. One 10cc syringe inoculates about 2–4 containers.
Keep it at 68–80°F in the dark. Shake once at about 30% colonization to speed things up.
Timing is the skill: cut the brackets while the margins are soft and the color is bright. Older growth turns woody, chalky and sour at the edges. Always cook it thoroughly; never eat it raw.
From our lab to your grainRun it into jars with wide-mouth cultivation lids or your own lids with self-healing injection ports. Spare 16G needles and sterile Luer Lock syringes are sold separately.
Use 2–3cc per quart grain jar and 3–5cc per 3–5 lb spawn bag. One 10cc Chicken of the Woods syringe inoculates roughly two to four containers. Using more doesn't speed colonization much; it just uses up the syringe.
About 18 days at 68–80°F, then 20–30 days to harvest once fruiting conditions start.
Rye berries for spawn, then supplemented hardwood sawdust for bulk. Straw can work, but this is a wood decomposer and gives its best brackets on enriched hardwood.
Yes. Always cook Chicken of the Woods thoroughly and never eat it raw. Try a small portion the first time, since some people don't tolerate it well.
Refrigerate it at 35–45°F in the bag it shipped in and never freeze it; freezing ruptures the cells and kills the culture. Bring it to room temperature and shake gently before you inject.
Liquid culture is living mycelium from an isolated culture, so it skips germination, colonizes days faster and gives genetically consistent fruits. Spores have to germinate and pair up first, which is slower and more variable from grow to grow.
Liquid culture is living mycelium, so every syringe leaves our lab in a foil-lined insulated mailer. The insulation buffers it against summer heat in a delivery truck and against sub-freezing winter temperatures, so it arrives viable either way.
When it arrives: refrigerate the syringe at 35–45°F until you're ready to inoculate. Never freeze it. Bring it to room temperature and shake gently before use.
Very healthy culture. Had great success with my culture. Fast grower.