I had a bit of grain left during my last run, so I mixed the bits I had left.
This is interesting, actually. Over the next few months, I'll continue this experiment to see what grain mixes might work better for spawn.
While this wasn't a "proper" test, I had still hypothesized that the higher starch content in the popcorn would do better. I guess not.
I'll try and separate testing into different categories like starch content, moisture content, mycelium strain, etc. There is probably a ton more conditions to isolate as well.
Ah yes. You bring up good points.
I just remembered that ease of a "break-and-shake" is a thing as well. Popcorn simply doesn't stick together as bad.
It's also the reason that I rinse the hell out of my brown rice. It'll keep the free starches from acting like glue.
Hmm I haven't tried rice, didn't even realize that was a thing, but yeah I can see the starch being a problem. Maybe over the Winter I'll have time to work more with mine, I've been crazy busy the past week getting a new server in place but it's finally up and running now.
Brown rice colonizes really fast but it's only really good if you plan to use it as soon as it's ready. Otherwise, it'll break down fairly quick and is a pain to spawn to bulk after it does.
I got hooked on this hobby after innoculating some Uncle Bens 90 Second rice bags and learning how easy it can be.
With the popcorn, I split one jar between two bags of straw and it worked well (but of course took some time to fill in). Since the rye berry jar has so much liquid on it, I might just dump the whole thing into a single bag when I'm ready to spawn the next one.
The next thing I need to figure out is spawning a colony from the existing mushrooms so I know how to keep the cycle going. And that'll require having some new grain jars prepped and ready to go. Maybe in a few weeks...