[00:00] After two years, my shiitake mushrooms are finally here. In August of 2023, Sylvan and Jordan from Homegrown Hand Gathered came by to teach me traditional Japanese methods of growing shiitake mushrooms. And shiitakes grow on hardwood like oak trees,
[00:14] which have a much higher ratio of sapwood, this outer darker ring, which is what the fungus actually feeds off. And the process started by drilling a bunch of holes in these oak logs, which can be done very quickly with an angle grinder,
[00:26] but a regular power drill works as well. And to inoculate the logs, we're using something called mushroom spawn, which is a wood substrate colonized by the shiitake mycelium, which come in both plug form or sawdust form. The plugs can simply be hammered right into
[00:39] the holes, and for the sawdust, a special thumb plunger is used to fill the holes with the spawn, which is how it's done commercially in Japan for maximum efficiency. Then the holes get sealed with any type of food grade wax to protect the spawn from insects or birds and to seal in all of the
[00:53] moisture. I chose a shady place in my yard to stack the logs, which is still exposed to rain, since fungus of course needs moisture to grow. And after patiently waiting, I went out after a big rainstorm this spring to see my logs had exploded with shiitake mushrooms.
[01:08] I harvested all the mushrooms, but these logs will actually continue to fruit almost every month until it gets colder out and for subsequent years until the mushrooms fully break down the logs and are out of food. I took some of the fresh mushrooms
[01:20] and made a nice shiitake dashi stock, which turned into a delicious noodle soup. And to preserve the rest of the mushrooms, I sliced them up thin and dehydrated them overnight, which will let me store them for about a year or two.