Growing mushrooms at home can be a great way to save money, reduce your impact on the environment, and even kickstart a business, but it is not necessarily the most intuitive hobby to take up. This is even truer for people who are not familiar with the way fungus grows, which is not the same as plants, as is often mistakenly believed.
Growing mushrooms in a 5-gallon bucket is one of the more popular ways of growing mushrooms at home due to the availability and low cost of said buckets, but how do you go about doing this?
The first thing to be aware of is that you will need a bucket with a lid. You want to drill regularly spaced holes in the sides of the bucket and ensure that the inner surfaces of the bucket are thoroughly cleaned of any potential contaminants. Next, layer your substrate into the bucket with your mushroom spawn and store your bucket with the lid on in a cool dark place. If all goes according to plan, you should start to see clusters of pins after a week or two.
Of course, this is a very simple overview of the process, so if you’d like a bit more detail, keep reading.
Choosing a Bucket
There is no special trick to this part of the process. 5-gallon buckets are popular because they are big enough to get a decent yield while still being small enough to store out of the way. They also have the advantage that you can stack them (within reason), allowing you to maximize your growing space if you are planning to make a business out of things.
As mentioned above, the main thing to look out for is that your bucket has a lid. Other than that, check that it has no cracks or holes.
Drilling Holes in Your Bucket
Your next step is to drill holes in your bucket. These holes are where your mushrooms will grow through and are the reason a bucket is such a good growing option over a more conventional flat design you would use for something like a vegetable patch. By filling your bucket and having mushrooms grow out of the sides, you get a much larger yield for your available floor space. And, as mentioned above, you can stack buckets to further increase your yield to floor space ratio.
As for the holes themselves, you need to strike a good balance for the amount of substrate that will be inside. If there aren’t enough spots where mushrooms can sprout, you will not get the maximum yield from your spawn and substrate. On the other hand, if you have you too many spots where mushrooms can sprout, your risk getting smaller yields. You should still get the same total amount, but each cluster will be smaller.
As for the holes themselves, a 1/4″ drill bit is usually sufficient, though you could go as large as 3/4″. We wouldn’t advise going larger than that, however. It may also be worth drilling one or two smaller holes in the base of the bucket to allow excess water to drain out.
Substrate
Your substrate is what the fungi will grow in and feed off of. The exact substrate you use will be determined by the mushrooms you are growing, but sawdust is often used for things like oyster mushrooms. You will need to pasteurize the substrate before adding spawn to it in order to prevent contamination. For sawdust, you can achieve this by soaking it in hot water overnight. This not only kills off any contaminants, but it also hydrates and softens the wood. Once it has cooled, drain the substrate, and you are ready to begin.
Adding Substrate and Spawn to Your Bucket
The key here is adding alternating layers of your substrate (such as sawdust) and your mushroom spawn. Each layer of the substrate should be around an inch and a half thick, topped off with a thin layer of spawn. Continue these alternating layers until your bucket is full, but not so full that you need to compress the contents in order to get the lid back on.
Colonizing
The next step of the process is largely down to the fungus itself. Store your bucket in a cool, dry place with the lid on and leave the spawn to do its thing. Mycelium will grow through your substrate over the next week or two. It typically strives to colonize the entire area it has access to before fruiting, meaning it will spread through the whole bucket. This is good because it means you should get mushrooms at all of the openings you have created for sprouting.
If you do not see any sprouting through the wholes in your bucket after a week or two, or there is a strange smell coming from your bucket, that would suggest your bucket was contaminated.
Assuming that didn’t happen, you should start to see pinning (the small stubs that will go on to become mushrooms) sprouting from the holes in the bucket.
Fruiting
Once you have clusters of pins, it is time to move on to the fruiting stage. Some growers have found that simulating a typical day and night cycle helps here, though you may want to just use the actual day and night cycle to make things easy. Be sure to keep your mushrooms out of direct sunlight.
Assuming the conditions are right, this stage can fly by relatively quickly, and you should find yourself with a generous helping of mushrooms to harvest in around a week and a half. It can help things along to give them a regular soak with a spray bottle of water. A few times a day should do it.
Adding Substrate and Spawn to Your Bucket
The key here is adding alternating layers of your substrate (such as sawdust) and your mushroom spawn. Each layer of the substrate should be around an inch and a half thick, topped off with a thin layer of spawn. Continue these alternating layers until your bucket is full, but not so full that you need to compress the contents in order to get the lid back on.
Colonizing
The next step of the process is largely down to the fungus itself. Store your bucket in a cool, dry place with the lid on and leave the spawn to do its thing. Mycelium will grow through your substrate over the next week or two. It typically strives to colonize the entire area it has access to before fruiting, meaning it will spread through the whole bucket. This is good because it means you should get mushrooms at all of the openings you have created for sprouting.
If you do not see any sprouting through the wholes in your bucket after a week or two, or there is a strange smell coming from your bucket, that would suggest your bucket was contaminated.
Assuming that didn’t happen, you should start to see pinning (the small stubs that will go on to become mushrooms) sprouting from the holes in the bucket.
Fruiting
Once you have clusters of pins, it is time to move on to the fruiting stage. Some growers have found that simulating a typical day and night cycle helps here, though you may want to just use the actual day and night cycle to make things easy. Be sure to keep your mushrooms out of direct sunlight.
Assuming the conditions are right, this stage can fly by relatively quickly, and you should find yourself with a generous helping of mushrooms to harvest in around a week and a half. It can help things along to give them a regular soak with a spray bottle of water. A few times a day should do it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Any homebrew or hobbyist topic naturally has a lot of questions around it. Fortunately, thanks to the wonders of the Internet, it has never been easier to find the information you need. Like right here! We’ve put together some of the most commonly asked questions regarding growing mushrooms in a 5-gallon container, so read on to see if the answer to your question is below.
Can you grow shiitake mushrooms in a 5-gallon bucket?
You absolutely can grow shiitake mushrooms in a 5-gallon bucket. You will want to spray the bucket with isopropyl alcohol to ensure it is free of contaminants first. For your substrate, a mix of hardwood pellets, wheat bran, and boiling water is very popular and effective.
Do I need a plastic container, or can I use something environmentally friendly?
It is certainly possible to grow mushrooms without using plastic; however, there is a question of efficiency. For example, you can grow many types of mushrooms in a glass jar—indeed, jars are preferred for many gourmet mushrooms—but you may not be able to grow as much as you could using a plastic container.
How do you grow mushrooms without plastic?
The most common way of growing mushrooms without using plastic is to use glass containers, though you will not be able to get as much growth from a glass jar with one opening as you can from a plastic container that can have many openings on the side where the fruiting bodies can sprout. You might also consider making something from wood, though it would need to be properly sealed on the inside to prevent water leakage or, in some cases, the mycelium eating the container.
How hard is it to grow mushrooms at home?
Growing mushrooms at home is not particularly hard; it is the scale of your operation and the choice of mushrooms that will make things difficult. For a small amount of mushrooms—likely for personal use—particularly if that mushroom is local to your region, growing is very easy. For a larger operation, it will require significant investment and running costs, not to mention time.
How long does it take to grow mushrooms?
The precise time will vary depending on what species of fungus you are growing and how efficient your setup is for that particular species, but as a general rule, you can expect it to take between one and two months from inoculation to harvesting.
Final Thoughts
5-gallon buckets make excellent mushroom growing vessels for a range of reasons, not least of which is their availability. You could easily find yourself with such a container after bulk buying something like paint or even some foods. Regardless of how you get your bucket, it is crucial that it be thoroughly cleaned to remove any potential contaminants before you move on to filling the bucket with your substrate.
If you do decide to start a larger growing operation using buckets and you intend to stack them to save space, put plenty of thought into safety considerations. Make sure the buckets lower in your stack are up to the task of the weight you are placing on top of them and make sure there are no cracks or holes that could structurally weaken the bucket.
