Give your hands a wash and then if you have them, pop some gloves on. From there, spray your hands or gloves with isopropyl and rub them together to get a good coating of isopropyl around them – this will kill most contaminants. 

Lift up your bag and give it a good spray with isopropyl to clean the outside. You can follow this up by wiping the isopropyl around the bag to cover the full surface (avoiding the filter patch) with one of the wipes that are included with your aseptic technique kit. Otherwise, use a fresh kitchen roll sheet. 

Apply the above process to your unopened genetics syringe by spraying and wiping the outside of the included bag and syringe to ensure that all contamination is killed off. Give the included needle packaging a spray too – you’ll need it shortly.

With your syringe in one hand and your needle in the other, grab the two edges on the packaging of the needle and peel them apart until you can comfortably hold them away from the base of the needle without touching the inside!

Now that the needle is ready, swiftly twist the cap of your syringe off with your needle in hand, then just discard the cap. The risky part is nearly over! 

Now just connect the base of the needle with the end of the syringe and twist them into place. The luer lock connection on both sides will ensure that everything stays secure. You can now remove the rest of the packaging from your needle – just keep the cover on until you’re ready!

Pop your syringe aside for a second and give everything a quick spray down for good measure. Then, use the surface wipe that came with your kit to wipe the injection port on your bag. Remove the needle cover and insert it into the injection port before squeezing around 2ml-5ml of genetics into the bag. Repeat the above steps depending on how many bags you have!

Now that you’ve inoculated your bag, place it in room temperature environment out of direct sunlight. Leave it for a couple of weeks until the mycelium starts colonising the mix of grain and substrate.

Then, once 20% is colonised, carefully break the mycelium up using your fingers on the outside of the bag. Give it a shake and mix the mycelium-covered AIO mix evenly into the remaining blend. This will speed up colonisation by giving your mycelium more points of inoculation!

Once your bag finishes colonising and is covered in healthy mycelium, let the mushrooms start growing straight out of the bag. For larger yields, you can cut the bag open and spray the inside walls with water to keep the humidity up! Harvest your fresh mushrooms once your chosen strain has reached its ideal maturity, around 10-14 days for most species.