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How To Make Liquid Culture
What Is Liquid Culture?
Liquid culture is made from a sterile broth containing sugar that is inoculated with a mycelium culture. The mycelium will consume the sugar and continue growing. This liquid and mycelium mixture can be broken up and stored in sterile syringes.
How To Use Liquid Culture
Liquid culture can be used to produce grain spawn by inoculating sterilised grain .Using aseptic technique as little as 2 cc of well colonised liquid culture can be administered to the sterilised grains. The mycelium will feed on the grains as it colonises over the following 2 – 4 weeks.
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Making Jars For Liquid Culture
Liquid culture requires fresh air exchange for healthy development. As mycelium grows it releases carbon dioxide. In order to introduce more oxygen we must fix each jar with a filter patch. Filter patches can be made from either a piece of micropore tape or syringe filters.
In addition we will attach rubber injection ports so we can use a syringe to inject & extract material without introducing contamination.
Learn more about making liquid culture jars in our step by step guide by following the link below.
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What You'll Need
The recipe for making a liquid culture broth is very simple. It requires a sugar concentration of 4%. A number of different sugars or starches can be used. We prefer light malt extract as powders are easy to measure. Karo or corn syrup will produce a clear but slightly slower growing liquid culture.
Brewers yeast is an optional additive for faster growing mycelium.
- 1 L water
- 40 g corn syrup, karo or light malt extract.
- 1 g brewers yeast (optional)
- Piece of glass or magnetic stir rod
- Aluminium foil
Step 1. Measure & Combine
Measure & Combine all ingredients. Stir until well dissolved.
Step 2. Bottle & Seal
Half fill each liquid culture jar with liquid culture broth.
Add a piece of glass or magnetic stir rod. This will assist in breaking up clumps of mycelium later on.
Place lid on each jar and seal with a piece of aluminium foil.
Step 3. Sterilise
Pack jars into pressure cooker and sterilise for 20 minutes at 15PSI. Liquid culture will sterilise at lesser pressures.
Allow the pressure canner to cool completely before opening.
Step 4. Inoculate Sterile Broth
The cooled sterile sugar broth can now be inoculated with a live mycelium culture. It’s important to consider aseptic technique when inoculating with liquid culture. A liquid culture syringe can be flame sterilised & injected via the injection port.
Mycelium grown on agar can be added by removing the lid only with the assistance of a laminar flow hood.
Step 5. Swirl Liquid Culture
Gently swirl the liquid culture jar daily to increase oxygenation. Take care not to splash liquid near the lid or unwanted pathogens may penetrate.
For best results the liquid culture can be stirred using a magnetic stir rod & stirrer.
Step 6. Wait
Within 14 – 21 days a large amount of mycelium will have grown in the liquid culture. This can now be used to inoculate more liquid culture, agar plates or even grain spawn.
It’s recommended to test liquid culture on a small batch or agar plate to verify that there are no discreet contaminant piggybacking in the solution.
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I’m Luke and I’m mad about mushrooms. I operate a small scale family run business located 40 minutes west of Brisbane. We’re passionate about fungi and we look forwarding to sharing our experiences with you.
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