Shroomery: Why Dunk and Soak Your Cakes in Water? (Easy Guide)

Okay, here’s my blog post about dunking and soaking mushroom substrates, written in the style you requested:

Alright, so I’ve been messing around with growing mushrooms for a while now, and one thing that always confused me was this whole “dunking” thing. Like, why do you gotta soak your mushroom cake in water? I saw it on Shroomery all the time, people talking about dunking and soaking, but I wasn’t totally getting why.

So, I decided to just try it out myself and see what the heck happens. I had this one cake, it had already given me a couple of flushes, but it was starting to look kinda dry and tired. I figured, “What the hell, let’s dunk it!”

My Dunking Experiment

First, I got a big, clean container. Important: Cleanliness is key with mushrooms, you don’t want any nasty bacteria messing things up.

I filled that container with regular tap water that it is a little bit cold. I’d heard some people use distilled water, but honestly, I didn’t bother. Tap water seemed fine.

• Step 1: Submerge the Cake. I gently put my mushroom cake into the water. It floated at first, so I used another clean container to kinda weigh it down and keep it fully submerged.
• Step 2: Wait…and Wait. I let it soak for a good, solid time,maybe 20 hours. Some folks on Shroomery say you can do less, like 12 hours, but I went for the longer soak.
• Step 3:Take it from water and put it back to the growing box.

After that, I put the cake back in my fruiting chamber, the same one I always use. And then… I waited.

And guess what? That sucker started pinning again! It was like it got a second wind. I got another flush out of it, a pretty decent one too. It definitely seemed like the dunking helped rehydrate the cake and give it the boost it needed.

So, based on my little experiment, I’d say dunking is definitely worth it. It’s like giving your mushroom cake a big drink of water after it’s been working hard. It’s not rocket science, but it seems to make a real difference. I’m definitely gonna keep dunking my cakes between flushes from now on.