Baking compressed coco bricks for sterility

[GanjaAL]

I will have to check it out. I got a new turkey fryer for christmas... so I am converting the 30 qt. container into my sterilizer... similar to the drum tutorial but on a smaller scale. Cut the lid down today... just need to find some stainless steal bolts to use for getting the height just right. I figure 1/3 of the pot and I should be ready to pasteurize. Even came with an internal thermometer.... I am stoked to give this a try as I will be using canna coco.

 

[dankworth]

You know that is a must with Canna.

 

[GanjaAL]

Yup, yup. However my hydro store owner said that he does not get his canna from sunleaves in socal which stores their stuff outside but another distributor which keep all their stuff inside..LOL. One good thing though... all their coco is inside the store with nothing kept outside. Either way... better to be safe than sorry.

 

[El Cerebro]

Dank have you checked into the production process for the compressed stuff? I'm thinking I read somewhere it's heated/steamed during? Could be dreaming that..

 

[dankworth]

Dank have you checked into the production process for the compressed stuff? I'm thinking I read somewhere it's heated/steamed during? Could be dreaming that..

I have read that Canna and Atami/B'cuzz steam their coco. But then RAs will move in when it is sitting palletized in a warehouse somewhere along the way.

I do not believe the bricks I bought have been pre-rinsed at all. No idea about steaming for sterilization either. But probably not.

Baking after rinsing, in turkey bags, is my new SOP.

Thanks again for that advice El Cerebro.

 

[SonOfDaMourning]

for one thing dirty, your the man for pasturising that much coir so often. i only run 4-6 bins so i can imagine the intensity. but id say over doing it is better than not, not for shrooms but for plants, were most likely gonna add our own bennies. so id say use 2 5gal buckets, one inside the other for insulation(its a pasturization tek), throw 1&1/2 - 2 bricks in and pour your boiling water,cover it, give it 90 mins, drain and let :cool0019: :banana1sv6:

 

[Scorpion]

just soak the bricks in more water than they can hold...bugs drown...
thats how we kill off all the spider mites shipped out with the strawberry starts we recieved...works great,just dont be to quick to remove the coco from the water,I leave it for 24 hrs,submerged,then drain.

peace

 

[GanjaAL]

Hey brother... what brand did you get in the bricks??? I am looking at getting the Sunleaves Classic Coir Block 5kg. Also... what size pot will it fill?

 

[dankworth]

I ended up getting blocks of coco from a place that had only them. They were from Down to Earth Distributors. I do not believe they steamed or rinsed these at all. They claim to be 4.5 ft2 when expanded, so that would be 33.66 gallons each. I will count on each one displacing like 30 gallons once it has been mixed in with hydroton to make that chow mix.
Lighter in color than B'cuzz from the bag. Less evenly granular. I rinsed for a while before baking but did not test runoff ppms, did not have that device with me.
These blocks were $20 at full retail price. You will find an odd leaf or two.

Makes me think of the bricks in the past I have seen. Weighted down with rocks once or twice. There was a small dead flat sunbaked lizard once. And a tiny glass coke bottle in a larger brick. And frequently I would see kernels of corn unlike anything you would see in the states.

 

[darkmatter]

wrap it in tin foil and grill it or bake, i guess the turkey bags are more friendly. im takin a brake from growin soon tired of fightin all this shit,its endless.

 

[Dirty White Boy]

for one thing dirty, your the man for pasturising that much coir so often. i only run 4-6 bins so i can imagine the intensity. but id say over doing it is better than not, not for shrooms but for plants, were most likely gonna add our own bennies. so id say use 2 5gal buckets, one inside the other for insulation(its a pasturization tek), throw 1&1/2 - 2 bricks in and pour your boiling water,cover it, give it 90 mins, drain and let :cool0019: :banana1sv6:

It takes a couple of us to get it all done. And we actually do 4x that much straw for our oyster logs. You could totally be right about the diff between doing it for mushies or plants....I personally don't do this to my media for plants. using the coco is more of an experiment for one of our greenhouses.


We bought a couple big pallets of coco and have found all kinds of crazy stuff inside the blocks candy bar wrappers peices of paper key chain gloves peices of metal and even a condom. Kinda makes me wonder LOL.

Really dosnt seem like my advice is wanted or needed on the subject so ill just post elsewhere. I sure hope no one was somehow offended by me trying to lend some advice.

 

[GanjaAL]

Not even brother... I am trying to find a happy medium between your advice and others that have given theirs. Like I said... I have spent some time rigging up my own sterilizer using a 30qt. container that I had got for christmas. Like I have said... I am using it like the 55 gallon barel tutorial on the net but again... in a smaller scale. I did check out the shroomery... some good info there.

 

[Dirty White Boy]

I love your idea ganjal sounds solid I have no doubt it'll work perfect for ya!!! Innovation, passion, skills is what its all about. Plus building new toys is always so much fun!!!!

 

[El Cerebro]

Ok I'm cheap but can definitely afford to pay a smidge more for the 3cuft blocks from HD without all the extra goodies. I mean, corn - damn.

I spoke with a sri lankan exporter on the phone recently, trying to find chunk/croutons, and he told me the coir sold to us in bags is basically all from the top grade (no bottles/condoms). He said the main cost differential comes at the cleaning/rinsing stage, and that all their big accounts are all just buying as a commodity from the lowest priced seller who will rinse to their EC spec. He then asked what EC and how many container loads I needed. You guys wanna do a group buy? DW, should I put you down for a dozen yards or so? Fedex ground to your po box okay?

I just thought of turkey bags because, well there happened to be one sitting here full of..

 

[dankworth]

I should have clarified. The odd artifacts from the previous dynasty were not found recently in bricks of coco from Sri Lanka.
They were found in the 90s, in bricks made of something besides coco, from a place besides Sri Lanka.

Getting assembly line about the coco with the rinsing and the turkey bags worked out pretty well. Besides, I did not have more than 75 gallons to go through after expansion.

I am all done with 27 gallons of media and roots per 27 gallon tote. I am moving to topdripping into a heavily skeletonized netpot(I will be using EZ roots aeration frames) that is a couple of inches above a 1-1 1/2" layer of water at the bottom of the tote. DTW still. So I will need far less medium. So I am not even sweating the coco. But maybe someday if I can have my outdoor monster that involves 300 gal smarties like the big outdoor kids, but w/dtw coco/perlite. Long veg, get something that actually stretches, scrog it out to catch the sun. Then I would need lots of coco.

But not anymore. I am going to deliver nutes to the roots instead of making the roots go get them. Like the big kids. Should be fun.

Now I will see if I can wash some more hydroton and NOT hear Was Not Was's 1988 hit "Walk the Dinosaur" in my head. Except I am all like

"I wash the hydro ton......everybody wash the hydro-ton.........yeah...."

Been smoking off the chemo x og fresh from the toaster oven. Way more potent than anything else I have smoked last year. Dude it is retarded how potent this is. I had such a pot hangover today. I will have them for a solid month. That is how potent. My body's healing rate has sped up so much in the last 24 hours that I started smoking on this new batch.

I believe coco on the first run contributes more K and S than on subsequent runs. K will affect bud size and trichome presentation, and S affects of course flavor and aroma(and medical effectiveness eventually I believe)
I don't think I want to recycle my coco any more.

 

[Dirty White Boy]

Lol yea just send my portion to ma po box. I actually bought mine from an importer who does animal bedding. You are right on about importers doing plant media though. Price goes up quite a bit for rinsed or steamed coco.

I actually love reused and composted coco. It gets a much more fluffy texture, feels like cotton fluff almost or cotton batting. I've never really worried about what nutes were released through the composition of coco.

 

[Buddy Hemphill]

my stove goes to 170 minimum.

Why not leave a brick in there overnight and be done with it?

Will it catch on fire?


I am RA paraoid also. I have a pretty intensive IPM program. I dont get bugs anymore. At all.

No such thing as 'too careful' in my world.

 

[Dirty White Boy]

At this point I'm not just beating a dead horse I'm dragging it behind my truck and doing running flyiing flipping karate kicks at it........

Bake it soak it in boiling water hit it with a flame thrower.....do a drench, call a priest and have him banish any possible bugs straight to hell.......idont care......

I'm saying that you only need to pasteurize and at that you don't even need that.


would I put a brick of coir in my oven over night to kill possible bugs........no I wouldn't and because I don't wanna see someone burn down there house or apt building.


There is safe and then there is wearing two condoms with a layer of spermicidal lube just to whack off while your girl sits in a body condom in the other room wearing a chastity belt.

It's like I know its the middle of summer but I'm Gunna wear my down jacket just in case it freezes better safe then sorry......

I'm sorry to anyone who's had buggie problems but you can just drench your media when you plant and keep a steady program going and not have to bake anything......Michigan easier.......


Ok I'm sorry that's the last ill post on this subject.........continue on......

 

[Buddy Hemphill]

At this point I'm not just beating a dead horse I'm dragging it behind my truck and doing running flyiing flipping karate kicks at it........

Bake it soak it in boiling water hit it with a flame thrower.....do a drench, call a priest and have him banish any possible bugs straight to hell.......idont care......

I'm saying that you only need to pasteurize and at that you don't even need that.


would I put a brick of coir in my oven over night to kill possible bugs........no I wouldn't and because I don't wanna see someone burn down there house or apt building.


There is safe and then there is wearing two condoms with a layer of spermicidal lube just to whack off while your girl sits in a body condom in the other room wearing a chastity belt.

It's like I know its the middle of summer but I'm Gunna wear my down jacket just in case it freezes better safe then sorry......

I'm sorry to anyone who's had buggie problems but you can just drench your media when you plant and keep a steady program going and not have to bake anything......Michigan easier.......


Ok I'm sorry that's the last ill post on this subject.........continue on......

Dayum.....aight....

I dont have pasteurization equipment.... Priests cant come in my house.

I have an oven.

 

[Buddy Hemphill]

fwiw...I have heard about bugs being transferred by every media out there.

Contamination at the stores seemlike the only way this is possible.

There is nothing in a bag of promix for a RA to live on. I dont know why they would be in there laying eggs to begin with?

I use Merit 75 early in veg along with an organic regiment after that till the end of flower. I dont get any bugs ever.

The merit is 60day systemic, so it is still killing after I transplant to their final resting place.

If there have been bugs in my Roots 707 when I got it....they didn't make it long enough for me to know it.

I had some heavy med bills recently so I am going with Kellogs soil and HD coco and perlite to cut it.

I think I will let my bennies and the Merit deal with whatever may be in this mix and see what happens.

I want to mix coco myself to play with ratios, but all this cooking and boiling and sterilizing and pasteurizing is bullshit (for my lazy azz).

I'm gonna rinse this shit till I get a decently low ppm and roll it.....see wuddup then...