Not all of these went well. That's sort of the point. I log the failures just as carefully as the wins because the failures are where the useful bits hide. Every experiment here has raw data, methodology notes, and honest conclusions.
Hydration
Finding: 18h soak at 15°C hit the target 52% moisture without grain splitting. 24h pushed to 58% — too wet, burst kernels led to bacterial pockets during colonization.
Comparison
Finding: Cracked rye absorbed water 40% faster but produced inconsistent moisture distribution. Whole rye required longer soak but delivered uniform 50-54% MC across the bag.
Sterilization
Finding: 90min at 15psi gave a 12% contamination rate over 30 bags. Extending to 120min dropped it to 2%. The extra 30 minutes saved 3 bags per batch on average.
Transfer
Finding: Day 7 transfers at 30% colonization gave the fastest full-bag colonization (14 days). Day 5 was too early — weak mycelium, 25% failure. Day 10 worked but added 3 days total.
Sourcing
Finding: Agricultural supply rye (cleaned, graded) had 3x lower contamination than pet store rye. Pet store grain often arrived with visible dust, broken kernels, and inconsistent size.
Hydration
Finding: Winter preps at 10°C ambient needed 22h soak to reach 52% MC vs 16h in summer at 24°C. A simple formula: add 1h soak time per 2°C below 20°C.
Every experiment follows the same basic structure: hypothesis, method, raw data, and conclusion. I try to change only one variable at a time, though I'll admit that's not always possible in a home lab setting. Sample sizes vary. some tests use 6 bags, others 30+.
If you're looking for the protocols that emerged from these experiments, head to The Rye Bible for the consolidated guide. The experiments here are the messy working-out behind those clean protocols.