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Dang, those look great Graham. Yum.

I was up early this morning with two of the kids. Each day we spend a couple of hours up in the field cutting hay while mom and the other twin works on the vegetable garden, and then makes breakfast for everyone. We finished dragging down the dry hay from the past days cutting just in time for breakfast and there on my plate was free range eggs from our friend, homemade biscuits and gravy and a beautiful pile of mushrooms. I can honestly say they are the best tasting mushrooms I have ever eaten, and I have eaten a lot of mushrooms in my life. They have a really nice earthy taste to them that has an aftertaste of chicken. I can't wait for the next batch now.

Graham, I saw a little oyster growing kit in Home Depot the other day and thought of you and your delicious mushrooms. I've been off in a million different directions lately, but still want to follow your lead. A question: do they grow through the summer or is it better to wait until the cooler seasons to do something like this?

Oh, also, the hay cutting...are you doing this with machinery, or are you guys scything and stacking or something similar?

The ones I had are warm weather oysters. You can get different ones for different times of the year. I've used all the remaining rye seed and mixed a load of grounds with equal amount of shredded paper. I will let you know this batch fairs. As I posted in the other thread, something is stealing the caps off the ones in the barn. I may have to boost up my security on them somehow.
I am using a trimmer with a brushcutter blade to cut the hay at the moment. I did buy a scythe from a swap meet about a month ago, but the blade needs some work and the snathe needs replacing as it is pretty dry and cracked as well as being too short for me.

I collect all mine in gallon zip lock bags and then put them in the microwave for a couple of minutes per bag to sterilize. The last batch in the Rubbermaid tote are doing better than the ones I did in the bags. There is more of an even growth, plus adding an equal quantity of shredded paper helped with the moisture content.

Brew, there is a temperature range but I'm darned if I can find my notes right now. If I can remember it was roughly room temperature. The most important thing is the moisture content. I found if you just grab the grounds out of the pot and try and use it, it will be too wet. The last batch I did was subjected to about five minutes in the microwave and then left to stand for a day or two with the bag open. Then I added the inoculated grain.