4 Tips to Grow Better Oyster Mushroom a.k.a Moku-moku DIY Mushroom Box

You may receive the Moku-moku DIY Mushroom Box with a mix feeling of excitement and worried as you not sure how to take care of your “new baby”.  With this post, you may know 4 tips on how you can grow better Oyster Mushroom from the Moku-moku DIY Mushroom Box.

Tip 1: Temperature

Based on our farm experience, the best temperature for the oyster mushroom to grow is between 18^oC to 20^oC (eg: your air-conditioned office). Continuous temperature higher than 24^oC usually will prevent mushrooms from growing and over 30^oC for several hours will kill the mushroom mycelium. If the temperature below 12^oC ( although it won’t happened in our tropical countries), will stop the mushrooms growth.


Tip 2: Light


You can grow Moku-moku box at any places indoor without direct sunlight. Oyster mushroom ( and most of the mushroom) is like vampire that does not like light. The sunlight can dry out, overheat or even kill your Moku-moku DIY Box. Oyster mushroom that exposed to sunlight may turned to yellowish rather it original grey colour.

Tip 3: Humidity

Mushroom likes humid environment, It is important to maintain a moist, humid atmosphere as mushrooms grow - water by  misting the soil bag frequently. That is the purpose we provide you with the cute water spray. If you forget to water it, the soil bag in Moku-moku box might completely dried out and couldn’t grow any mushroom out of it. (**by Increase the frequency of watering daily you might be able to revive it.) We recommend that you water it everyday to avoid early retirement of your Moku-moku box.

Tip 4: Timing:

The Moku-moku DIY Mushroom Box is created to be grown immediately (one to two week after receiving is still OK). However, a delay of one month and above is totally a not a good idea although it may still grow, but you may need to lower your expectation of harvesting minimum (lesser mushroom, the longer the delay). **Tip: If you wish to delay growing your Moku-moku DIY Mushroom Box a few week, you may store the Box in a cool place or even in fridge that have cooler temperature.

With the 4 tips above (Temperature, Light, Humidity and Timing) we wish you have a “Fun Mushrooming Out of the Box” experience. 

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Dapur Jalanan Pulau Pinang 槟城街头厨房

Have you heard the movement 'Dapur Jalanan Pulau Pinang 槟城街头厨房'? 

     It's a community volunteering movement initiated by a group of like-minded Penangites (and some half-Penangites) to tackle food waste problems and empowering local community at the same time.

     
     This photo shows the pioneering group who kickstarted the project. A true 1-Malaysia spirit don't you think so? Notice the handsome guy in green kneeling on the right? That's me. Photo Credit: Low Chia Ming, March 2014.


Inspired by the Foodnotbombs movement.


How did it all started?
     A friend of mine, Pei Chin who is actively involved in community work gathered a few of us to a group discussion on food wastage. Not that kind of unfinished food on our dining table. We were talking about tons and tons of waste from the morning markets, hotels industry (ever wonder why the food on the buffet table is never empty? go figure ^.^) and a lot more examples that we gathered that night. 

     We went and check out the morning market vegetable supplier (Pasar Borong Pulau Mutiara). Here it is. And guess what? Edible vegetables being thrown away!! 

Showing just the tip of the ice-berg. 

     It is a common practice here as people like u and me, when we go supermarket, we want to buy fresh vegetables, with no 'lubang' here and there, have to be nice nice one. So end up suppliers have to remove those not-so-nice-one outer layers before wrapping them for supermarkets. 

Be part of the solution, not the problem
    Since then, Dapur Jalanan is Born!! (Paiseh, I might cut a lot of details on how to get the supplies, sourcing for the utensils and so on. But you can get those on DJPP's facebook page. Instead I show you pictures!!! Lot's of pictures!! (pictures speaks louder than words)

Photo bombs!!! (60 photos - highlights from the humble beginning and 1 year events) 

The Journey of Designing Physical Moku-moku DIY Mushroom Box

The overall process of Moku-moku physical box design is not very lengthy compare to the signature Moku-moku colourful and fun graphic design. And yet, we try to bring in more fun and value to our customers on the growing mushroom experience.

Mervin and I have spent quite some months to create and fine tuning the physical box design Moku-Moku DIY Mushroom Box, Moku Box. It started off with the a very simple box.

The Moku Box:
This is the prototype 0, the initial draft that are printed with A3 paper. We printed it out so that we could have the "feel" of holding it in physical form. It is the initial process for further improvements.

Moku Prototype 0

After that, we sourced for suppliers. The thickness, textures, toughness of the box are some of the requirements that we take into considerations.

After received some samples from suppliers on the different materials we had the Moku Prototype 1, the thickness, textures, and toughness of the Moku box we have today.

Moku Prototype 1

The Mushroom Ears:

The initial Moku Prototype 1 is quite simple. It is a simple box which host the mushroom soil-bed bag. At the box closing top, it is nothing more then just an "I" shape, which we felt that we can do something about it. We might be able to put some fun and creative element on it.

Moku Prototype 1

While Mervin and I were brainstorming what to do with it, Mervin as usual, the creative guy, came out an idea of putting a mushroom shape at the side, and whoala, Moku-moku has its own beautiful mushroom shape ears. It is simple, clean cut design and makes Moku box more attractive! Excellent! 

(The mushroom ears designs are so famous that a lot of competitors copycat our design!) 

(They copycat our graphic designs too! *will discuss Moku graphic design on next post)

the famous mushroom ears design

Towards achieving Environmental friendly product cycle

     Today, we are going to share our trade secret - the product making. We create products that aligned to what we believe in which is to have unquestionable integrity, entrepreneur spirit and compassion towards the society. 

    Here is an example on what level of commitment that we put in to create the right product. We now share with you our goal of achieving environmental friendly product cycle that both beneficial to the people, the society and the environment. 

Here's an info-graph to give you an overview of our process. 

Environmental Friendly Product Cycle 

     Let's get into the detail. First, to prepare the soil bag which is the core ingredient of our Moku-moku DIY Mushroom Box, we use sawdust and miller's bran. The former is the by-product of a sawmill or furniture making factory while the latter is the hard outer layers of cereal grains from rice miller. The bran we use are wheat bran and rice bran. All the ingredients are mixed according to a special formula that serve as the base for mushroom growth.

pile of sawdust

The formulated soil base is packed into cylindrical shaped soil bags and they are sent to the sauna room a.k.a the sterile chamber (as shown below). Then they are sterilized at 100°C for at least 10 hours!  Imagine in a sauna room for 10 hours, phew... well, that is the only way to effectively kills all undesired microbes that could be competing with our mushrooms. Non-chemical are needed so our soil bed is perfectly organic.

soil bags packed into the sterile chamber a.k.a the mushroom sauna room.

      Next, they are transferred to the breeding chamber. The breeding chamber is a huge dark room fills with cool air and moisture. Here, they would go through the spawning stage. Mycelium, or actively growing mushroom culture, is placed into the soil bag from the cap opening. It will slowly grow and crawl downwards and eventually occupying the whole soil bag. The whole process takes about 40 days. This method is to reduce chances of contamination while give mushrooms a great start!

     In the picture we took out a batch of soil bags so that you can see clearly two distinctive layers, the upper ones are mushroom spawns and it will slowly occupies the brownish layer which is our soil-bed formula.

spawning process

     What's next then?? I think you have guessed it. Packaging. We carefully select the soil-bags that are ready to be packed into Moku-moku DIY Mushroom Box. Normally once the orders are made, then only we go through the selection process so that to make sure our customers receive the freshest of the fresh soil-bags for their growing experience. You might be wondering where does the rest of the soil bag go? The rest of the soil bags are used in the mushroom farm to supply delicious mushrooms to local markets and organic shops.

Moku-moku DIY mushroom Box

If you have any question? Maybe you can check out our FAQ sections. If you can't find the answer that you are looking for, mail us at ask@mokumoku.my

Juicy osyters mushroom 

Happy growing!! Get a box today at www.mokumoku.my.

Gift For Your Child: Connecting Children back to Nature!

Fantastic Fungi on Kickstarter Campaign

Discover how beautiful our nature is..

The nature is beautiful, intelligent, interconnected with us. 

"Mushroom mycelium represents rebirth, rejuvenation, regenerations ..."

To learn more about the film, visit http://fantasticfungi.com! 

Fantastic Fungi is one of our favourite website that we follow everyday. Now they are launching a kickstarter campaign this coming Wednesday.

Although we, Moku-moku DIY Mushroom box, are not associated with Fantastic Fungi, we truly believe they efforts would bring benefits to everyone.
Click on the link below to support their kickstarter campaign!

The Fantastic Fungi Kickstarter Campaign

"It’s finally here. The scientifically sound, environmentally critical, consciousness-expanding, crowd-pleasing crowdfunding campaign to end all campaigns. We’re going to make a film about mushrooms and it’s going to blow your mind."