Hey, nice to see the talk about mushrooms!
I got to say, I super recommend using straw and horticultural lime (low magnesium, mostly calcium hydroxide) pasutrization. It's the easiest way to grow oyster mushrooms:
1. shred straw, finer the better
2. soak the straw in a pretty good soluton of the hydrated lime over night, at least 16 to 18 hours - I have done it for more and it works just fine.
3. Mix in spawn or a spent oyster mushroom grow kit that's been torn apart
4. place in a bag, a basket, or a bucket and wait - mushrooms will grow!
It's very simple. If anyone is interested I'd love to go into more detail about it, I'm pretty involved with
oyster mushroom grow kits as I make and sell them on my mycology/gardening related marketplace.
I don't really recommend coffee for those just starting to grow mushrooms; it has higher nitrogen content and that means it gets a higher contamination rate - and because ofd that many people have back luck with it if they're new to the mushroom farming.
Some people will probably disagree with that though, coffee certainly has a lot of benefits too, due to its nitrogen levels it can produce more oyster mushrooms per pound, and it's a denser substrate and doesn't need as much processing (no need for shredding) - sometimes it's free - but often times it's easier and cheaper to get useful quantities of straw than it is coffee grounds.
I hear shredded stir fried Pink Oyster mushroom with taco seasoning is a great low processed taco meat alternative - so if you're vegan or vegetarian that might be worth looking into - kind of hard to buy pink oyster mushrooms locally though, as most growers produce White or Blue oysters due to their better yields and more aggressive mycelium. Farmers markets would be a good place to look or to just grow your own.
