Results of the first experiments making mycelium leather



My first experiments were a little disappointing because there was quit a lot of contamination and a very slow growth. I also tried different environments like dry storage at 25° and a more moist environment at 28° but the differences in growth was negligible.

For my experiments i tried to follow @Elise method but i was not able to get all the right ingredients so I tried to wing it.

Batch 1:
I made a liquid medium with 1L destilled water, 10g sugar and 5g yeast extract and 3g of agar

These are the results of 2 weeks of growing.

As you can see, it grew a bit but was very thin and contaminated.

Batch 2:
Here I made the same liquid medium except i left out the agar

So yeah that wasn’t very successful.

I kinda expected these results because i didn’t have any protein in there which was very hard to find in a pure form.

What did I learn: inoculating the substrate on a higher temperature will give me a better chance of fighting contamination and I should find a better alternative for the necessary protein to pepton because I couldn’t get it. For my next batches I will also incorporate some jute fibers.


Hi @Gertjan how did you ensure the air sterility around your work? With a bunsen burner?


@winnieponcelet yes and large tile cleaned with alcohol as work surface