Homegrown Mushroom Mycelium Insulation Panels

Neil Glasgow wrote:INumerous companies are growing Mycelium for insulation and furniture. However, the real benefit from Mycelium is its a Vegan approved meat and dairy substitute. That’s right, when grown on a suitable substrate, it’s fit for human consumption and creates Vegan products ranging from bacon to dairy products.

In my opinion, the Permaculture community should put together a team dedicated to the on and off-grid production of food and explore the two main ways to make Mycelium: submerged Fermentation (liquid) and the Solid state method described in this article. Large investments are being made to develop Mycelium food products so I propose we put our thinking caps on and design a homesteader version for the masses. I believe Mycelium could figuratively be the next Manna from Heaven food source.
Here is the link to one company offering a meat and dairy free product from Mycelium. https://www.naturesfynd.com/products

Anthony Powell wrote:Many years ago I read an article about an English lady growing clothes from fungi. She'd make a plaster cast of her client and make a positive form from that. She'd apply a nutrient gel to that form, and leave it in her damp cellar to grow fluffy. When ready, she'd strip that off the form, and take it down to her local stream (she lived in a hilly area) and leave it in the water for the water life to finish off the loose organic material for a few days. She could then dry it and supply her customer.
More personal insulation means less building insulation needed!

Beau Davidson wrote:I went ahead and pulled some of my panels out of the fruiting chamber and out of their bins to get them drying.  I needed to reclaim the bins to start a new batch.

Some conclusions:

Some had a little too much moisture content.

The wood chips seems to not be quite pasteurized enough - on 2 panels, a few tiny spots of green mold began to grow and take over once in the fruiting chamber.  

I'd like to acquire some smaller wood particles - dust or small chips.

Some of the lightest weight, most fully colonized panels were the combo of wood chips/straw, surprisingly.  

J Rubins wrote:

Beau Davidson wrote:I went ahead and pulled some of my panels out of the fruiting chamber and out of their bins to get them drying.  I needed to reclaim the bins to start a new batch.

Some conclusions:

Some had a little too much moisture content.

The wood chips seems to not be quite pasteurized enough - on 2 panels, a few tiny spots of green mold began to grow and take over once in the fruiting chamber.  

I'd like to acquire some smaller wood particles - dust or small chips.

Some of the lightest weight, most fully colonized panels were the combo of wood chips/straw, surprisingly.  

Been busy with work and am catching up…great progress!  Boo green mold.  Was that on oyster mycelium or reishi?
A couple of the panels look very well-colonized.  Surprising about the weight.  I’ll keep that in mind when figuring out my own substrate mix!  I finally found some low Mg lime suitable for pasteurization.  In terms of sustainability, I hope to save the solution to reuse, keep pasteurizing multiple batches of straw.  I’m on the fence about using waste cardboard strips in the substrate also.  Will probably test it out though.  Gearing up my cultures this weekend!

Fizpok Pak wrote:They are going to be allergenic, I am afraid.

J Rubins wrote:Well, it’s been awhile but I wanted to show my progress.

Dave Pennington wrote:
Is there any long term testing data to see how well this insulation lasts under real world conditions?

Beau Davidson wrote:
Mycelium as insulation has been pursued widely for around 15 years, so data is still in the early stages, but work is being done toward this end.  

We do have long-term data on conventional materials, many of which fail catastrophically and produce thousands of years of environmental toxicity.  The good news is that mushrooms can break that stuff down, too.  :)

I concur, longevity testing and data is crucial to the development of this tech over the next several decades.  I am convinced that methodologies will emerge making mycelium a compelling alternative in a post-petroleum world.

Beau Davidson wrote:

How long did your panel colonize?  Is this image at the point you terminated growth and began to dry?  

Dave Pennington wrote:Seems like the mushroom fiber would be good food for microbes or other fungi.
Is there any long term testing data to see how well this insulation lasts under real world conditions?

Material cost per cubic foot would also be very interesting.

Dave Pennington wrote:
EPIC is 100% recyclable, I grind it up and mix it into new batches all the time.

Beau Davidson wrote:Another possibility I'm considering regarding degredation as a heat riser - I am considering the possibility of mixing in a clay/sand combination to the substrate.  So the mycelium would consume the organic material, adding structure, and remaining far more resistant to heat than straw - which would simply combust in a heat riser, I'm assuming.

So it would be like making a cob mixture, heavy on the straw, inoculated with mycelium, and packing it tightly into a tube-shaped form.  The straw would be consumed by the mycelium.  I would like to know how this would impact the longevity of the structure.  

There's a lot of mycelium research out there, and I've read hundreds of scientific studies.  I have yet to see anyone attempt hybridized materials.

Lisa Sampson wrote:
Have you tried adding something like horsetail rushes to the substrate?  They're quite rich in bio-available silicon.  Silicon is tricky.  It most commonly occurs in really stable forms which make it almost completely unreactive and thus not available for uptake by living organisms.  However, the horse tail rushes are quite special in this regard.  Whatever it is that the rushes to do the silicon that they acquire makes them an almost unequaled source of bioavailable silicon.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s002160051243  <-- research paper on this very topic

Beau Davidson wrote:Another possibility I'm considering regarding degredation as a heat riser - I am considering the possibility of mixing in a clay/sand combination to the substrate.  So the mycelium would consume the organic material, adding structure, and remaining far more resistant to heat than straw - which would simply combust in a heat riser, I'm assuming.

So it would be like making a cob mixture, heavy on the straw, inoculated with mycelium, and packing it tightly into a tube-shaped form.  The straw would be consumed by the mycelium.  I would like to know how this would impact the longevity of the structure.  

There's a lot of mycelium research out there, and I've read hundreds of scientific studies.  I have yet to see anyone attempt hybridized materials.

Beau Davidson wrote:.

In the coming weeks, I hope to expand the experiment in the following ways:

-Utilize other forms - chiefly devising a tube structure with an inner diameter of 4 inches to test durability as a fire retardant in prolonged high-heat environments like rocket stoves.

Freyda Black wrote:Have you any plans to experiment with growing panels in place?

Beau Davidson wrote:

Freyda Black wrote:Have you any plans to experiment with growing panels in place?

Yes!  We conducted our first experiment growing in-place here:

https://permies.com/t/181810/permaculture-projects/Mycelium-Core-Door

Hoping to continue this work throughout 2023.

Kelly Pridgen wrote:Love this thread!

Question: Are these mushroom insulation panels vulnerable to rodents, insects, other pests?

Sorry if this has been addressed and I missed it.

Freyda Black wrote:

Beau Davidson wrote:

Freyda Black wrote:Have you any plans to experiment with growing panels in place?

Yes!  We conducted our first experiment growing in-place here:

https://permies.com/t/181810/permaculture-projects/Mycelium-Core-Door

Hoping to continue this work throughout 2023.

Thanks for the link Beau.  I read it and it is similar to what I believe I have read before, ie. building a hollow wall and infilling with spawn substrate.
For application on a dome structure however, the "container" would not be able to be built with wood or other "solid" materiels, the idea being that you would be bridging the gaps between the frame poles or supporting the growing medium upon them.  So the question becomes, what natural materials could be used to create a skin. I wouldn't want to use synthetics like Tyvek or plastic.  So, you being the mycelium expert/experimenter, I am wondering if you could experiement with solving this.  It would ultimately be extremely useful for all sorts of non-standard (stick-built in carpenter speak) applications.  Think of bow-top wagons and other tiny homes.

Hope you will think about taking on the challenge!