Hi Severina,
Apologies for the slow response.
Bacteria is always a challenge. Keep in mind, mycelium deals with bacteria in a nature as well, so a fully colonized jar has good natural resistance to bacteria.
But, lots of stuff can happen to your mycelium cakes in the growing chamber. Because there are so many questions about bacteria, I’m working on a part two to address the topic. As soon as it’s finished, I’ll update this article with a link.
If you want to sterilize your fruiting chamber , you can use boiling water with a bit a bleach, and then rinse it well with pure boiling water.
I recently lost a batch to green mold, so I’ve been using one part Hydrogen Peroxide to ten parts water to spritz my cakes and vermiculite in the fruiting chamber. That will help keep mold spores and harmful bacteria in check.
No, you don’t have to use distilled water.
For part two of this article-sign up here:
