hydroponic ftw
cowshit ftl
This truly disappoints me. There's no such thing as hydroponic mushrooms. While it seems like it would be possible, mushrooms/fungus are decomposers. If someone sold you "hydroponic" mushrooms, you got scammed
You can grow the culture in liquid, it's how you can get the most from your spores, but it won't ever produce a mushroom. Someone grew a "hydroponic" one once, but it was simply a piece of substrate that was stuck on the side of the jar and not truly hydroponic.
Horse and cow poo are some of the most nutritious substrates you can use. There are others like brown rice flour and some have grown on odd things like bibles (not cubensis), but they all have to have something to decompose.
Years ago when I was into the hobby, I went the brown rice flour/vermiculite route. It's supposed to give you the best yield per volume, but it's a little difficult to keep the water content as high as it should be because the inside of the "cake" will dry. Not to mention it's kind of pricey to get brown rice flour in the amount I wanted, and a pain in the ass to mix to the right consistency. The nice thing is you can use the same substrate through the entire growing process.
After that failed (contamination), I tried rye grain. 30lbs for under $15. I did two quart jars, mixed rye with water, pressure cooked to sterilize, inoculated with some of my culture (grown in 500ml water, 15ml honey), and after it colonized the rye, I shoveled some horse shit, pasteurized it, broke up the rye grain, and dumped it in. By time everything was said and done, I had over 1lb dry from my first time grow.
There are different varieties of stronger mushrooms like cyanescens, azurescens, etc that are more potent, but they also produce smaller yields and have to be grown on wood. It's very, very unlikely you'll see anyone selling these simply because you can grow a much bigger amount, with less trouble, for cheaper if you stick with cubensis.
Anyway, my point was that there's no such thing as hydroponic mushrooms and don't buy into it. Search any "mycology" forum and you will see posting about "hydroponic mushrooms" is like coming here to talk about building an NA engine, it's just retarded.
Back on topic, fuck yes.
RMHT, for the win.