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Recipe

Mycelium composite (home-scale)

Mushroom mycelium (from a grow kit) binds sawdust, hemp or straw into a solid, plastic-free shape after a week or so of growth.

Every A New Field recipe has been run in a domestic kitchen or community hall. Read the safety notes before you start and adapt for your venue.

What you’ll make

Off-white, dense, lightweight, slightly mushroomy smell until heat-treated.

Flexible slots (flex around your material)

  • Substrate

    Straw / chaffLignin-rich woodVolume of mould

    Long dry plant fibres. Reinforces cob and earth-based bricks. Stiff, dense wood particles. Holds shape when compressed.

    Examples Straw, sawdust, hemp hurd

Fixed ingredients

  • Grain spawn · 5-10% by volume

Equipment

  • Clean plastic box
  • oven or dehydrator for finishing.

Refinements and variations

  • Experiment with different substrate mixes
  • Heat-treat at 80C to kill the mycelium and stop growth.

Source notes

Grown Bio, Ecovative and Materiom references.