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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.
Intermediate60 min active
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 mouldLong 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.
