Insert and Tap Mushroom Plugs

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It's So Easy! How to make Shiitake Mushroom Logs!

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What happens here

After drilling, insert the mushroom plugs into each hole. Gently tap the plugs with a rubber mallet until they are fully seated, about a quarter-inch deeper than the bark surface. Be careful when rotating the log to avoid dislodging already inserted plugs. The presenter emphasizes that logs of this size are preferred because they are heavy enough to retain moisture but still manageable for moving, especially for future soaking. He mentions that the process is simple and can be quite soothing.

Goal: Securely place mushroom spawn plugs into the prepared logs.

Tools and materials

Drilled Hardwood Logs Natural — Receiving mushroom plugs
Rubber Mallet — Tapping plugs into logs
Shiitake Mushroom Plug Spawn Mojo Plugs — Being inserted into the logs

What they say

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holes this is the easy part so you just take your shiitake plugs and you shove them down in your holes and you give them a little tap with a rubber hammer just like so just like that and remember guys when this gets wet it's going to swell okay so it'll hold them in place and you're going to be putting wax over top of each one of these to seal them off so probably put I don't know 15 or so per log 15 to 20 I'm gonna rotate it over and we'll do it on this side now you got to be careful when you rotate that you don't flip it all the way upside down because the ones you just drove in will pop right back out so here are our holes okay just going to set them in there first then I'll go back and drive them all in like they should and they should be driven about a quarter-inch deeper than the bark and the reason we use this red oak is because it doesn't have a very intrusive bark in other words it's not really really rough so we can get them down in there like they need to be hammer these guys down very nice so that's one complete log it took me all of 10 minutes now the reason why you use a log that's this size is because it's so heavy and cumbersome you'll be moving this log so you may be soaking it in water at some point and you need to be able to pick these logs up that is why you could do it in a much larger log however you're gonna have to move that log so if you want to inoculate a stump or something like that you wouldn't need to worry about that get our plugs in okay then we'll tap them in the instructions say set your drill bit depth to an inch and a quarter I like to hit them extra hard right here so that kind of mushrooms out so that they don't fall out in transport we're going to transport them up to the house where we've got our wax heating on the stove already I find this kind of activity pretty soothing pretty fun pretty simple and just interesting because you can watch these logs over about a year period of time the first logs took about two years to to bloom I guess you call it blooming with mushrooms the first logs took about two years and you really got to keep an eye on them so in other words you got to know when your shiitakes are getting ready to bloom or to grow out of your log so at about twelve months you want to check on this about once a week and make sure especially after a really heavy rain or you can set them in water overnight take them out and they will sprout

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