Does this look right?

This is my third grow, Grain spawn blue oyster grown on sterilized Straw. I boiled Straw, drained it and cooled it. I added a good amount of fresh grain oyster. Put it in a container with a closed lid covered it with a black bag and placed it on a 74* heat mat. Today I opened it and took it off the mat and next to a led grow light. this is after one week. it looks like a shiny film is on the middle. Last grow in a hamper it was light white growth with pins that I misted and got great oysters out of it. Hope photo explains it better than i do. Thanks for any help or ideas.

Hello! Such film (overlay) appeared because of evaporated water pooling on the top layer of the mycelium. But it's not critical for oysters and your fruiting block is fine.

I'd skip using heat mat for oysters (they feel good at low temps and within 60-80F).

And they don't need flat block with opened top layer, because in nature they produce fruits on stamps, not on the flat ground.

So, now I'd make 2 small holes in the lid of this box and close it -> it will pin and fruit trough these holes. Or cover the box with a few layers of stretch/food film tightly and make 2 x-cross holes. Mycelium will search for the air and pins appear around these holes soon :-)

thanks I'll try the wrap.So what would happen with the lid off

Nothing bad would happen. The difference between flat opened cake and closed cake/block/bag in a pinning and fruiting behavior, and clusters' look overall.

When the block/cake has only 1-2 holes these are the only sources of oxygen and mycelium accumulate all the resources and nutrients from the cake for pinning and fruiting around these areas. Whether it's a plastic box or bag doesn't really matter. As a result you'll get 1-2 beautiful mushroom clusters, like here:

Instead of a few or many small fruits spread throughout the cake:

Could you pls show, how your cake looks now with the wrap?

And ofc, hope to see pinning updates from you soon 🤞

thanks for the reply and info. I'm letting it go now with no cover and just a light mist once a day. As the pins grow I'll mist it more often. Pics aren't great but they work.

Thanks for the update! Keep us posted pls ;-)

Well I let it go and almost gave up but I came back to it. I started misting the top and left the cover off to one side. I finally see mushrooms. I'll leave the lid off and mist daily.

Nice baby mushrooms popping up, so cool 👍

You can cover the lid partially in order to keep moisture for longer for mushrooms development and create humid microclimate, which is essential for fruiting period. But also try to create a visible gap between the lid and box for air exchange, since now oysters produce too much CO2.

Or can make many small holes in the lid around the perimeter of the lid.

Excited to see new updates in the nearest day(s) :-)

Well I left the lid off and misted twice a day. So now batch 1 is done! I might see if I can get one more flush out of it.

Hooray, so nice oysters! There are a few more clusters with tiny pins. You'll definitely get more mushrooms out of this cake🤞