Start Your Own Shiitake Mushroom Logs

Reader Contribution by Sarah Cuthill
Published on May 24, 2013
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Shiitake mushrooms are supposed to be one of the easiest mushrooms to cultivate. Partly because you don’t have to deal with soils and substrates and partly because inoculating logs with just one type allows you to better recognize and identify the shiitakes.

Making your own mushroom logs is credibly easy. But with that said, if you plan to do more than 100 plugs or if you plan do start new logs every year, it will really pay off to purchase a special bit  for an angle grinder. When I ordered 100 shiitake plugs, it took me the better half of two days to get them all done! Phew! No one told me that drilling one hundred holes into oak logs was going to be hard using just a home-use power drill. Well, maybe someone did, but I wasn’t listening.

Let’s get started!

Firstly, you need 4-6″ diameter hardwood logs with the bark intact. Preferred woods include, but are not limited to: white oak, red oak, poplar, maple, alder, etc. Avoid evergreen hardwoods (live oak) and evergreen conifers (fir, cedar, pine, etc.). How many logs you need will depend on how many mushroom plugs you order. I put about 10-12 plugs in each of my 2-3′ foot long logs. Try your best to find logs with a maximum length of four feet so that it is easier to handle them and also to soak your logs later if need be.

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