King Oyster (pleurotus eryngii)
Weight: 5 pounds
Fruiting Temp: 55 – 60F
Humidity: Initial pinning – 80-90%, Maturing – 60 – 65%
King Oysters are an intermediate mushroom that take a little more care than Pearl Oyster mushrooms. They grow best in a fruiting chamber rather than grown on a table top and will not pin well at temperatures above 63F. Most growers fruit King Oysters from the top of the block, rather than cutting open the side.
Initial humidity needs to be high for a good pin set, 85%. After the pin set, while mushrooms are maturing, humidity can be reduced to about 65%.
The King Oyster has thick dense stems with smaller caps.
King oysters have a tendency to pin around the sides of the bag where you don’t want them to. To encourage them to pin on top of the block rough up the top surface; use a fork to scratch the top of the block, breaking up the surface of mycelium a little bit.
Refrigerating king oyster blocks for 24 hours will also help encourage pinning.
We always use UnicornTM bags filled with hardwood sawdust and soy hull substrate hydrated to 58%, all 100% sourced and made in the USA.
King oysters do best in a fruiting chamber by themselves due to the preferred lower humidity after pin set than most mushrooms.
