>>2051747ah sorry! so one of the best tools a home mycologist has is agar plates.
You make a mixture of agar, some sort of nutrient (I use light malt extract), and water. You then melt the mixture and pressure cook it. This ensure the mixture is sterile so there are no competing organisms present.
While the agar is still melted you go to a sterile area. A common approach is using what is called a still air box (SAB) see pic.
In the SAB you then pour the sterile, melted agar mixture into sterile petri dishes. Once they have cooled and set you have a clean, 2D growing medium.
You can then take spores or a tissue sample and grow in on the agar. This allows you to easily identify strong mycelium, weak mycelium, and contamination. You can then do what is called transfering. Where you move a small sample of desirable, clean mycelium to a new agar petri dish.
Once you have a strong culture, that displays desirable mycelium growth you can use it to innoculate a growth medium, such as rye grain, oats ect.
Mushroom growing can get pretty autistic. If you think 4chan is bad you should visit some mushroom cultivation forums. It's magical.
I appreciate that might be way too much info, but trust me, it's no where near as bad as it sounds. Once you're familiar with it all it's very simple.
