Mana Mushrooms

While I do this series of entries on Grant sources and funding, I'd like to mention WHY I haven't gone on to pursue most of these funding resources: In order to get funding in this way, one has to subject themself to the whims of the funding organization. For grants, this may be as innocuous as waiting...* For Venture Capital,
it may be more sinister; if a VC wants someone on your Board and that someone is neither a team player nor has any idea of what you're trying to do, it may present a very challenging situation. This does not even consider, in the realm of social entrepreneurs, whether the person shares your social mission. If, to use an extreme example, your funder is pro-choice and you are pro-life, how will you reconcile if you mission is to bring traditional
Catholic values to rural peoples and the funder sees contraception as a more effective path?

Moving away from that hot button issue...

I had a conversation with Mary, who works with Goose Island. Here are my notes (roughly) from our call.
I take responsibility for any inaccuracy / misrepresentation.

Brewers add water to malt to reduce the pH. Acid loving / tolerant microorganisms are still present in the brewers grains at this point.

She suggested that drying the grains or heating them would be the best way to sterilize them. To her credit and
to the credibility of the conversation, she acknowledged that sterilization was not really the correct term,
since some microorganisms will be present no matter what precautions are taken, but that most people don't
like to think about that. Alternatively, she offered a conversation with their malt chemist regarding the theory of raising the pH to make a hostile environment for any remaining microorganisms. The timing is tough, since it is the holiday season, but I will take her up on this in the new year.

She also suggested trying the paracetic acid, which has a pH of about 2.5, especially since it breaks down to H2O and CO2 and even qualifies for organic food standards.

I tried to piece together which fluids I have already tested and am not certain. They have paracetic, caustic, and phosphoric.

I will run tests with each to see what I can learn. She also offered some test plates that I might use to help the testing process, which would be helpful in determining which organisms might be surviving the sterilization, regardless of which process is being used.