Fermenting Traeger wood pellets

LarvaHunter

LarvaHunter

Eudicella
I know this has been asked before many times, yet In all the posts about doing it no one gives proper instructions, Ackro asked how you dry the wood after expanding. I also want to know why I can't add flour and yeast after its wet if I mix it well. Has anyone mixed in the yeast and flour while the wood was wet?

Also any new ratio instructions? I don't care about the old posts.

 
Hey, glad to see u on here again
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To dry the expanded pellet, I place newspapers on the floor and spread out the wood on there. It takes about a day or two for the wood to dry out completely.

The reason why drying the wood is required is that flours absorb water and coagulate into balls in wet substrate, making it hard to mix the flour thoroughly.

I usually go for yeast flour to substrate ratio of 1:3 or 1:5 for making sub, but it's probably different from people to people.

 
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You do not need to dry the substrate if you can manage to use just enough water to expand the pellets without creating excess moisture. Excessive moisture during the mixing step is what causes the flour to stick to itself and what makes thorough mixing difficult.

I use boiling hot water and the heat and steam itself is sufficient to expand most of the pellets. The end result is a pretty dry mix that I can easily use and all I need to do after mixing is add additional water to get to the right moisture level for fermentation.

 
Thanks,

That's more or less how I did it and I thought the same thing. Rehydrate to a dryish mix, and the flour mixes in fine. I did realize this was sort of a vague part of the instructions, though. They are pinned here somewhere.

Of course, you have to keep it moist in a ventilated container and shake it daily for a month.

Personally, I think it is beneficial to add old substrate, or just frass to boost the natural bacteria of the larvae.

Watch for mites, though. Anyone know how long they can make it in the freezer?

Thanks,

Chuck

btw. Starting a new batch soon myself

 
Would this work for say, a wood eating roach? Also, would I still need the flour and yeast or can I just use the straight wood? Thanks in advance!

 
The flour and yeast are there for helping along the decomposition of the wood. You would not be able to use straight wood without letting it sit for many months to years until it is adequately decomposed.
If you're going to use straight wood, you need to introduce mushroom spawn to decompose it.

 
Hisserdude said:
Would this work for say, a wood eating roach? Also, would I still need the flour and yeast or can I just use the straight wood? Thanks in advance!
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I've used it on Cryptocercus darwini this year and the first batch of substrate I made worked really well for me. However, I made a mistake by adding second batch of substrate, which apparently wasn't completely fermented and it started re-fermenting again. thus killing my roaches
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Can anyone tell me the upper limit of heat for the bin while composting I see 77F is the low end.

Also does it matter how deep the sub is in the bin? And how much ventilation do I need?

I'm using unbleached bread flour and Fleischmanns active dry yeast, are those ok to use?

 
Is a 1:10 flour wood ratio fine? On the pinned board it says a 1:10 ratio would work for stag beetles, will it work for other inverts as well?

 
Well, I added the flour and yeast, and it's getting warm. However, it is also moldy, fuzzy stringy white mold, is that bad? Is there anyway to stop it from growing? Once it gets hotter, will the mold die?

 
Sorry to keep posting, but things keep coming up! My substrate has cooled off, but it's only been fermenting for days... it should still be hot right? On the up side, the mold has disappeared!

 
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