Outdoor bed
Wine cap, king stropharia
Stropharia rugosoannulata
Never eat a wild-foraged mushroom you identified from a website, this one included. Wild mushroom misidentification can be fatal, and no page can rule a specimen IN. This reference is about cultivated and shop-bought mushrooms only: species you buy, or grow from bought spawn, where there is nothing to identify. To identify anything wild, consult a qualified local expert holding the actual specimen, never a description on a screen.
Also sold as
- Garden giant
- Burgundy mushroom
- King stropharia
In the kitchen
Flavour
Mild, with a potato-and-red-wine note some compare to red wine; young firm buttons are the ones to take.
Texture
Thick, firm flesh in young specimens, going soft with age. Solid enough to grill.
In the kitchen
Take young firm buttons; larger opened caps go soft. The thick flesh survives the grill better than most, and it also roasts and sautes well. Cook it through.
How it is cultivated
Substrate
A bed of fresh hardwood chips or straw in a shaded corner of a garden, spread with spawn. Pasteurising is not needed; the bed is meant to be open to the ground.
Fruiting temperature
Warm-season fruiting, roughly 15-30°C (60-85°F), spring through autumn
Humidity
Keep the bed damp; it fruits after rain
How it is grown
Outdoor wood-chip or straw bed
Time to first harvest
8 to 16 weeks in the first season, then each year after
How much, how long
Fruits for years and can out-produce a household
Difficulty at home
Beginner. The easiest way into growing after a kit: an outdoor bed needs no sterile work and produces heavily for years.
What is worth knowing about it
The classic beginner's outdoor crop, and a genuine garden workhorse: a shaded wood-chip bed spread with spawn fruits for years, needs almost nothing, and doubles as a path or mulch. Because you inoculated the bed, you know what is coming up.
Elsewhere on the site
Sources
- Wikipedia, Stropharia rugosoannulata
- North Spore and Field & Forest Products (outdoor bed culture)