The Big Bend Fungi Company

05/14/2026

It's so cool seeing something that started from a petri dish end up in a local coffee shop down the road. From Spore to Store... But a lot happens between those two points!

Growing cultures, harvesting, hauling substrate, late nights in the lab, extraction runs that take months, filtering, bottling, labeling, perfecting the craft one bottle at a time. Just real West Texas grown mushrooms extracted with care in small craft batches - the way it should be done.

Lion’s Mane, often called "The Brain Mushroom," supports cognitive function, memory, and mental clarity, while Reishi is known for its immune-boosting and stress-relieving properties. Our extracts contain only three ingredients: purified extraction water, organic extraction alcohol, and the mushroom itself—no starches, fillers, or artificial additives.It’s vegan, gluten-free, non-GMO, and crafted for quality.

Each bottle comes with a calibrated dropper for precise dosing - we recommend 1-2 mL daily to start! Just shake well before each use & drop it into water, coffee, tea, or take it directly for an easy daily wellness boost of clean, high-quality, concentrated adaptogenic fungi.

Stop by today, grab a cup of coffee, a scone, & learn more about the benefits of functional mushrooms!

05/09/2026

The calm before the storm...

Giving a Mushroom Talk to the entire 8th Grade at Alpine Middle School.

Big thanks to Miss Larson and the students at Alpine Middle School for having us out to talk about mushrooms, mycelium, and the role fungi play in our world. The students asked great questions, stayed engaged, and made it an awesome experience all around. It's always good seeing curiosity and science come together in West Texas.

05/07/2026

About 9 months ago, the Big Bend Fungi Company became a licensed food manufacturer in the state of Texas. This involved some inspections of the facilities, a review of our standard operating procedures, & a closer look at the way things are done here at the farm.

This took a lot of work, especially paperwork, but it was a big movement in the right direction. Growing mushrooms is one thing, but this new licensing allows for distribution and manufacturing on a larger scale, especially for extracts, powders, & dehydrated mushrooms.

One small step for fungi, one giant leap for the Fungi Company. There is still tons of work to be done, got a lot planned for the future, but it feels like the beginning of a new era.

Mush Love Y'all 🍄💙

04/14/2026

Lion’s Mane Mushroom Turning Red???

Dumping the trailer & noticed some of our spent substrate blocks producing some red Lion's Mane Mushrooms! This is an environmental response that can occur due to high humidity, cooler temperatures, excessive light, or because the mushroom is maturing and drying out.

Lion's Mane Mushroom can also turn red, green, or even blue when cooked! This is a harmless chemical reaction & is safe to eat. This discoloration commonly results from the oxidation of compounds within the mushroom, similar to bruising in boletes.

These particular Lion’s Mane mushroom blocks sat on the compost trailer for about 2 weeks and were exposed to the intense West Texas sun and the dry desert conditions, which most likely causes the mushrooms to turn red!

02/08/2026

A mushroom pinset refers to the initial, dense formation of tiny baby mushrooms—known as pins—that emerge from the colonized substrate during the fruiting stage. It is a critical, early stage in mushroom cultivation where the mycelium transitions from vegetative growth into structured, recognizable, and rapidly growing fruiting bodies. 

Once we introduce "fruiting conditions," which include increased fresh air exchange, higher humidity, light, & lower temperatures, the mycelium forms hyphal knots, which then develop into pins. Pins appear as tiny, 1–3mm white or colored bumps on the surface of the mycelium. They look like miniature, undeveloped mushrooms, often described as tiny bowling pins or pearls, with a distinct, slightly wider head (the future cap) and a stalk.

A "full pinset" means the entire surface of the substrate is covered in these tiny, emerging mushrooms, typically indicating a high-yield flush is on the way. Pins generally turn into mature mushrooms within 5 to 12 days...

01/30/2026

Nameko mushrooms (Pholiota microspora) are probably one of the trickiest mushrooms we've grown so far. The trick??

Patience.

The best flushes, like the one you see here, happen on their own. Don't cut the fruiting block, don't slice the top of the grow bag, don't do anything...

Just wait.

These Nameko mushrooms take about 2-3 weeks longer to start producing mushrooms compared to our oyster mushrooms, which take about 1 week. But, if you can manage to wait long enough, the end result is a beautiful, even, dense cluster of gelatinous amber-brown caps filled with rich umami flavor.

01/29/2026

We Got Wheels!! They may not seem like much, but these casters & wheels are changing the way things are done here at the Fungi Company.

From Atmospheric Steam Sterilizers to Humidifiers to Fruiting Shelves - all of our equipment is now ready to roll... literally.

Moving at least 250 pounds of substrate blocks a week, 5 pounds at a time by hand was fun...
..the first few times.

Into the sterilizer, into the lab, into incubation, into the fruiting chamber, & finally out of the fruiting chamber into the compost...every week...for years...it was labor intensive, took hours, and eventually, at peak production, it was no longer a viable option.

Then it clicked - what if, instead of moving the substrate blocks one at a time... just move the equipment? Don't unload substrate blocks from the sterilizer & take them into the lab - put wheels on it and just roll the whole sterilizer into the lab - don't move blocks from incubation to fruiting and back out again - put them on a shelf, put wheels on that shelf, and move the entire shelf.

It worked.

250+ pounds of substrate blocks can now be moved wherever you need them, single handedly, in about 20 seconds. This has freed up a lot of time... which will be used used to grow more mushrooms....

Definitely stuck in Mushroom Loop...

Hopefully, forever🤞 🍄

07/11/2025

Curb Side Bistro is hosting a one-day fundraiser called “Burger Relief,” offering smash burgers in exchange for donations.

07/11/2025