Simple preservation techniques for oyster mushrooms help you extend storage time
Under normal conditions, oyster mushrooms are difficult to store and have a short shelf life. Two days after harvesting, oyster mushrooms lose freshness sharply due to water loss, the caps turn yellow, and an off-odor appears. During peak fruiting seasons, large quantities of fresh mushrooms flood the market at once, causing mushroom prices to plummet; on the other hand, during off-seasons and in cities far from mushroom-growing areas, there is little mushroom supply and nothing to sell. For this reason, here is a brief introduction to research on oyster mushroom storage and preservation.
Method: Harvest oyster mushrooms at 80% maturity, remove diseased, insect-damaged, and damaged mushrooms, place them in a clean, cool, ventilated area, and use an exhaust fan for 1-1.5 days of air-cooling pretreatment, then carefully place them into plastic baskets lined on the outside with PE (40-60μm thick), with each basket holding about 7.5 kg. Place 2 clean folded toilet paper sheets on the mushroom surface, place on the paper a packet (wrapped in well-ventilated shoulder lining paper) of about 40 grams of preservative, cover the plastic basket lid, and immediately transport them into a cold storage room that has been pre-cooled for 24 hours to lower the temperature; when the storage temperature drops below 5°C, use a vacuum pump to extract air from the PE and reduce pressure until the PE is tightly pressed against the plastic basket; tie the bag opening tightly, carefully prevent air leakage, and stack; then lower the temperature to 1°C±0.5°C for constant-temperature storage.
3 days before storage release, the cold storage room should be slowly warmed (from 1°C to 10°C; if locally @#@136@#@, the temperature should rise from 1°C to room temperature), and before shipment, remove the PE and preservative, then transport to the sales destination in a refrigerated truck (with the temperature inside the truck box controlled at 8-12°C); practice has proven that using a pre-warming measure before storage release and plastic basket storage for oyster mushrooms can overcome the severe condensation on the mushroom bodies after storage release.
This technique requires little investment, is simple and easy to implement, and shows quick results when applied in production; oyster mushrooms released from preservation storage have no chemical contamination and meet hygiene standards.