Masters Mix, pre-blended by the tonne

A supplemented hardwood substrate supplied as a single pellet: 60% oak, 40% soya hull, blended before pelleting so every bag is identical. Hydrate, sterilise, inoculate.

The appeal is consistency. Blending your own means weighing two materials, keeping two stock lines, and living with the ratio drifting between batches as bags run down. A pre-blended pellet removes all of that — and removes the single most common source of variability between one production run and the next.

Specification

Composition: 60% oak, 40% soya hull
Diameter: 6mm
Moisture: below 10%
Additives: none beyond the two components
Packaging: 15kg sealed bags, approximately 1 tonne per pallet
Minimum order: 1 tonne

A note on the ratio

The Masters Mix formulation as originally published is 50:50 hardwood sawdust to soy hull by dry weight. Ours runs 60:40 in favour of the oak. It is worth knowing that going in.

The practical effect of a slightly lower soy hull fraction is a marginally lower nitrogen load. Growers who have had contamination trouble with a full 50:50 in a less-than-ideal sterilisation setup often find a slightly hardwood-heavier blend more forgiving, because there is less readily available nitrogen for competitors to exploit if sterilisation is imperfect. If you are running a validated 50:50 process and hitting your yields, this is a change worth testing on a small batch before you commit a pallet.

Use

Hydrate to field capacity — typically around 1:1 by weight, though supplemented substrate holds water differently to plain hardwood, so check your squeeze test rather than trusting the ratio blindly.

This must be sterilised, not pasteurised. Soy hull supplementation raises the nutrient load significantly, and a pasteurised supplemented substrate will contaminate. Standard practice is a full pressure sterilisation cycle in filter-patch bags.

Commonly used for oyster species, lion’s mane and shiitake, where the nitrogen boost drives noticeably higher yields than plain hardwood.

Also available

Prefer to blend your own? Pure oak pellets · Substrate guide

Running a commercial farm and want four pallets or more? Request bulk pricing.

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