Random word #5: Hippie3
Hippie 1956- 2009
SO. This is hilarious, I definitely when choosing this word read “hippie.” just that. and was like oh heck yeah, cool, Mushrooms and Hippies are commonly associated, and I lowkey in the slightest way desire to be a hippie in another life. (My own version of a hippie, it has conditions, lol) But I was super excited to dwelve into this and see what cultural things came up.
TURNS OUT ITS HIPPIE3- a person, who created a website. SO were dwelving into him and who he is and what purpose his website serves. Its pretty significant as far as mushroom forums go, so its super cool actually to look at the life behind the site.
McCoy brings Hippie3 up when writing about “liquid culture's” which according to McCoy is describes as such
“In essence, the fungus is grown in a simple broth containing sugars, minerals, and a nitrogen source. As the fungus grows through the medium, it releases the above chemicals into the liquid. (more on those chemicals below) Afterword, the gungus is filtered out and the chimcals are extracted from the liquid using relatively simple chemistry techniches.”
This cultivation technique pioneered in the early 20thcentury is still used today-
· 39% in detergents
· 14% for textile processing: to create “stone-washed denim”and during the removal of fur during leather production
· 12% are amylases used in starch processing:
· remaining 35% are used in food health, and various other industries.
o Beer, bread, fermented foods
Theres a ton of details that I will probably highlight later on in a differnet article because it is super cool! But this article is about Hippie3, not exactly liquid cultures. Although he did have a pretty important impact on making liquid cultures available to the ameatuer mycologist (like myself.) McCoy refers to Hippie3’s “airport lid”method as :one of the greatest advancements in home mycology of the last 2 decades.”
Although signifigant, several members of the Mycotopia community commented in Hippie3’s Eulogy post created by Zen_,
“Hippie was an amazing man who cared greatly for the community he painstakingly built over the last 10 years of his life. The depth of his passion, his charisma, and his knowledge on the many subjects he dabbled in will be greatly missed and never equaled.
He welcomed many into his home with open arms and shared his wisdom with us all. Should you have been lucky enough to be on the receiving end of his iron fist you would very quickly realize the love, and the lesson. He taught the many hundreds, if not thousands, if not tens of thousands, about mycology, botany, home brewing, living off the land, politics, religion, and about this experiment we call life.”
He seems to be a hidden entity besides this one post from what I could find, appreciated for his knowledge and his generosity in sharing none the less. Mycotopia seems to be almost a website like reddit with different forums and communities all related to mycology and the growing/cultivating of mushrooms.
Not quite the way I thought this post would be going, but still interesting and a great resource if you find yourself wondering about any mushroom knowledge that I don’t answer/address quick enough.
Thanks so much for reading, this post was nice and concise but still important to honor someone who was much loved in his community, and who had a major impact on making growing mushrooms majorly accessible for everybody.
https://mycotopia.net
