how come this method of growing shrooms requires no extreme measures of sterilization while others do, why would anyone even bother with the other methods when they could just do this one?

Get a Rubbermade bucket-shaped container which will fit in your microwave. Every step goes on in this one container. In the bottom put two cups of vermiclulite. Use a spatula to mix in enough distilled water to make the vermiclulite about as damp as it can be without feeling soggy. (Usually about a cup).The following dry ingredients can be added one at a time or mixed together. The idea is to coat the wet vermiculite particles with the dry powder as you stir the mix with the spatula. This sounds trivial but it makes all the difference.

Ingredients :

1/4 cup brown rice flour

1/2 teaspoon dextrose

500mg glycine

1/2 teaspoon oyster shell powder

1/2 teaspoon trace minerals (gypsum powder may work)

Where do you get this stuff? - All are available at health food stores. Dextrose is also available from wine making / beer brewing stores, or diabetic supply companies.

After the mix is made lightly tamp it down and cover this layer with 1/2" to 1" dry vermiculite. Microwave the bucket for 8 minutes with the top slightly off. Allow to cool -completely- in the microwave. (If you take it out and put the top on tight the top will get sucked in.) Now you're ready to innoculate.

I favor innoculation with mycelium water, but many have advocated spore water. Either one will work but mycelium water is much faster and has less chance of contamination. A large innoculation around the edges and several squirts in the middle (5-15cc) will get things going in a hurry.

Wrap the outside of the container to the level of the top of the vermiculite with aluminum foil. Set it on a shelf and forget it. Fruits will appear in the bucket in about three weeks (at 75 F). After the second flush squirt in another 50cc or so of water. Sometime these buckets flush for months. When it looks old and pooped drop in a sterilized cow patty and more water. Again you may get more flushes.

This method does call for sterilization. Microwaving the substrate sterilizes it to an extent.

Microwaving is a sterilization method. And besides that, microwaving substrate is a bad idea because 1. it doesn't destroy all of the contaminates 2. it dries the fuck out of the substrate. Buy a pressure cooker or steam boil.

PFTek is god.