Max Yield Bin Monotub Review

Marketed as a no-mod, simple and effective grow chamber, the Max Yield Bin aims to take the guesswork out of growing mushrooms at home. Pre-drilled holes in the bin make it easy to manage airflow, humidity, and gas exchange. According to the site, this results in consistent high yielding crops every time. But is the Max Yield Bin all it’s cracked up to be? Join us for our Max Yield Bin Monotub Review.

What is the Max Yield Bin?

The Max Yield Bin is a no-modification “monotub” design used to grow a variety of mushroom species. The tub consists of a black base and a translucent lid.

The base of the Max Yield Tub is opaque and has small holes which line the perimeter of the base. The dark base blocks light from reaching the side of the mycelium cake, thus preventing side pins. And the holes provide for gas exchange allowing the heaver CO2 to escape. The base is large, and can hold up to 30 pounds of substrate/spawn material.

The frosted clear plastic lid comes pre-drilled with 8 fresh air holes. Version 1 of the lid has a flat top, which allows for stacking of tubs. The recently released V2 design has a tapered lid which prevents condensation buildup. The lid sits on the lip of the base and features lockable handles on two sides.

The tub is relatively compact, and measures 22.5” x 15.5” x 12” when fully assembled.

Growing in the Max Yield Bin

We have used both versions of Max Yield’s bins. They Both have their pros and cons, yet each produced very similar results. For this test, we used 5 pounds of colonized grain and roughly 10 pounds of manure-based substrate. We opted to layer the spawn and substrate, as this method seems to produce more consistent and uniform results.

The one complaint we have so far is that the tub does not include a shallow lid you can use for colonization. Rather, during this process, we sealed off the air holes in the provided lid and placed tape over the bases’ pre-drilled holes to cut off airflow.

It took about 14 days before we had a healthy layer of mycelium forming just under the surface. This is a little longer than usual and is likely due to the size of the lid.

In preparation for fruiting, we replaced the tape covering the holes with micro pore filter tape. The tub was then placed into fruiting conditions. Within 4 days we had pins growing. And a week later we had our first full flush.

Although we did not mist or fan the tub, we were pretty impressed with our first flush.

Subsequent Flushes

After the first flush, the mycelium cake was pretty depleted. So we soaked the cake for 12 hours and put the tub back into fruiting conditions. On this tub, we were able to get a total of 3 flushes before the cake was spent.

Cleanup

The Max Yield Bin is pretty easy to clean. A quick spray down from the kitchen sink sprayer loosened the bigger debris. The base and top are sturdy and can be wiped down and even withstood a run through our dishwasher.

Price

As far as monotubs go, the Max Yield Bin is nearly triple the cost of a bargain storage tote. However, we have destroyed enough tubs to know what a great value this is considering it comes pre-drilled. In addition, the black base eliminates the need for a liner, and the locking handles are nice. Finally, this tub looks far better than a janky homemade Sterilite tub. With all that said, at $74.99 the Max Yield Bin is a pretty good value.

Max Yield Bin Review: Final Thoughts

All in all, we were highly satisfied with how this bin performed. Although there were a few things that could be better, in our opinion the Max Yield Bin is the best monotub for beginner mushroom growers on the market. Is extremely easy to use, it is well built, and the opaque base and pre-drilled holes have saved us a bunch of time and frustration.

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Have you tried this tub? What do you use as a grow chamber? We would love to hear your comments.