How To Dry And Store Magic Mushrooms?

After harvesting or plucking mushrooms, it is critical to dry and store them correctly to remove moisture and keep them from spoiling. Excess moisture will cause mushrooms to decay and rot, rendering them unfit for consumption. Although mushrooms may be stored moist, we recommend drying them to extend their shelf life. Wet mushrooms should be eaten within a few days.

To keep mushrooms alive after drying, keep them in a dark spot with moderate temperature and humidity. Light and oxygen damage shrooms more faster, so try to limit your exposure as much as possible. Keeping mushrooms dry and in airtight containers can also prevent mold and bacteria growth, which will cause your mushrooms to spoil.

How To Store Magic Mushrooms?

After drying your mushrooms, you must store them properly. This entails storing them in an airtight and moisture-free environment. Dry mushrooms absorb moisture from their environment, reducing their strength. As a result, proper storage is critical. Some alternatives include:

• Ziplock bag or baggy (not great for long-term storage)
• Airtight jar (such as a Kilner jar)
• Vacuum-sealed (perfect for long-term storage or large amounts, but can’t be resealed once opened)

In most circumstances, an airtight container that can be opened and closed at will would suffice. Whichever way you choose, include some silica gel humidity packs with your mushrooms to draw remaining moisture out of the shrooms and the air. Then just set your storage containers somewhere cold and dry. Heat and light can damage the potency of your mushrooms, so keep them as far away from these circumstances as possible.

How Long Do Dried Magic Mushrooms Last?

Magic mushrooms that have been properly dried can survive eternally. In principle, completely dried, vacuum-sealed shrooms stored in a cold, dark place should not lose strength. However, nothing is ever perfect.

Dried mushrooms in a ziplock bag have a shelf life of around 6 months and will decay. It’s more difficult to say with those kept in jars. Without ingesting them, the simplest method to tell if they’ve lost their potency is to feel them. If they are still brittle and dry, they are probably still powerful. If they’re mushy, they’ve probably lost their potency. Without ingesting them, determining how much potency they’ve lost is a guessing game. However, well-dried and carefully preserved magic mushrooms have a long shelf life.

How To Dose Dried Magic Mushrooms?

When reading about dosing magic mushrooms, most suggestions are based on dried mushrooms rather than fresh mushrooms. In this situation, a typical dose will range from one gram at the low end to five grams at the (very) high end. Most people require between one and two grams, with dosages of three grams and above resulting in a highly intense psychedelic experience.

When compared to dosing fresh mushrooms, you might be shocked at how different the guidelines are. When thoroughly dried, mushrooms lose 90% of their weight. So one gram of dried mushrooms is equivalent to ten grams of fresh mushrooms. As a result, it’s critical to understand the distinction before consuming them! You don’t want to go on a journey that is either much too weak or far too strong.

Pre-drying Your Magic Mushrooms

Magic mushrooms should be taken as soon as the veil separates from the cap. This part of the mushroom’s structure protects the spore-bearing gills. When this happens, it’s time to pluck and pre-dry your mushrooms.

Pre-drying is a technique for eliminating extra moisture from your crop before properly drying it. You want your mushrooms to be bone dry at the conclusion of the drying process—they should shatter when you bend them. Any residual water might cause contamination and ruin all of your hard work. Furthermore, pre-drying is critical since it makes it much easier to weigh out more uniform amounts later on.

Place your shrooms on a piece of cardboard or a dry cloth to pre-dry. Make sure they are equally spaced and not touching. Move your cardboard/towel to a well-ventilated, out-of-the-way location, such as the top of your refrigerator or a shelf in a walk-in closet. Alternatively, you may air them out by placing the cardboard in front of a fan.

Either approach will pre-dry your mushrooms in only a few hours. Check check on them from time to time and see how they alter in look. Pre-drying is complete when they seem wrinkled to the eye and rubbery to the touch. If you use a towel instead of cardboard, you may need to change it more frequently to avoid holding too much moisture.

Cutting Or Tearing Mushrooms: Is It Bad For Potency?

If your flush produced any massive mushrooms, you may wish to cut their size for storage. Although cutting or tearing mushrooms increases their surface area and makes them simpler to dry, does this lessen their potency?

This one is still up for debate. Due to a dearth of scientific facts, one anecdotal tale trumps another. According to some producers, slicing or chopping their mushrooms before drying makes little difference in terms of psychoactive properties. Other farmers contend that cutting fruit bodies ruptures the mycelium’s cell walls, resulting in excessive bluing and consequent potency loss, but breaking mushrooms may preserve the cell wall intact.

It comes down to personal choice. We don’t know for sure which technique is proper. Finally, drying your cache adequately is more crucial than a minor drop in potency.

What Is The Easiest Magic Mushroom Drying Methods?

Air drying shrooms is the simplest, cheapest, and most effective method for achieving a steady and consistent dry shroom. If you’re short on time, you can also use a food dehydrator, although this is a more expensive option.

Air Drying

Air drying magic mushrooms is the cheapest and most convenient method. However, this procedure does not always result in bone-dry mushrooms. Furthermore, it is an untrustworthy approach in humid conditions.

Use A Dehydrator

Magic mushrooms may be dried using dehydrators. They employ a mild heat source and steady airflow to evaporate moisture gently and evenly. They are beneficial, but they come at a cost.

Drying Using A Desiccant

Buying or making your own desiccant is another effortless way to sap any lingering moisture from your prized mushrooms. Just ensure you’ve pre-dried your mushrooms as best you can before letting the desiccant do its thing.

Air Drying Magic Mushrooms

Air drying is the simplest and most accessible technique to dry your harvest—it’s essentially a continuation of the pre-drying process. With heat and sufficient ventilation, most of the water content will evaporate from the fruit bodies over time. However, air drying will only function if the relative humidity of the area is below than a particular threshold, which is around 55% RH.

If you’re not sure how humid your space is, try a hygrometer to find out. The disadvantage of air drying is inconsistency. In rare situations, when the conditions are ideal, your mushrooms will become as dry as dust. Others will retain moisture in the center and be susceptible to infection.

What You Need

• Dry piece of cardboard
• Fan
• Radiator/well-ventilated spot out of direct sunlight

The Drying Process

Position the cardboard on a desk. Distribute the mushrooms equally throughout it. Make sure none of them are touching, since this might lead to moisture buildup.

Position the fan to provide consistent airflow over the mushrooms. You may place the cardboard in a well-ventilated location without using a fan if the atmosphere is dry. If your surroundings are very humid, lay the cardboard near a radiator and turn on the fan to blow air over it.

Every day, check on your mushrooms. They will grow more hard and dry after only a few hours. When they become so dry that they snap when bent, the procedure is complete.

Drying Magic Mushrooms Using A Dehydrator

The best way to dry magic mushrooms is with a dehydrator. These devices use a heat source and airflow to eliminate the water content of substances. This enables long-term storage and reduces the possibility of contamination. The heating element will cause water to be released from the mushrooms.

Internal fans circulate hot air via vents and out of the gadget, reducing heat accumulation. The most expensive method of drying mushrooms is to use a dehydrator, but it’s a worthwhile investment, especially if you plan on producing mushrooms on a regular basis.

Which Dehydrator To Use?

When shopping for a mushroom dehydrator, there are a few elements to consider. Of course, the key factor is affordability, but there are lots of other options accessible.

Essentially, any store-bought food dehydrator will do the work. It’s intuitive and straightforward to use; simply load it up with mushrooms, switch it on, and leave it to dehydrate. However, many dehydrators include a timer option, so you can simply dial in a precise period of time to obtain the greatest results from your mushrooms.

How To Dry Using A Dehydrator?

Distribute the pre-dried mushrooms equally on the drying racks, making sure none of them touch. Insert the dehydrator trays into the dehydrator. Set the gadget at a low temperature (about 40°C) to preserve the psilocybin.

Depending on how long you pre-dried, the entire procedure will take between 4 and 8 hours. Check up on your mushrooms once an hour or so to check how they’re doing. To determine their resistance, test their structure. They’re ready for storage after they crack under pressure.

Drying Magic Mushrooms Using A Desiccant

Heat and ventilation aren’t the only factors to consider while drying mushrooms. Desiccants can also be used to extract moisture from mushrooms. A desiccant is a water-absorbing substance. It helps to eliminate moisture from the fruits when placed in a container with pre-dried mushrooms. Using a desiccant is an inexpensive method to dry your mushrooms, but make sure they’ve been fully pre-dried beforehand.

What Is A Desiccant?

Simply put, a desiccant is a material that absorbs water from the air. The most common type of desiccant is silica gel. It’s commonly used in industrial packaging, but it’s also used in meals that need to keep dry.

Making your own desiccant is the most cost-effective and ecologically responsible approach to dry magic mushrooms. It’s lot simpler than it seems; you’re basically baking Epsom salt from your local drugstore.

The chemistry underlying it is as follows: MgSO4 7H2O is the chemical formula for Epsom salt, which is magnesium sulfate. Remember that water is H2O; did you notice the 7H2O in the formula? This magnesium sulfate heptahydrate has seven water molecules linked to it.

When the heptahydrate is baked, the seven water molecules evaporate, leaving MgSO4, anhydrous magnesium sulfate. MgSO4 will absorb water from the atmosphere until it is saturated in order to reclaim these seven water molecules. When we combine the mushrooms with MgSO4, we will extract all of the water from the mushrooms.

Requirements

• Store-bought Epsom salt
• Baking tray
• Hammer
• Airtight, heat-resistant container
• Oven

Preparing The Desiccant

1. Fill your baking tray with a 1cm-thick layer of Epsom salt.
2. Preheat your oven to 230–250°C. The closer you can get to 250°, the better.
3. Put the Epsom salt in the oven and leave it to bake for about 2 hours. This will remove all of the moisture present.
4. Your anhydrous magnesium sulfate will start absorbing moisture from the air as soon as you take it out of the oven, so you will need to be quick—do not wait for it to cool down. The salt will have become one solid cake; take your hammer and break it up into pieces.
5. Place it in airtight containers as soon as possible, while still hot. You do not need to worry about your Epsom salt re-humidifying entirely within this time, but the faster you can do it, the better. You now have homemade desiccant.

Now that you have prepared your desiccant, you can thoroughly dry your magic mushrooms. Keep in mind that you can re-bake and reuse the Epsom salt later on for future harvests.

What You Need

• Your homemade desiccant
• Plastic container with airtight lid large enough to hold your desiccant and mushrooms
• Paper towels
• Metal mesh
• Pre-dried magic mushrooms

The Process

• Place your desiccant in your plastic container as a bottom layer.
• Cover your desiccant with a layer of paper towels.
• Bend your metal mesh around the sides and place it in the container so that the mesh creates a platform to hold the mushrooms above the paper towels.
• You do not want to run any risk of the mushrooms coming into physical contact with the desiccant.
• Place your magic mushrooms on top of the metal mesh.
• Place the airtight lid on the container.
• The desiccant will now start to absorb all of the moisture from the mushrooms. The container must be airtight so that the only moisture available is from the mushrooms and trapped air.

Check back every couple of days to see how dry the mushrooms have become. Once again, they will be ready when they snap.

Storing Dried Magic Mushrooms

It’s time to keep your shrooms now that they’ve dried. Magic mushrooms, like other dry items, should be stored away from direct light, heat, and moisture. Keep your shrooms in a cold, dark, and suitably dry place to keep them pleasant and strong for as long as possible.

Where To Store Your Magic Mushrooms?

Excess light exposure will speed up the degradation process, and moisture will, once again, pose a contamination risk. Store your mushrooms in a cool, dark place—such as a kitchen cupboard—to maximise their shelf life.

Dry Your Shrooms Like A Pro

Drying magic mushrooms is key to extending their shelf life and preserving their flavour and potency. Make sure to keep this article on hand come harvest time to perfectly dry your shrooms and help them keep for months!