Drying Magic Mushrooms

For Longer Storage Learn to Properly Dry Your Shrooms

Magic mushrooms don’t stay fresh very long. So, if you want to store them for long periods, you need to dry them. Someone new to the world of magic mushrooms might feel a bit baffled by their stash consisting of dry and brittle stems and caps. The truth is, you need to dry them as soon as you harvest them, and do it quickly, to preserve their potency.

The point is that any retained moisture can cause your batch to decompose. Having a 90% water content, mushrooms rapidly spoil. Failing to dry them quickly can lead to the microbial destruction of your batch. Properly dried mushrooms online should show golden caps and bright white stems.

The drying of your mushrooms is the last step after harvesting to preserve the aesthetics and their psychoactive quality. To do this, you should use a desiccant.

How To Dry Magic Mushrooms

First, it is important to clean the bottom of the stems by cutting off the end, where the mycelium was growing into the substrate.

Then, pre-dry your fresh mushrooms. This removes a lot of the initial moisture and prevents mould. An effective method is to place them on a plate and place a fan next to them until they look slightly shrivelled and feel dry to the touch. This would be enough for a few weeks. Any longer and you have to take it a step further.

The Desiccant

Manufacturers create a toxic desiccant (probably the coating of cobalt chloride). So, we propose making a desiccant yourself from baked Epsom Salt (magnesium sulphate). It is easier than it sounds, as you are essentially just baking Epsom Salts from your local pharmacy.

The chemistry behind an Epsom Salt (magnesium sulphate) desiccant goes like this: MgSO4·7H2O (magnesium sulphate heptahydrate) has 7 water molecules. If you bake the heptahydrate, the 7 water molecules will evaporate. This gives you MgSO4, Anhydrous Magnesium Sulfate. MgSO4 wants to gain these 7 water molecules back. So, it will absorb water from the sealed container until it is saturated. Thus, a non-toxic desiccant for your shrooms.

Desiccant Drying

There is a stage called “cracker dry.” This is what you want to achieve to store them long-term. For the aforementioned Epsom Salt home-made desiccant you will need:

• An oven

• An air-tight container

• A hammer

• A baking tray

• Epsom Salt (Magnesium Sulfate)

• Paper towels

• Metal mesh

• Pre-dried Magic Mushrooms

Step by Step

1. Fill your tray with 1cm of Epsom Salt
2. Set your oven at 250 degrees Celsius
3. Place a tray of Epsom Salt in the oven at 250 degrees Celsius for 2 hours to remove all of the moisture
4. Break up the Epsom Salt cake with a hammer. Don’t let them cool they’ll start taking on moisture.
5. Quickly place the Epsom Salts in an airtight container
6. Cover your Epsom Salt with a paper towel
7. Place a metal mesh suspended above the paper towels. The mushrooms must not come in contact with the desiccant
8. Place the airtight lid on the container. It is important that it be air-tight so that the desiccant only absorbs the available moisture

Other Drying Methods

A Dehydrator: When it comes to drying, both the vertical and horizontal dehydrators will definitely do the job, although some claim that the horizontal dehydrator is more effective.

Sunlight: Place a sushi mat on a paper towel. Then place your clean pre-dried mushrooms on the mat and place them in direct sunlight with good ventilation. Before you store your mushrooms, make sure that they are “cracker dry.” Otherwise, they will mould, destroying the batch.

You can always buy dried mushrooms online in Canada from Zoomies.