How To Properly Store Magic Mushrooms

Did you know ‘shrooms degrade? If you don’t know how to properly store magic mushrooms, over time, the active compound in your magic mushrooms, psilocybin, breaks down and becomes less potent. But taking care of your fresh or dried psilocybin mushrooms doesn’t have to be complicated. So after you’ve consumed our “How Long Does It Take To Grow Magic Mushrooms” articles and perused our growing magic mushroom resources, you’ll want to know how to store your mushrooms so they last. And Frshminds has you covered. Here’s our quick and handy guide to making sure your mushrooms last.

Quick Essentials For Storing Psilocybin Mushrooms

Taking care of your psilocybin stash can be done without issue once you understand how psilocybin breaks down. Here are the essentials from a 2021 study about psilocybin stability on why mushroom lose their potency:

• Light – psilocybin breaks down when exposed to light, and mushrooms stored in darkness maintain the highest potency, even after 15 months in the study.
• Temperature – psilocybin is affected by heat, but it wasn’t until 100 C that a large difference in psilocybin level was recorded. Freezing mushrooms also caused psilocybin to break down quickly.
• Moisture – moisture both inside and outside your shrooms can speed up decomposition
• Physical Damage – researchers have found that psilocybin and other active compounds which had been ground degraded more rapidly than whole mushrooms.

How Long Are Shrooms Good For?

Shrooms can last a few days, or if you know how to properly store magic mushrooms, and they have been dried, they can last up to a year! 

How Long Can You Store Fresh Psilocybin Mushrooms?

When you store fresh psilocybin mushrooms properly in the fridge, they might last for months or weeks. Fresh mushrooms are made mostly of water, which means they can become food for other fungi or bacteria. Keep an eye on your shrooms for any fuzzy stuff or weird colors, which can happen fast.

The best way to store fresh mushrooms in your fridge is in a paper bag, just like with edible mushrooms from the supermarket. Paper is ideal because it allows a bit of airflow and is absorbent of moisture. If you have ever put mushrooms from the store in a Tupper ware or plastic bag, you have probably noticed they get slimy; This environment is likely to speed up contamination and is not how to properly store magic mushrooms.

How Long Can You Store Dry Psilocybin Mushrooms For?

Unless you are growing or foraging, you likely get your mushrooms dried in a ziplock bag. Dried mushrooms are far easier to transport and store while lasting far longer than fresh if they are “cracker dry,” meaning the stems make a satisfying snap when bent.

When kept in ideal conditions, which is a dark, dry place, at room temperature and in an airtight container, it is possible shrooms can last for an entire year, only losing a small amount of potency.

How to Dry Magic Mushrooms

As shrooms are 90% water, and bacteria and other fungi thrive with food and moisture, Knowing how to properly store magic mushrooms involves removing as much water as possible so that you create an environment where contamination is much more difficult. Below are the most common drying methods for magic mushrooms.

Air Dry

All that you need to dry mushrooms is airflow. Simply put your mushrooms on a paper or cloth towel in a warm, dry place. A typical spot might be in a cupboard in the kitchen or a closet. A radiator or heat vent in your home can be a good spot, along with laying your shrooms in front of a fan. This can accelerate the process and lead to drier mushrooms in the long term. 

While air dry is simple and easy, it will not remove 100% of the moisture from your mushrooms. In humid climates, air-drying mushrooms is impractical because the relative humidity must stay below 55%. If you are unsure of your local humidity, grab a cheap temperature and humidity monitor from a garden center.

Check out the options below to keep your mushrooms safe from contamination over many months or efficiently dry large quantities of mushrooms.

Dehydrator

A dehydrator is the most reliable way to dry mushrooms, but a dehydrator is an investment if you don’t already have one. Many types get the job done but can cost several 100 hundred dollars.

Using a dehydrator to dry your mushrooms is relatively quick. Simply load up the trays with your mushies and turn on the machine. Depending on your strain and dehydrator, this could happen overnight or take a few days. While it can be tempting to try and get your mushrooms dry as quickly as possible, using low and slow settings generally do a better job of getting mushrooms crispy to their core.

Trying to use your oven as a dehydrator is a bad idea! It can be tempting; some claim to use ovens on a low setting. However, you are more likely to only lightly toast your mushrooms rather than get them dry all the way through. 

Desiccant

If you don’t want to buy a dehydrator, desiccants are a great choice. Desiccants are substances that pull water from the air by absorbing it. Little packets commonly found in some food products and vitamins bottles are desiccants that keep things fresh.

The most common desiccant in those little packets is silica gel. You can purchase silica online, put it inside a container with your mushrooms and let chemistry do the work for you. Keep checking up on your shrooms; in a couple of days, they should be crispy with snapping stems.

How to Know When Your Mushrooms Are Dry

Do the ” snap test ” to test that your mushrooms are completely dried. Bend several of the mushroom stems – if they snap cleanly, they are ready. If they are flexible and don’t break, there is still moisture inside and need more time.

How to Store Dry Magic Mushrooms

Fresh mushrooms go in the fridge and are ideally dried or consumed as soon as possible. Keep dried mushrooms in a cool, dry, dark place. There are many other creative ways to store your mushrooms, along with a few points to keep dried mushrooms safe from contamination and potent for many months.

Cool

While it is unlikely that you will store your mushrooms at a hot enough temperature to can destroy their magic, in the psilocybin study listed above, a slight amount of degradation was recorded at 25°C, the breakdown is less than 1% and is likely impossible to notice by the average user. When exposed to 100°C, much more psilocybin is destroyed, and at 150 °C, there is severe degradation.

Cold can also destroy a mushroom’s internal cell structure, which degrades psilocybin. Even freezing dried mushrooms is not recommended.

Dry

Again, ensuring mushrooms are properly dried is more important than an airtight container. Once you know they are passing the “snap test,” containers like mason jars and sealable Tupperware are great. If you have a vacuum sealer, this is the way to go, particularly for larger quantities of mushrooms. 

Restricting airflow ensures your mushies are safe from airborne contaminants, slows down the oxidization of psilocybin, and protects from moisture in the air. Keeping a couple of silica packs in your containers is the best practice, and you can even recycle the packets you find in vitamin bottles.

Dark

Light oxidizes psilocybin and is the perfect breeding ground for contamination when combined with heat and moisture. When storing or drying magic mushrooms, they should be out of the sun and ideally in complete darkness.

Alternative Methods

There are also some tasty and clever ways to store your mushrooms if you feel like getting creative or don’t like the “earthy” taste of magic mushrooms.

Mushroom Chocolates and Cacao

The ancient Aztecs drank cacao with their mushrooms, and the tradition continues to this day, with mushrooms chocolates becoming a favorite method of consumption. You can make your own at home, although there is an increasingly delicious variety appearing like STEM and Wonder.

Chocolates, unlike whole mushrooms, are typically stored in the freezer. While the study showed over 80% degradation at temperatures below 80°C, online forums claim frozen mushroom chocolates can last for years in the freezer. 

Mushroom Honey and Blue Honey

Mushrooms coated in honey are a delicious way to avoid the intense earthy flavors of shrooms. Submerging mushrooms in a jar of honey is also a way to preserve mushrooms for potentially a very long time. Storing different foods in vats of honey is an ancient practice dating back to Egypt.

The process is quite simple – submerge the mushrooms entirely in a jar of honey. Grinding or chopping up the mushrooms is popular due to a belief that the honey can absorb psilocybin if left for many months, creating something called “Blue Honey.” 

It’s unclear how long mushrooms in honey will stay potent. Online reports suggest a year or possibly much more. The honey does not need to be refrigerated, but other practices for mushrooms storage still apply, like keeping the jar in a cool, dry, and dark place. While honey is renowned for its antifungal and antimicrobial properties exposure to air or moisture could still trigger contamination with this method. 

How to Store Microdose Capsules

If you are microdosing over a long period, capsules are an effective way to store your mushrooms. You can make microdose capsules with FrshMinds Guide to Microdosing. Then store them in an airtight container with a silica pack, just like you would with vitamins. 

Well-made capsules are essentially a bunch of tiny airtight containers. Anecdotal reports suggest that microdoses made from well dried and adequately stored could last up to a year. However, keep in mind the Psilocybin Stability Study suggests that ground mushrooms lose potency faster than whole fruiting bodies. 

Takeaways For Storing Mushrooms

With proper storage, mushrooms will keep their magic for over a year. Here are the essential points:

• Most anecdotal reports and a study from 2021 suggest that after a year, mushrooms are less potent.
• Heat can destroy psilocybin, but until 100°C is reached, the amount of psilocybin and other compounds lost is negligible.
• Extreme cold will also affect potency. Room temperature or a cool environment is best.
• Any kind of light, particularly sunlight, breaks down psilocybin, and a study confirms mushrooms in the dark have the longest shelf life.
• When fresh or not properly dried, mushrooms can decompose or become contaminated.
• Cell structures of psilocybin mushrooms may be damaged and accelerate the breakdown of active compounds when ground into powder.

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