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[Mushrooms Subthread] Extraction

Psilocybin Extraction

Let's say I had a good quantity of psilocybes, how best would I extract the psilocybin and psilocin (I know psilocin will likely degrade and the yield of it will be fairly low since it is fairly delicate)? I was looking at various sources and some say alcohol extraction, but some sources say that they are insoluble in alcohol (Shulgin says it's nearly insoluble in boiling ethanol, which I assume has a higher psilo solubility than room temp ethanol).

Ideally, I'd like something extremely potent, and more importantly, portable.
I'm traveling overseas in a few months, and I'd like to bring some over, but bringing dried mushies on a plane seems like a bad idea. A small container of extract seems much easier to conceal.
In addition, I get terrible nausea from booms. Every mushroom trip I've ever taken, I've either thrown up or had a terrible time because I was fighting the nausea the whole time, so I want to try purer extract without the nasty mushroom material.

I've also read that water extraction works, but it requires high temps, which I'm afraid will degrade the active chemicals.

I've heard of people extracting relatively pure psilo crystals and seen pics in a tek, but they seem too good to be true (which, in my experience, means it is)
http://deoxy.org/wiki/Mushrooms/Alkaloid_Extraction
shows extremely pure looking crystals
http://www.seanet.com/~rwmcpherson/mycoalki.htm
shows a solution which also seems to be fairly pure (look at the precip)
 
I believe that I read that it should be kept in an alcoholic solution to prevent oxidation... possibly in the freezer. An idea I just came up with is to add a layer of edible oil (like olive oil) on top of that solution to seal the alcohol airtight. Then when you want a dose, thaw the solution, if there is precipitation redissolve it, swirl to mix, draw up solution using liquid measurement.

Crystals are a great novelty but not meant to last I guess.

I have an absolutely brilliant pic somewhere that I will upload later if I am on the right machine.

This page above my post mentions the dephosphorylation... it might make it more sensitive to degradation but I have an inkling that the 4-HO kicks in much faster and hard and visual. Boiling for 10 minutes can make you lose some potency but it should be worth it is my feeling.
No idea what the solubility of psilocybin in ethanol is really... also I wonder how difficult it would be to make the fumarate from freebase psilocin... that would be a definite improvement for stability.

Feels like borderline synthesis discussion right now... but we are not talking any major conversions or pathways.
 
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it's not worth the effort.

If you want highly concentrated, portable, and most importantly MINIMALLY-degrading extract, you're looking at the Honey Tek.

Ingredients
X grams of cracker-dry psilocybes
Y grams of light colored honey (dark honey is good for food, light is better for shroom tea)
pinch of cinnamon, ginger, cloves, or nutmeg to suit your taste
pinch of ascorbic acid (vitamin C) crystals
(optional) individual dose containers-- should hold approx 1Tbsp of honey. A plastic disposable spoon works well, then wrapped in plastic cling wrap for portability.

Grind the mushrooms until finely powdered.
In a pot of hot water, warm up a mason jar with the appropriate amount of honey in it until the honey stirs easily.
Mix in all the dry ingredients to the honey and stir until well blended.
Store in the fridge for several months, or freeze for several years. Bring to "warm" temperature to serve.

Tare your scale with one of your individual dose containers. Using a knife, add honey to the container until it is at a good level that can be replicated. Weigh it on the scale (Z grams) and determine the shroom dosage by the following formula: (Z * X) / (X + Y).
A good dosage to shoot for is 1-2g per dose container. This way it is easy to estimate one standard "3.5g" dose, as well as variations depending on personal preference.

To serve, simply lick like a lollipop, or stir into a mug of hot water and squeeze a lemon in it for tea.
 
An alcohol extraction isn't much effort at all..

1.) grind shrooms
2.) soak shrooms
3.) filter
4.) evaporate
 
easier said than done.

in step 2, the shroom material will bloat up and keep some of your alcohol, costing you between 5-15% of your yield
in step 3, the shroom material will clog up your filter, costing you an additional 5-10% yield
in step 4, oxygen and water will contaminate your evaporated goo, oxidizing another unknown portion of your active product

the best alcohol extract procedures I have read about:
place 70g whole, cracker-dry psilocybes in a liter of 95% ethanol.
re-seal and keep in a cool, dark place. agitate daily.
after approximately 30 days, the liquor will have extracted 80-90% of the active compounds.
each 30ml shot should have around 2g worth of alkaloids in it.
 
You know, those teks can be combined... if you use everclear - absolute ethanol instead of 95% and do the soaking of those whole mushrooms (that by the way will bloat up and probably keep more than the powder)... well I guess it helps that whole mushrooms don't clog up your filter too bad. Perhaps something inbetween is best: large flakes. Whatever you do, squeeze the hell out of the soaked material so that you dont lose alkaloids.
A way to lose minimal product is to soak, remove liquid by squeezing it out and repeat two times. In chemistry it is an old rule that every such steps done 3 times will dilute with orders of magnetude and remove the significance. That is why rinsing 3 times usually gets out enough and why 3 pulls out of Mimosa is a good number for DMT.

If you use a dessicant like sodium sulphate or magnesium sulphate after filtering you remove the water in the solution. Then evaporate and you should not get a goo, but pure alkaloids.

Optionally, if you are worried about oxidation... do not evaporate like I said and put a layer of oil on top, no oxygen will come through. Or alternatively stick the relatively pure alkaloids in honey.

Seems like a logical combination of methods.
 
Anyone know roughly the potency loss of an alcohol extraction? Or the shelf life?

Although the honey sounds intriguing...
 
that honey idea sounds delicious.

alcohol extends the shelf life of herbs for years- idk about psilocybin...

maybe add some natural tocopherols or vitamin c to help prevent oxidation??
 
I think that is good choise to extract it with ether like the essential oils.
 
Unfortunately trypytamines substituted at the 4 position are notorious for degrading much quicker than other psychedelic drugs especially phenethylamines which will last literally years or decades longer if stored right :\

It would be best to keep the solution in an airtight, opaque container and as cold as possible.
 
Excellent topic by the way, I am eager to cultivate again and try this. Not too long ago, my stored shrooms went to a friend... I was not really doing anything with them. This sparked my interest again in extraction though.

Anyway, merged and subthreaded (+ links back and forth and in index)
 
Hey I've read through this sub thread and it seems that the majority seem to use alcohol in some form but I've been digging about the web for extraction methods of other alkaloids such as nn dmt, mescaline and lsa and it seems that all of these can be extracted to a decent purity , the mescaline one I read said ~85% , can be extracted with various ratios of d-limonene and ethonic acid (vinegar). These extractions are also food safe but to the point does anyone think that this method would be viable to obtain psilocin/psilocybin and possibly other tasty alkaloids too?
 
Hello -

Having read a bit about various extraction teks, the other day I decided to give it a go.


  • Took 8 grams dried mushrooms
  • pulverized
  • put in double boiler with 196 proof ethanol
  • let it do its thing for about 2 hours
  • vacuum filter
  • re-steep leftover slurry for another hour
  • extract again
  • put in container, let cool, stick in fridge

And lo and behold, two days later, a beautiful layer of crystals had formed.

But...

I cooked the ethanol to speed up the evaporation, and can't seem to find a conclusive answer whether or not that wasn't the best thing to do. I intend to evaporate and be left with just the crystals, stick them in gel caps and go, but had these three questions:


  1. Did I degrade all the good stuff by boiling the ethanol?
  2. What do you think the crystals consist of?
  3. Can you think of any reason not to try the crystals (i.e. on the off chance that somehow during the cooking other less than pleasant compounds would have been synthesized? Don't even know if this a possibility, but figured I'd ask before I go ahead and ingest them...)

Many thanks in advance!

​Edit: Added image

FileFeb09190239.md.jpg
 
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benevolentbeastie said:
Hello -

Having read a bit about various extraction teks, the other day I decided to give it a go.


  • Took 8 grams dried mushrooms
  • pulverized
  • put in double boiler with 196 proof ethanol
  • let it do its thing for about 2 hours
  • vacuum filter
  • re-steep leftover slurry for another hour
  • extract again
  • put in container, let cool, stick in fridge

And lo and behold, two days later, a beautiful layer of crystals had formed.

But...

I cooked the ethanol to speed up the evaporation, and can't seem to find a conclusive answer whether or not that wasn't the best thing to do. I intend to evaporate and be left with just the crystals, stick them in gel caps and go, but had these three questions:


  1. Did I degrade all the good stuff by boiling the ethanol?
  2. What do you think the crystals consist of?
  3. Can you think of any reason not to try the crystals (i.e. on the off chance that somehow during the cooking other less than pleasant compounds would have been synthesized? Don't even know if this a possibility, but figured I'd ask before I go ahead and ingest them...)

Many thanks in advance!
Click to expand...

I've got no idea I'm afraid, but some photos would certainly liven up this thread. =D
 
if your product is completely degraded (which I doubt), you'd probably just feel nothing. just for clarification, the crystals fell out of the solution, and then you decided to evaporate everything off? do they look the same after evaporating, or did they change appearance?
 
Thanks all!

@Tranced: so added :)

@Bagseed: Haven't gotten around to evaporating yet, will do so in the next few days. Added image to original post of current state. I'm ok with it ending up a dud (it was an experiment so always a possibility) just wanted to double check that there wouldn't be a chance of something funny being synthesized. Either way, my plan is to evaporate and then start off with a low dose to see what happens...

Will post update once evaporated!
 
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