25-40% Psilocybin crystals

[Orion]

If you bear with me, I'm going be to trying the alcohol to resin to cleanup route and posting my own experience with it in mushrooms workthread over the coming weeks, since I have some PF cakes just been dunked and in the fruiting chamber at present. All is not lost joshisom :thumb_up:

 

[joshisom]

please let me know your progress

 

[Michal_R]

me too

 

[Infundibulum]

changed title to 25-50% sorry for being defensive i just though that the white transparent crystals that precipitate were fairly pure

Just a note, that may also help other that haven't tried the procedures you link in your OP yet, if you filter out these crystals and let them dry, you'll end up again with a sticky mess and, of course nowhere pure psilocybin or psilocin.

I totally understand that seeing white crystals precipitatinge out seems magnificent and you immediately start thinking hell yeah...it is however deceptive. As benzyme noted above, there are tons of other things (normally present in mushrooms and extractable with alcohol) other than actives that can precipitate out of the alcoholic tincture. And just as "crystallic precipitate" does not mean "isolated compound", "white" does not necessarily mean "pure".

 

[GreenDMT]

so i guess tour saying shulgin does not know what he is talking about?

I'm saying shulgin is human, and even doctors make mistakes.
he stated it was a guess, not a fact.

I know you think you've found the holy grail of musrhoom extraction teks, I once thought it was too.
..but then I started looking at the pKa's of psilocybin, and realized isolating the compound is considerably more complicated than I previously thought.
yes, I've tried the a/b extraction, but on the basic side (pH 8-9), there is a negative charge on the 4-position oxygen. by definition, this is not a free base.
this is also why ether is used to extract it, nonpolars like xylene and toluene do not permit migration of charged particles (they are not miscible with water).

Maybe he was using methanol not ethanol...

 

[Orion]

Looks like I forgot back then to follow up on a cleanup method involving rinsing with many solvents to pull away non- active material from goo. If I recall it involved chloroform, acetone and some other solvents. The result is supposed to be a grayish powder, but I don't even know if it's active. Even if it works, the result will still be impure, and is still a lot of expense and effort, not to mention a big waste of solvents. I just must have just thought 'nah...screw that'.

 

[Loveall]

I've been wanting to try the following for some time. Outline:

1) Cold 70% Ethanol soak of dried ground flesh of the gods. Use sulfites to avoid oxidation instead of vitamin c (available at brew shops for wine makers)
2) Centrifuge at 4000 RPM (or filter?) Set supernatant aside for step 4.
3) Repeat 1) and 2) a few times on what is caught by the centrifuge (or filter). Test residue and verify no activity after a few ethanol pulls (<-- this part may be fun)
4) Combine all ethanol pulls. A reducing/re-filtering step may make sense here. If this is evaporated a goo will probably result (?). Instead, of fully evaporating add HPBCD and then evaporate.
5) Result after drying may be crystalline HPBCD complexed with psilocybin (and other small molecules). This is why we use sulfites in step 1) to avoid possible (but not sure) complexation with vitamin C which would waste HPBCD.
6) Clean up with dehydrated acetone (HPBCD is not soluble in acetone, I don't know if complexed HPBCD would be, assuming no for now)

A variant could be to use acetone before complexation which may give a cleaner product after the final acetone wash (would only work of psilocybin is soluble in acetone). We'd be taking advantage of the transition to (supposedly) non-solubility in acetone after complexation.

Any thoughts? Thinking of starting this work next week. If this has been tried and results exist, or there is a reason someone can identify for this not working, let me know. My apologies if I missed such thread(s) despite my search efforts.

There are a lot of unkowns. None of the info above is factual, just musings which may all prove to be wrong upon experimentation.

 

[hexagonal]

I've been wanting to try the following for some time. Outline:

1) Cold 70% Ethanol soak of dried ground flesh of the gods. Use sulfites to avoid oxidation instead of vitamin c (available at brew shops for wine makers)
2) Centrifuge at 4000 RPM (or filter?) Set supernatant aside for step 4.
3) Repeat 1) and 2) a few times on what is caught by the centrifuge (or filter). Test residue and verify no activity after a few ethanol pulls (<-- this part may be fun)
4) Combine all ethanol pulls. A reducing/re-filtering step may make sense here. If this is evaporated a goo will probably result (?). Instead, of fully evaporating add HPBCD and then evaporate.
5) Result after drying may be crystalline HPBCD complexed with psilocybin (and other small molecules). This is why we use sulfites in step 1) to avoid possible (but not sure) complexation with vitamin C which would waste HPBCD.
6) Clean up with dehydrated acetone (HPBCD is not soluble in acetone, I don't know if complexed HPBCD would be, assuming no for now)

A variant could be to use acetone before complexation which may give a cleaner product after the final acetone wash (would only work of psilocybin is soluble in acetone). We'd be taking advantage of the transition to (supposedly) non-solubility in acetone after complexation.

Any thoughts? Thinking of starting this work next week. If this has been tried and results exist, or there is a reason someone can identify for this not working, let me know. My apologies if I missed such thread(s) despite my search efforts.

There are a lot of unkowns. None of the info above is factual, just musings which may all prove to be wrong upon experimentation.

Here's hoping you have made progress with this, Loveall! I come back to this thread so often whenever someone quotes the 'xtals of the gods tek' and it's wonderful to see that people are still trying to do good science based experiments on psilo extraction.

 

[Loveall]

Thanks. It didn't quite work. But we keep on learning and trying.

 

[neb]

I struggle to find any reliable extractions of psilocybin or psilocin.

 

[hexagonal]

I struggle to find any reliable extractions of psilocybin or psilocin.

here's a reliable extraction method:

cut up your psilocybin mushrooms, pour boiling water on them, let sit for a few minutes and you're done: your psilocybin/psilocin mix is now in the water (which you can consume if you're into such things and if it's legal where you are ).

 

[Eaglepath]

I struggle to find any reliable extractions of psilocybin or psilocin.

here's a reliable extraction method:

cut up your psilocybin mushrooms, pour boiling water on them, let sit for a few minutes and you're done: your psilocybin/psilocin mix is now in the water (which you can consume if you're into such things and if it's legal where you are ).

Go out in nature and do a "pull" with your fingers.. Then basify by chewing hard.. Then you need to "salt it down" by swallowing the base. You could also skip the "pull" by simply stand on all four and eat them like a tiger!

 

[benzyme]

I struggle to find any reliable extractions of psilocybin or psilocin.

here's a reliable extraction method:

cut up your psilocybin mushrooms, pour boiling water on them, let sit for a few minutes and you're done: your psilocybin/psilocin mix is now in the water (which you can consume if you're into such things and if it's legal where you are ).

Go out in nature and do a "pull" with your fingers.. Then basify by chewing hard.. Then you need to "salt it down" by swallowing the base. You could also skip the "pull" by simply stand on all four and eat them like a tiger!

that's not the point. the point is the process, to satisfy scientific curiosity. psilocin extraction is one of the more challenging ones, due to its instability.

 

[benzyme]

the sugars aren't so much the problem, although they may participate in H-bonding interactions,
the problem is the proteins (enzymes) which bind electrostatically and through nonspecific interactions (van der waals). this is why simple filtration will not separate them, and why extracts appear greenish.

for all practical purposes, the alcoholic extract is fine for a crude extract, it's effective.
evaporate the alcohol to obtain the actives.

I stand corrected on this. trehalose is one of the compounds found naturally-occuring in some fungi, and may end up in aqueous/alcoholic extractions. phosphatase enzymes are also present, and responsible
for the conversion at pH <4, under mild heat (40C). they give the extract its greenish color.

 

[hexagonal]

I struggle to find any reliable extractions of psilocybin or psilocin.

here's a reliable extraction method:

cut up your psilocybin mushrooms, pour boiling water on them, let sit for a few minutes and you're done: your psilocybin/psilocin mix is now in the water (which you can consume if you're into such things and if it's legal where you are ).

Go out in nature and do a "pull" with your fingers.. Then basify by chewing hard.. Then you need to "salt it down" by swallowing the base. You could also skip the "pull" by simply stand on all four and eat them like a tiger!

that's not the point. the point is the process, to satisfy scientific curiosity. psilocin extraction is one of the more challenging ones, due to its instability.

I'm aware of the point and I encourage all efforts. Sadly, basically all efforts thus far have proven unreliable. Seeing as this has been going on for years, I'm not very optimistic. At this point it just makes more sense to obtain 4-ho-met or 4-aco-dmt if you want a relatively stable crystalline powder that's a prodrug for psilocin, although that's another discussion.

 

[Eaglepath]

I struggle to find any reliable extractions of psilocybin or psilocin.

here's a reliable extraction method:

cut up your psilocybin mushrooms, pour boiling water on them, let sit for a few minutes and you're done: your psilocybin/psilocin mix is now in the water (which you can consume if you're into such things and if it's legal where you are ).

Go out in nature and do a "pull" with your fingers.. Then basify by chewing hard.. Then you need to "salt it down" by swallowing the base. You could also skip the "pull" by simply stand on all four and eat them like a tiger!

that's not the point. the point is the process, to satisfy scientific curiosity. psilocin extraction is one of the more challenging ones, due to its instability.

These are jokes.. eat a mushroom and relax! Or do some science

 

[benzyme]

I do science, all day everyday. May have some during a vacation, when I have time.

it’s been done, and published, just not with the kitchen utensils people are accustomed to.
A turkey baster won’t cut it for this one. One must use the art of separation science.

 

[Eaglepath]

Good, a role model! One day I will build my own lab.. and probably then blow my self up! until then I will enjoy the more abstract "Tha Bastard in the kitchen separation"

 

[Loveall]

Well, we seem to be able to get to (nor)Baeocystin now. Not perfectly pure, and yield is unkown, but it's something. I'm sure we'll get more progress and go further with benzyme.

 

[blue.magic]

Now I have enough dried fruits to experiment with (250 grams ). I am still preparing for the 3-step washing of the alcohol extract I call A-B-C to remember easily: Acetone, Benzene, Chloroform.

The latter two are harder to obtain but can be made from easily obtainable items (sodium benzoate, household bleach) with some safety precautions.