Cool looking psilocybin potency (at home) test

[Pandora]

A mycologist presented on new mushrooms found last year at the Spirituality and Beyond #5 conference this weekend and referenced this kit which seems super cool. Mix up the material then compare on a color chart to see percentage of psilocybin.

Psilocybin Home Potency Test Kit

 

[Pandora]

The presenter was Alan Rockefeller and he also shared these cool links.


Which psilocybin mushroom grow in your area


iNaturalist access to psilocybin mushrooms

 

[modern]

Saw this a while back... basically just a Ehrlich reagent test kit that is using color and dilution to estimate content. I tried to apply this principle to other plants but doesn't work since they may contain other indoles. Like with psychotria this test is not viable. You can probably recreate this by just making your own ehrlich reagent at say 2% concentration then experimenting a little with soaking times with methanol or the solvent of your choice for best time and you will need to use a known content to set as the reference value.

 

[yatyas314]

Pretty cool test, for everyday use though why would you need to know exactly how potent the mushroom is. Typically you try a small bit gauge it and then you know how potent the batch is for you. Thanks for sharing.

 

[Pandora]

Very true, best to start very low and slowly titrate up, . . . the Shulgin method.

But, you know how it is. Folks are like, "I'm going to take 3 grams of shrooms," and they don't even realize that shrooms like weed have gone through a revolution - with there being so many more strains and so much variability in potency. As I understand it these days some strains are 10's of times more potent than others. Testing allows one to at least theoretically avoid underdosing and (psyhcological) overdosing.

 

[doubledog]

I know this test, together with my friend we tested couple samples of mushrooms, one of the tests was the same batch before and after some storage time.
I believe it works good, we got numbers which confirmed subjectively perceived loss of potency and are also in line with local scientific mycology papers.

 

[blig-blug]

You can probably recreate this by just making your own ehrlich reagent at say 2% concentration then experimenting a little with soaking times with methanol or the solvent of your choice for best time and you will need to use a known content to set as the reference value

This could allow one to create their own relative scale, right? One could record the color, record the experience and from then on build a record with (potentially) stronger and weaker samples.

Would the color change intensity in a linear way relative to the concentration of psilocin? I have no idea of how that works...

 

[modern]

This could allow one to create their own relative scale, right? One could record the color, record the experience and from then on build a record with (potentially) stronger and weaker samples.

Would the color change intensity in a linear way relative to the concentration of psilocin? I have no idea of how that works...

Yes a more intense color indicates higher indole concentration.... The main thing is using a uniform amount of solvent and reagent each time. I'm sure there is likely a 'limit' after x concentration per ml of alcohol color cannot get darker without using a spectrometer or a specialized tool but would be unlikely to happen. If your test is too dark and reached this limit the solution would be diluting further or using less material to start. I could never find the exact protocol for this but Soak in x amount of alcohol. Then filter/decant and add your reagent x amount and wait x time. Heating the vial will speed up the reaction but best to just wait.

The issue with this method with unknown plants like I tried is psychotria have LOTS of different indoles other than DMT so I could use this to compare one clone to another but not one species to another.

 

[the_Architect]

Saw this a while back... basically just a Ehrlich reagent test kit that is using color and dilution to estimate content. I tried to apply this principle to other plants but doesn't work since they may contain other indoles. Like with psychotria this test is not viable. You can probably recreate this by just making your own ehrlich reagent at say 2% concentration then experimenting a little with soaking times with methanol or the solvent of your choice for best time and you will need to use a known content to set as the reference value.

This sound interesting. I just posted a thread asking for help on this...

I don´t need a super precise method for testing mushrooms (I don´t need to know the exact concentration of psilocibin present...
But I could use my own material as reference. For instance: first harvest, second havest, third harvest... and the little ultra potent ones (aborts).
Or maybe test large mushrooms as compared to little ones.


This method could help me... could you expand on how to use the Ehrlich reagent? I am not a pro chemist.

 

[modern]

This sound interesting. I just posted a thread asking for help on this...

I don´t need a super precise method for testing mushrooms (I don´t need to know the exact concentration of psilocibin present...
But I could use my own material as reference. For instance: first harvest, second havest, third harvest... and the little ultra potent ones (aborts).
Or maybe test large mushrooms as compared to little ones.


This method could help me... could you expand on how to use the Ehrlich reagent? I am not a pro chemist.

The reagent is prepared by dissolving 0.5 to 2.0 g of p–dimethylaminobenzaldehyde (DMAB) in 50 mL of 95% ethanol and 50 mL of concentrated hydrochloric acid and is best used when fresh. Other alcohols, such as 1-propanol, can also be used as well.

That is from wiki. I use that and have no issues. 35% hcl isn’t required 20% works.
The dmab is very cheap compared to prepared reagent and you can make LOTS of reagent. If you don’t need much you can also buy ready made elhrich. For me was cheaper to buy and make my own.

The issue with making your own is you need a “standard” which you can make your own based on your personal bioassy experience. Remove say 50mg dry from the amount you plant to eat… needs to be homogenous so you get an average. Then you would record the color in x amount of methanol and x amount of reagent.

Then you could dilute by double to get a half strength and concentrate by half to get double strength. Once you have your “standard” the next batch or single mushroom you test that 50mg in the same amounts of reagent and methanol you can gauge based on your standard and you’ll know if stronger weaker or about the same.

BTW the 50mg is just a random amount I choose idk if you need more or less but usually only a small amount is needed

You’ll need to play around with volumes and soak time but once you have a protocol repeating it should provide reliable data… now if you want an exact test you will need to do an extraction yourself or pay for a test then using the same batch you had tested you will make your standard with a known yield and much more useful data but a crude standard is not bad but is subjective… if you plan on selling and not for your own info may be worth it.

 

[the_Architect]

Thank you for the explanation.
Yeah, I was thinking of using a standard too, for instance, first harvest, regular size (or second harvest).
For instance... you can tell the first harvest has a bluer color, when you pinch them, it also turns blue/dark quicker.
Later batches or harvest are more white and less blue.

I´d love to make potency comparison with mushrooms of different sizes, I bet the results are interesting.