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freezing vs drying shrooms

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polytrip

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I have some copelandia cyanescens sitting in the fridge. Before i put them in the freezer they where white. Now they´re frozen they´ve turned all blue (they´re completely dark blue now, not a single spot of white left). The reason i decided not to dry them but to freeze them instead, is that i thought that all of the psilocin in it would be spared that way, instead of degrading into psilocybin.

Could freezing shrooms start the same chemical reactions as drying them?
 
Hate to break it to ya but it sounds like you goofed. :( Mushrooms can't be frozen unless they are COMPLETELY dry first, and preferably also ground up. If you put them in the freezer fresh, the cell walls rupture and they basically turn to mush. When you thaw them out, they should still be potent, but you will have to find a way to eat this icky blue goop.

IMO there's not really any point in trying to preserve the psilocin, that's what psilocybin turns into in your body when you eat them anyway. So if it gets converted in the drying process, it will just be converted back when you eat them.

In spite of that, eating them fresh does seems like a slightly different experience to me, but if you can't have them within a few days of picking, there's no way to preserve that quality AFAIK and the best thing then is just to dry them out completely.
 
Oh, i don´t mind eating icky blue goo. I just wanted to preserve that freshness-quality you mention. Considering how blue they´ve become they should have had a lot of that :(
 
I say make a fruit smoothie. Throw your frozen shrooms in the blender with some ice and fruit.
Blend it up and knock it back! Yum!
😁
 
I made this mistake the first time I grew shrooms, they all turned to a gooey mush when they thawed. :sick:

IME the best way to dry them is cool dried in desiccant. Take an air tight container and cover the bottom with a desiccant (such as DampRid), cover with a paper towel or napkin then lay your shrooms on it. Seal the container and stick it in the fridge for a few days or until they're crispy dry.
No potency loss this way.
 
I recently made up an awesome guayusa and shroom tea, sealed it up in a canning jar and tossed it in the freezer. Two weeks later and it was still good!
 
What methods of freezing the mushrooms did everyone use? In a bag in the freezer? Laid out on a plate to freeze first then into a bag? Something colder than a freezer... say dry ice? I can't say for mushrooms but when you freeze berries like strawberries the cell walls break much in the same way, and they get mushy. If you freeze the fruit faster with dry ice, the ice crystals don't have the time to get big enough to burst the cell walls, so maybe that will help with mushrooms too? After they're hard as a rock, you can put them in the freezer, just make sure they don't thaw until you want to use them.
 
Interesting. I've never heard of using dry ice, but if it works with strawberries it should be the same. Freeze-drying is supposed to be good too but I'm not sure what's involved in that.
 
I'm not entirely sure how one would freeze dry food either, but to freeze using dry ice just buy a 5-10 pound block of it, break it up into chucks in your largest stock pot, and then drop whatever you want frozen into the pot with the dry ice, stirring it around with a wooden spoon (there will be lots of screening noises as the metal pot and mushrooms contract). You can even take the plastic bags that you'll be storing the mushrooms (or whatever food) and open them inside of the large pot so that way there's nothing but carbon dioxide in the bags so they will stay fresher longer.

Remember one fact: Dry ice is colder than -109°F (-78°C) so be sure to use proper equipment like gloves that can handle the cold and tongs to move the frozen mushrooms to the bags with. Safety First!
 
There is the honey tek! You can put fresh shrooms in a jar, and fill the jar with honey and you get to keep fresh shrooms. The good stuff will leak out into the honey, so it is best to eat some honey with your shrooms. It is also best to use the smallest amount of honey possible, while still covering them. The honey turns a gorgeous blue color.

I don't do this much, since I like drying, freezing and gelcapping my shrooms. (Most of what I get are psilocybe cyanescens, which are very very hard for me to eat any more) Cubes taste not nearly as bad, but of course they are probably 1/3 as potent.

But the honey tek works! It may be the best as far as long term storage, since honey doesn't go bad and the good stuff will barely be exposed to oxygen. Plus, no refrigeration is necessary! I do recommend filling the jar to the brim. If you use a bunch of small jars you can only open a few at a time. If there is air space, mold can form on the very top of the honey, as it will turn a bit watery from the shroom moisture. Filling to the brim keeps this from happening.

My shrooms I thought were all very dry. They were in my freezer, but my freezer quit working this summer, unbeknownst to me. I lost probably 3/4 of my shrooms to mold. I guess they had just enough moisture to mold. That was all of my cubes, pan cyans, liberty caps, and half my ps cyans.

I was a saaaaad psychonaut. :( Had I used honey, this wouldn't have happened.
 
I agree that fresh shrooms are better tasting and have better potency. Not only that, but I have never gotten sick from eating fresh shrooms. When I grow them, I like to eat them before they need to be dried. Depending on the amount of my yield and weither I will be sharing with my friends, it is hard to use them all while they are fresh.

I found a method to extend their freshness from days to up to 3-4 weeks. Cheap too. Just head our to Target and get yourself some Green Bags. As soon as you pick the little fellas, put them in Green Bags and put the bags into the humidity control shelf of your refrigerator. The Green bag allows for gas exchange that keeps fruit and veggies fresh longer than just zip locks.

The only problem I found is that sometimes the moisture inside the bads can start mold. I starting putting papertowels inside the bags and that solved the problem. The Green Bags are reusable as well. :thumb_up:
 
Never had any problems putting fresh liberties into the freezer - sometimes for over a year. Used straight into a brew if found them to be just as potent although the trip didn't last as long as fresh.
 
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