I recovered this last resin, rinsed it with IPA, and "pulled" it with vinegar. The water/vinegar became slightly cloudy/tan (4th picture), so it looks like something came through. This pull is being dried and I'll report back.
This residue dried to a hard resin. Upon testing it was innactive.
One possible interpretation is that psilocybin was not attched to the anion resin before the final acid pull. Instead it dephosphorilated and oxydized to a blue quinone which remained in solution.
Prehaps using lower temperature, avoiding the IPA rinse, avoiding the initial pH4 step, and/or a column geometry may help. However, I'm not going to pursue this path right now.
It is interesting though that the ion exchange resin picked up other gunk.
Not going to give up yet. I'm going to get mixed bed and cation resins. Will try something like this:
1) Hippie mushroom tea (filtered and made cold)
2) Add mixed bed resin, mix, and filter (keep water)
3) Add cation resin, adjust pH to 4 with HCl, mix and filter (keep water)
4) Add cation resin, adjust pH to ~1.5, mix and filter (keep resin). Psilocybin may not survive this harsh pH even at low temp (but not sure, anyone know?).
5) Rinse resin with IPA - keep this separate and evap.
6) Add minimal amount of water to the resin from the previous step. If the pH is below 4, adjust it to 4 by adding mixed bed (or anion) resin slowly. Mix and filter (keep water).
7) Evap
Another option is to do a 1h 70c temperature cycle after 3), and then continue at step 4) using pH ~ 5 since we may now be dealing with psilocin. To release the psiclocin from the resin the pH would need to be moved to ~9 though, which may destroy it if is kept there for too long (work fast and at low temperatures).
To increase the pH in step 6) a source of anion resin is used. Idea is that the Cl- ions will be exchanged with OH-. If instead ammonia is used the resin will be resistant to the pH changes as NH4+ will be replaced by H+ until the cation resin is exahusted. Since the resins themselves adjust the pH this gives another possible way to proceed:
1) Hippie mushroom tea (filtered and cold)
2) Add cation resin until pH~4 (will this happen?), mix and filter (keeping water)
3) Add cation resin until pH~1.5 (will this happen?), mix and filter (keeping water)
4) Rinse resin with IPA, keep filtered IPA separate and evap.
5) Add water to resin and if needed anion resin until pH ~ 4.
6) Filter water and evap.
Then, there is this extreme short method;
1) To a cold filtered mushroom tea add excess cation resin, pH will drop significantly (shooting for pH < 2). Filter out water and rinse resin with 99% IPA. Add fresh water and small amounts of anion resin (pH will rise) until pH is ~ 4. Filter water and evaporate it.
Anyhow, will be trying something like these options next. I'm really just guessing here and any input is welcome.