Quick questions on drying.

[Shadowlord]

Hey all,
In harvesting my fruits, I have been placing them in a tray and putting them in my little linen closet. I house my ballast in there and also hang drying MJ in there frequently.
My question is;
It takes a good 3-4 days for the fruits to be dry enough ( even longer for some of the real fat ones ) that they snap when broken, or seem like they are dry enough to store in a ziplock in the crisper of the fridge.
Is this too long to be exposed? They are not covered but they do not get light either as the door stays closed.
Do I need to invest in a food dehydrator and disable the heat element?
Also, what is the shelf life of dried cubes in the fridge?
I also recently bought a Foodsaver so I could vacuum pack some for longer storage.
And lastly, how do you folks rate Psilly honey vs. Chocolates as a good storage/dosing medium? For length of storage and usage. I also understand that chocolate seems to potentiate the exp?

[weeeeeee]

i take:

a big box on its side lined with newspaper and or paper towels
a big box fan
fresh fungus
takes 2 days usually with the fan on medium

[roc]

To get cracker crisp dry I use dry rite in a closed container for an overnight to finish off to cracker dry.

[seedlessstinky1]

Originally Posted by roc

To get cracker crisp dry I use dry rite in a closed container for an overnight to finish off to cracker dry.

Or damprid....

[wendal]

Combination of fan dry and then desiccate dry works best IMO.

For the box fan, I make two framed screens, put the mushrooms between them and then set the box fan facing downward directly on top of that. Usually this will get them mostly dry over a day or so.

Then overnight in a desiccate chamber for final cracker dryness.

[Om shanti]

I sometimes shred the shrooms for faster drying. That way they can be cracker dry in a day without any helping agents. I'm not sure if it might have a negative impact on potency, to some degree it probably does, but not enough for me to be able to notice it though. But of course shrooms also look the nicest if preserved whole. That of course is less of a worry if it's going to be used in an extract.

[Shadowlord]

Thanks for the replies everyone.
I think I'll pick up some dessicant and use that to get that good crispness.
What do you guys think of vacuum sealing and refrigerating over various extracts ( honey,chocolate, alc, whatever) as a means of long term storage.
I don't have pounds or anything like that but I am pushing towards 4oz from this current grow and have some jars of some PF Classics that are going to have to be spawned soon, so I will have more than I can eat in a month or two
Even w/ my friends' help I still have plenty for now.
Thanks to everyone here I have been able to have my first real success at myco-cultivation.
Now, as long as this time wasn't a fluke, I should be able to supply myself w/ mushrooms for life.

[buteo]

ive got so many i just let them sit in a drawer and they dry rather quickly. i like chocolate it works great. only problem is i get tired of the chocolate flavour after a while.honey is even better!

[Shromadon]

I use a ronco food-dehydrator with the heating element, 125w. The heat wave is not hot enough for any degradation of psily. Takes less than 10 hours for cracker dryness. You also have the added benefit of drying out actual fruits (like apples and mangoes), its also great for quickdrying bud in a pinch.

I usually then grind them coarsely in a coffee grinder and pack them into ziplocks. Stored in a room with constant air-conditioning. Sometimes I add those little dessican't bag things that you get with crackers and various food (silica gel I think).

As for long term storage, look into alcohol, cold extraction alone takes 2 weeks right there, so you kill two birds, store it and perform a nice extraction. Chocolates in the fridge is good also.

I've stored ground shrooms in a baggie for a 1.5 months, left in a cool room, nothing noticeable happened to them. Just open the bag, dump in some OJ, and blast off.

[stimpy]

3 or 4 days sounds like a while. I wouldnt worry about em molding so long as theres a fan blowing on them. Dehydrators are awesome no need to disable the heating element. Keep the heat at 120-130, They dry out cracker in a couple hours anyway so probably lose less potency then lettin em sit around oxydizing for 3 days.

Almost forgot you can get a dehydrator real cheap at a thrift shop so check those out. Just plug em in and see if they work before u take em home.

[arcamedes333]

The fan then dessicant method works very well. Vacum sealing then refrigerating sounds good too, it should help to slow the magic from flowing out. Golly had a good honey-mushroom recipe.

http://forums.mycotopia.net/feasts-f...-cubensis.html (Honey extract Tek for Cubensis)

[mydarling]

Originally Posted by Shadowlord

how do you folks rate Psilly honey vs. Chocolates as a good storage/dosing medium? For length of storage and usage. I also understand that chocolate seems to potentiate the exp?

my thoughts on honey extracts vs chocolates - i've made them both.

when you make honey extract, you lose a good deal of potency due to the cooking temps for reduction. the tek i followed said the potency retention was about 80%, but IMO it's even less than that. however, honey is nice because you can mix it in a lot of stuff (peanut butter sandwiches, on a bagel, in your cup of tea, etc).

chocolates i feel are way better. there is no loss of potency, as you don't heat the mushrooms at all. in fact, IMO/IME (and the O/E of many of my friends), the potency actually increases when eaten with chocolate...i think some sort of synergistic effects with the alkaloids in the chocolate. that is, 1g in chocolate form feels a LOT stronger than 1g eaten straight up. 2g in chocolate feels like eating 1/8 oz (3.5g). so that's why i prefer the chocolates. they're easy to make, you can measure out whatever dose you prefer per chocolate, they can store in the freezer for ever, and there's no loss in potency.

may i suggest my magic truffle tek? everyone i know swears by these things. they're out of control!!!!

http://forums.mycotopia.net/lifestyl...-truffles.html (how to make magic chocolate truffles)

if you get sick of eating chocolates, you could blend them up with some ice cream for a magic milk shake...

[Shadowlord]

I think I am going to try your truffle method MD. It sounds like a great way to store and dose them. Thanks for the link!
Wow, it is going to be one busy, fun summer!
So much to do, so little time

Oh well, no rest for the wicked, No Sympathy for the Devil.