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The mushroom dehydrating process is a constant but low stakes discussion for mushroom cultivators because there have been no good conclusions for the subject. For psilocybin mushroom growers, there are a couple groups of thought.
The first group believes that extended oxygen exposure causes the fastest loss of psilocybin potency. They argue for using the highest temperature to speed up the dehydrating process and preserve potency. The suggested maximum temperature range—before psilocybin begins to degrade—is between 100 and 125 degrees Celsius, for about 6-8 hours.
This is also friendlier for people who don’t have a dehydrator and have to use a cracked open oven instead, where minimum oven temperatures start about 80 degrees celsius.
The second group is a lot more conservative temperature-wise, keeping to 30 to 50 degrees celsius for dehydrating, and leaving it for longer, between 10-14 hours. This group doesn’t want to damage the psilocybin with high heat, and also wants to make sure that the mushroom is dehydrated fully inside, which requires a lower heat to prevent burning on the outside.
I’ve opted for the second group, because I know I get the best results with Lion’s Mane and psilocybin by keeping the dehydrator relatively lower in temperature, and longer in time. This also means that I don’t have to differentiate as much between the medicinal and magic varieties when turning on the dehydrator.
The same setting at about 115-120 degrees fahrenheit (45-50 celsius) can fully dehydrate magic mushrooms in 12 hours, and fully dehydrate Lion’s Mane extract in about 15 hours.
When I have gone up in temperature to save on time, I’ve caused a lot of issues for myself with Lion’s Mane extract. The extract has a tendency to turn into a very leathery jerky during dehydration, but higher heat causes the texture to solidify to the point that I have to blend the extract for a LONG time before I can reduce it to a powder form that will fit in capsules.
Lowering the temperature, the extract blends pretty well, and very well if I make sure to spread the extract paste thinly over the dehydrating sheets.
Lion’s Mane extract is also typically made in a hot water extraction between 95 to 100 degrees celsius. Maintaining or exceeding these temperatures way longer than needed can break down the polysaccharides, hericenones, and erinacines that we’re trying to make bioavailable via heat in the first place.
For psilocybin varieties, higher temperatures seem to go beyond dehydrating and gets into denaturing the mushrooms. They become so brittle that they turn into dust when I grab them.
There’s likely a better balance between higher temps and time that I haven’t considered, but it’s been easier to go for lower temperatures for 12 hours and store them dry with a slight amount of pliability. Low temp, long time seems to be the low maintenance approach for dehydrating.
There’s also the fascinating phenomenon in which gourmet mushrooms, like shiitake and button, will provide a lot of Vitamin D when sun-dried. One study found that sun-drying shiitake mushrooms increased its Vitamin D to that of a full day’s worth of the vitamin, or 1000 to 2000 international units.
This is less practical compared to the dehydrator, but it’s worth mentioning for those growing gourmet and want to maximize their nutritional intake in a natural way.
In the end, I’d recommend for people to check on what mushroom they’re growing and what the consensus is for dehydrating that variety of mushroom. Opinions change over time, and luckily for the better as more personal and public research is shared.
But if you’re growing Lion’s Mane like myself, and are extracting it before dehydrating, I’d recommend my setup of 45-50 degrees celsius for 12-15 hours. You’ll have a lot less headaches when turning the extract into powder form by keeping the temperature down, especially if you have a blender weaker than 1000 watts.
What I use for dehydrating
This is the dehydrator I use, the Excalibur 9-Tray. Lots of capacity, and more flexible than others because I can use both mesh and solid sheets to dehydrate different materials. But you can go a lot cheaper than that and be fine with your results.
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