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Quarzo

vinegar extraction for moldy shrooms?

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a whole bunch of shrooms went moldy recently i thought i could save them by doing a extraction, i decided vinegar as i had some already. will this extract the mold as well or will that be left behind?

https://www.erowid.org/archive/rhodium/chemistry/psilocin.extraction.html i read this link, i dont have most of the chemicals they're using, only vinegar haha.

 

if anyones done a vinegar extraction is it possible with only vinegar, or do i need some other stuff to evaporate it etc, thanks.

 

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Are the fungi pretty much dried at this point - but just mouldy?

 

Though not common, there are some really nasty mycotoxins out there, which can be concentrated in either the spores or the mycelia of the mould fungus (i.e. inside the infected material, not just on the surface). The problems are that:

 

1) you have no way of telling if your mould is one of the toxic ones (& some people will react even to non-toxic moulds just via immune response to the spores)

2) many mycotoxins are stable to heat, oxidation & acidic conditions (at least when compared to the alks you're interested in) - so boiling them in vinegar might kill the mould fungus, but it is also a great way to extract those toxins straight into your solution.

 

So it's up to you whether you think it's worth the risk. If you're hellbent on proceeding, you could try washing the whole mushrooms in a water/vinegar mix to remove the surface mould at least. If the mushrooms are mostly dry/sound (i.e. not already rotting & breaking down), then this should only remove a fraction of your alks - and you could then grind up the rinsed mushies & go ahead with your extraction.

 

As to extracting with vinegar, the main issues with this method are:

3) it converts the psilocybin (which will be the main active in dried mushrooms) into psilocin, which is less stable & will degrade more quickly/easily.

4) if you want to skip the basification/non-polar-solvent part and still end up with a concentrated extract, it would involve evaporating off a lot of vinegar solution - and (unless you have a rotavap) this will expose the extract to a lot of heat/light/air, whichever way you go about it.

 

In summary, it's not a good way to extract these alkaloids for storage. What you could do instead (this is just setting aside the potentially-toxic mould situation) is just make a tea - acidify some water slightly (keep it palatable, you don't need a lot) using some kitchen ingredient (ascorbic/citric/tartaric acid, lemon juice, etc), and then throw the pulverised (or if using fresh, you can freeze & then thaw to break down cell walls) mushrooms. Warm but don't boil - keep it under 70-80'C if you can - cool, strain. Then drink immediately or freeze for later use.

 

Maybe not the highest-yielding extraction method, but it's ultra-simple, cheap, quick, uses no nasty solvents/reagents, and the resulting product should be much more stable than the vinegar-extracted one.

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Just bin them mate. 

 

(very) sick and tripping isn't a good mix. :huh:

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thanks for the info, ive already started the vinegar extraction before i read your comment, but yeah tea could of been a easy alternative.

ive begun evaporating the vinegar, it will take ages, how unstable is psilocin? will the psilocin breakdown in the evaporation process?

 

the mold looked like common household mold (grey and fury), all the shrooms were effected, i didnt remove the surface mold i just plonked them all in the vinegar, ill see how it goes i guess  

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