Preserving and Drying Shrooms and Magic Truffles

How long can Magic Truffles be kept? This is one of the questions our customer service is most frequently asked. In intact packaging truffles will keep for three months. Even if you have opened the packaging, you still have a month in which to consume them provided you keep them in the refrigerator. Do you want to keep your freshly harvested shrooms or Magic Truffles for longer? No problem! Just make use of the tips provided by us in this practical article.

A Word on Potency and Preservation

Shrooms and truffles are at their best when freshly harvested. That’s when they contain the most amount of psilocybin, one of the active substances in both truffles and shrooms. This is when our Magic Truffles are immediately cleaned, packed and stored cool before landing on your doormat.

Both shrooms and truffles lose active substances as the result of oxidation as soon as harvested and exposed to the outside air. The higher the temperature the faster this process happens and UV-light from the sun can also speed up loss. This is why it’s so important to keep them dry, cool and in the dark. Preferably you should keep your truffles in the original packaging in the refrigerator.

In the case of shrooms, a dried shroom is 10 times more powerful per gramme than a fresh one, so you'll need just 10% dried magic mushrooms, compared to ingesting fresh ones. Shrooms contain about 90% moisture. Magic Truffles contain less moisture. If you dry fresh magic truffles for 3 days, they lose about 60% moisture. So you have roughly a third of the weight left, but still the same effect as with 3 times as many fresh truffles.

How many grammes of Magic Truffles or Shrooms will I have after drying?

Grammes are not equivalent to ‘how many truffles or shrooms can I take at once’. That depends on your body weight, the type of truffle or shroom and the desired effect. If you are heavier then you are recommended to increase the dosage somewhat. In the product description for each product we give the recommended dosage for a light, normal or heavy trip accompanied by instructions for microdosing. So you don’t have the hassle of finding out for yourself.

An example calculation. Suppose you weigh 80 kilos and you’re working out a normal dose. You’ve just harvested 100 grammes of fresh shrooms from your complete shroom grow-kit. You want to dry them to extend their shelf-life. If you dry them carefully you should end up with slightly more than 10 grammes. Then you’ll have enough for 4 or 5 serious trips if they are McKennaii shrooms, while a trip on the same dosage will be somewhat less heavy in the case of Mexicana shrooms.

Another example with fresh Magic Truffles this time. You weigh 60 kilos and you’d like to have enough for several months of microdosing. What quantity of Magic Truffles do you need then? For you, 0.8 grammes is enough for 1 microdosing session. Every 3 days you’ll take 0.8 grammes. You normally get 15 grammes per packet. Now we have all the data we need for calculating how long you can keep microdosing:

15 gramme packet / 0.8 grammes dosage x 3 days per cycle = 56 days stock (rounded up).

Note: Once they have been opened, you cannot keep truffles for more than a month in the refrigerator. This means you’ll have to dry a stock for the last 26 days (7 grammes of fresh truffles) or vacuum pack them again and store in the refrigerator. If you want to dry the truffles, roughly take 30 percent of the weight of fresh truffles.

Vacuum packing Shrooms and Magic Truffles (again)

By vacuum packing fresh shrooms you can keep them in the refrigerator for roughly 2 to 3 weeks. A shorter period than for fresh truffles. The reason for that is the higher moisture percentage. 

Truffles are delivered already vacuum packed. But by using some, e.g. for microdosing, you end up with substantial amount which is no longer vacuum packed. You can put them into a machine which vacuum packs them or put them in a handy, resealable TightVac storage container and keep them in the refrigerator so as to maximise the shelf-life of fresh truffles.

Drying Shrooms and Magic Truffles

Dried shrooms keep for much longer. Once the majority of the moisture has disappeared, you can keep them (also vacuum packed) for up to 3 months in the refrigerator.

Begin drying them immediately after harvesting. Spread them out on a large, clean board or baking tray and make sure they don’t touch each other. The simplest method is to put them on the window sill, packed in a clean, black towel or tea towel. A dark towel ensures that no light reaches the shrooms but it is definitely not the best method. You don’t have any control over the temperature. And if the mushrooms get too hot they lose their potency.

Allow the mushrooms to dry for two to five days in this way. If the stems feel brittle and they easily crack and break, they are dry enough. Magic Truffles need a little longer to dry out. Allow them 4 to 8 days to dry out. Change the kitchen paper daily, otherwise they get moldy quickly.

A better method which works for both shrooms and truffles is to take an airtight container. One of the bigger TightVac storage containers, for example. Take a bit of silica gel (available in various shops) and lay these in the bottom of the container. Place something in the container to bring the level up so that your truffles and shrooms don’t come into contact with the gel. Spread your psychedelica out on whatever you used to raise the level and close the container. 

The advantage of the TightVac is that you can create a vacuum which will accelerate the drying process. Store the container for one day at room temperature in a dark place. The next day you open the container, refresh the silica gel and vacuum seal the container again. Now you keep the container in the refrigerator Each time you take a bit out of the container, vacuum seal it again. Whether or not you have to replace the gel again depends on whether it feels damp in the container. Does it feel damp? If so, replace the gel as quickly as possible. Once again: make sure the gel and the shrooms or truffles do not come into contact with each other!

The final and the best method is to invest in a food dryer. This is a piece of equipment which extracts moisture from anything you put in it and you don’t need any silica gel. It can prove an expensive option but if you really want to guarantee a long shelf-life and convenience then this method is fool-proof.

Are you drying your shrooms or truffles? Then your psilocybin will keep for a year.

Editing is not allowed

If you drive faster than the speed limit, you will reach your destination earlier. But then you are breaking the law. Drying magic truffles and magic mushrooms is an operation that is not permitted under Dutch law. Our firm advice is to adhere to this rule and consume your truffles before the expiry date stated on the package. The product information we provide is intended to inform you. All our products are delivered only to countries to which this product can be legally shipped. You are responsible for the use of our products and the laws that apply to that product.

Freezing Shrooms and Magic Truffles

Don’t freeze immediately! The cell walls split in anything which contains moisture and is frozen. Miniscule water droplets turn into sharp crystals which also expand. The cell containing the moisture is badly affected by this. This holds true for shrooms and Magic Truffles as well. They become less strong because the process of freezing affects the molecular structure of psilocybin. The message: Immediate freezing is not good for the potency of sclerotia (another word for truffles) or magic shrooms.

But what you can do is freeze completely dried shrooms or truffles. They do then lose a bit of potency in comparison with really fresh shrooms or truffles but they are then viable for practically a lifetime. So: harvest, dry immediately, vacuum pack (with silica gel) and freeze straight away (deep freeze -18º C).

Heating (pasteurising)

We can be very brief about this. Never heat your Magic Truffles or Shrooms. They will lose their potency immediately and then you might just as well eat them as champignons.

Summary: Do’s and Don’ts

  1. Shrooms and magic truffles lose potency through heat, freezing and UV-light
  2. Don’t use any heat to increase the shelf-life
  3. Don’t store outside the refrigerator
  4. Dry shrooms or truffles before freezing them - they will then keep for a long time!
  • Fresh shrooms: keep for a few weeks in the refrigerator
  • Fresh truffles: unopened they keep for several months in the refrigerator (see ‘best before’ on the packaging).
  • Dried truffles and mushrooms: dried immediately (and vacuum packed) will keep for one year in the refrigerator.
  • Dried and frozen truffles and mushrooms: immediately dried and vacuum packed will keep for years at -18º C.

Stored! What's Next?

Whether you want a mystical experience, just tripping, microdosing or something in between; it starts with the 10 commandments for an unforgettable Magic Truffle experience. These ten tips are also applicable to magic mushrooms.