Storing - How long will magic mushrooms stay active (AKA Shelf Life)?

[Herbal Remedy]

SWIM just moved to ohio and when he went through his stuff he found a bag a shroom dust, probably weighs around 5-7 grams. he know this had to have been from highschool or so, so its been a year or 2. his question is do shrooms stay potent for long?Cuz i know him and he could very well eat half the bag and 5 minutes later convince himself theyre not working and just dump the rest in his mouth when he didnt even give the first gulp enough time to kick in. im just looking for any personal experience or anything on the topic. thanks!!

[Phungushead]

Shrooms can keep for a long time, if they've been stored in the right
conditions... SWIM's eaten some that were pretty old before, and there
wasn't really any noticeable difference in potency. They should be okay
as long as they were kept in relative darkness, didn't get moist, didn't
get exposed to a lot of heat...

Try taking about 1/2 the bag. See how you feel in an hour or so. If it's
not as strong as you like, you can always take more.

[graccus]

So, is there no good reason to keep the little rascals in frozen storage?
Just dark and dry is enough?

[Phungushead]

Dark and dry's okay... but for extended periods of time, it's a good
safeguard to keep them vacuum sealed (with dessicant packs) in the
freezer. But if you can't freeze them, don't worry too much about it
unless they're not going to be used for a really long time. The ones
SWIM had were just kept in a bowl at room temp, and were probably a
year old... they were fine.

[OiledMandible]

SWIM lost a jarfull in my room about nine months ago, found it last week
and tripped balls on the weekend eating my normal amount. He
couldnt tell they were at least 3/4 of a year old.



Airtight jars or vacuum seal bags and a freezer are all you need if you want to keep them for an extended period.

[azrael2600]

SWIM forgot they had some magic mushrooms and found them a couple of days ago. they were in the refrigerator, in a air tight bag. SWIM knows they are almost a year old. Does anybody think they are still good?

[Nature Boy]

Air tight and stored in a fridge, mushrooms should stay good for up to a year. I guess they're either reaching their use-by date or have just recently surpassed it. SWIM would try them if he had them.

[chilliker]

So if SWIM puts FRESH shrooms in an airtight bag in the fridge they will keep for almost a year?

[dzc18l]

Originally Posted by chilliker

So if SWIM puts FRESH shrooms in an airtight bag in the fridge they will keep for almost a year?

I think SWIC would come back to a bag of goo if tried with fresh ones.

[chilliker]

It be good to specify that then. The shrooms HAVE to be dry for this to work?

Is there anyway to store fresh shrooms?

[Bajeda]

I think you can store fresh mushrooms for a longer period of time if you keep them in the fridge. I don't know if they last any longer than a few weeks at most though. Depends how much the refrigerator environment helps keep the shrooms good.

Otherwise drying them and storing in a nice cool dark place would be a good way to go. The fridge may be useful for this as well, though I'm not completely sure about this. Swim knows a person who stored some dry mushrooms in his freezer (he thinks, could have been fridge) for quite a while and they weren't bad, though swim didnt' try them so he doesn't know for sure. Definitely would look into drying the shrooms if you are looking at long-term storage options.

[CrookedEye]

Dried to cracker crisp, and vac sealed in an airtight, opaque bag, in the fridge or freezer would be ideal and they should last months to even years.. There were samples of mushrooms found to still contain traces or psilo buried with mummified remains..

[HotH2o]

What forum do I post to to get info on how long dried mushrooms stay good? I heard at the library that my second cousin's co-worker has some 2 years old and wondered if they're still good?

[Alfa]

What species of magic mushrooms are we talking about?

[HotH2o]

I'm not sure. A medium told me that they were grown in a jar and were great after they were dried.

[Shampoo]

Originally Posted by Alfa

What species of magic mushrooms are we talking about?

Is there a noticeable variation variation in degradation rate between the various species of psilocybin containing mushrooms? or were you asking in regards to a potential question on amanitas? It seems like there should be little if any great disparity in degradation between various psilocybin containing species, though if I am mistake please correct me. Since the degradation in question in the chemical, which they all share, rather than the body size and composition which varies between them.

In regards to mushroom storage and the correct forum for searching, try using the search engine with a magic-mushrooms tag and search under the word storage. The search engine is pretty intuitive once you start using it, and with a little practice it can become your best friend.

And, quoting Bajeda quoting someone else in another thread regarding this,

Once properly dried, Psilocybian mushrooms should retain their potency indefinitely. One collection of Psilocybe semilanceata from 1861 in England was analyzed and found to be fully potent. More recent experiments have shown mushrooms to remain active for at least 8 years when properly dried and stored.

Once the mushrooms are dry, place them into airtight glass container with a fully sealable lid, and put the container in a dark place. Some psilophiles grind the mushrooms, if you do so, weight the outcome. It is very hard to tell how many mushrooms worth of powder you're taking by just eyeballing a dose. One bonus of grinding your mushrooms is that you can ensure even potency across a large batch. While one P. cubensis mushroom might have a significantly higher potency than another...if you grind them up and mix them together, all measured doses will have the same potency.

[HotH2o]

Thanks! I think that my mother's cousin's friend's stepdad will just eat them and see what happens. I didn't realize that his was so complicated, but, my mother's couisn's friend's stepdad will be happy, if , through a private investator, I can find him and give him the message.

Originally Posted by Shampoo

Is there a noticeable variation variation in degradation rate between the various species of psilocybin containing mushrooms? or were you asking in regards to a potential question on amanitas? It seems like there should be little if any great disparity in degradation between various psilocybin containing species, though if I am mistake please correct me. Since the degradation in question in the chemical, which they all share, rather than the body size and composition which varies between them.

In regards to mushroom storage and the correct forum for searching, try using the search engine with a magic-mushrooms tag and search under the word storage. The search engine is pretty intuitive once you start using it, and with a little practice it can become your best friend. Here are a few examples of useful threads (many of which propose a similar situation of finding old mushrooms) that it would elicit under those search parameters: http://www.drugs-forum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=11964 , http://www.drugs-forum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=23136 , http://www.drugs-forum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=16349 .

And, quoting Bajeda quoting someone else in another thread regarding this,

[Alfa]

I merged 3 threads. Please update your links.

I was inquiring if the mushrooms where amanita or psilocybe, because these are two completely different drugs, with different degradation rate, but also completely different effects. Which might be good to know for anyone who wants to experiment with them.

I do not agree with the statements that psilocybe mushrooms degrade little in potency. If properly dried and stored then there will still be activity, but psilocybe mushrooms certainly degrade in time, depending on temperature, moist and light. Improperly stored magic mushrooms will greatly reduce in potency.
Psilocin degrades fast when exposed to temperatures of 30 degrees Celsius and above and fully degrades when exposed to 60 degrees. This is why psilocybe mushrooms need to be dried at a lower temperature than 30 degrees Celsius. These temperature thresholds also gives a indication about how psilocin degrades over time.

[Jackyl]

Originally Posted by Alfa

If properly dried and stored then there will still be activity, but psilocybe mushrooms certainly degrade in time, depending on temperature, moist and light. Improperly stored magic mushrooms will greatly reduce in potency.
Psilocin degrades fast when exposed to temperatures of 30 degrees Celsius and above and fully degrades when exposed to 60 degrees.

Uh, if this is true then Jackyl wonders why people put mushrooms in (nearly) boiling water to make tea of it or consume it after baking, e.g. when mixed with egg. The duration of these heating processes is too short for extensive degradation?

[faevondee]

Fae knows someone who has mushrooms right now, but she just did some yesterday. She wants to get them now while they're still available, but She's worried that they may go bad before she finally takes them. (probably in like a week...) will they be ok just sealed in a ziploc? Or should she keep them in the fridge?

[Nature Boy]

Are the mushrooms fresh or are they dried? Assuming they're dried, put them in the ziploc and store either in a cool, dry place or inside the fridge making sure moisture can't get in.

[Lunar Loops]

In any event, if SWIF is only talking about such a small timescale as one week, SWIF should have no problems at all.

[Shampoo]

If they are fresh, even in a refrigerator they may see some degradation (primarily in the flesh) after a whole week, especially considering they were most likely not picked today. If they are dry, a week should make no noticeable difference either way. To be certain, one could place them in an amber vial in the freezer, devoid of light and gas-exchange, but for only a week, a baggy in a dark drawer should do just fine.

[Lobsang]

If they are fresh they need to be in the fridge. SWIM would take them out of plastic and put them in a paper bag. Once SWIM tried freezing them and they apparently lost all potency. But he is unclear but for this reason he would not freeze.

[Lunar Loops]

SWILL tells me that when he's been gathering, the fruits of his labour are always dried and as such no storage problems arise (certainly over shorter time periods). He should have made this clear in his orginal statement.

Obviously, if fresh, and not stored in a manner suitable for drying (or freezing), you will experience some degradation over the period of a week. If they are wet and clumped together and in a warm place then you will really have problems.