Cultivation Theory: Make Your Own Mushroom Extract

Some of the best immune system boosters available on the market are made out of mushrooms. They are available as various types of extracts (e.g., supplements, tinctures, hot water extracts, fruitbody mycelium, etc) that proved to be efficient against a wide range of ailments. One of the everyday challenges is the well known STRESS that actually has the power to weaken our immune system. In response we need to adapt to such situations and develop anti-STRESS potions able to keep the balance in our favor.

In order to make your own extract however you should know few things first:

1. Choose a reliable mushroom material. This means the fruitbody that you’re going to use in order to get an extract from has to be 100% organic. Avoid purchasing such mushroom fruitbodies from markets or from unknown or suspicious sources.

2. Be sure that your mushroom fruitbody was collected or grown in a clean environment. This means that some mushroom species are able to accumulate heavy metals or other pollutants from the substrate that they are growing on or from the surrounding environment.

3. Be sure that your mushroom is correctly identified. Some medicinal mushroom species may be easily misidentified with similar look-alikes without therapeutic properties or bearing some other effects for other target diseases. To avoid this I simply recommend you to purchase your material from mycologists specialized in medicinal mushrooms or companies.

4. If you collect your own material do not keep samples in plastic bags. This habit may spoil the mushroom fruitbody and ensures an environment suitable for bacteria and molds to form.

I will discuss today two easy methods to make extracts.
For both methods in order to prepare your own extract you can use fresh or dry mushroom material or mycelium culture. Fresh material is cut into thin slices (if possible) while dry material is broken into small pieces or thorn into small fragments. This will make the extraction process easier.

Hot Water Extract
This procedure was widely used for millennia in the Traditional Chinese Medicine and gave best results in treating various types of diseases. The elongated boiling process of mushroom material has the ability to extract the so called polyssacharides out of the mushroom cell wall. Polyssacharides are medicinally some of the most potent compounds.

Instructions
1. Take a pot and pour into 500 ml (0.132 gal) of water
2. Throw inside your mushroom material (100 g = 0.220 lb)
3. Bring the content of the pot to a hot simmer and cook for 3 hours
4. Allow the newly formed extracts to cool and then strain off the mushrooms.
5. Keep the mushroom material for another hot water extraction (usually fresh or dry mushroom material may be used for extraction 2-3 times) or use it for alcohol extraction.
6. Keep the extract in dark colored recipients stored in the fridge.

Check out this video made by Daniel Vitalis on how to make hot water extract. This will help you understand how you should do your own hot water extract. To place an order of Dried Reishi Mushroom Fruitbodies Click Here For more inforamtion on the medicinal properties of reishi check out Medicinal Mushrooms

How to make mushroom extracts with Daniel Vitalis

Alcohol Extract (tincture)
This type of extraction procedure focuses on triterpenes. To make a medicinal mushroom tincture you’ll need alcohol 80 or 100 proof (vodka, or other clear spirits), dark colored bottles, recipient, fresh or dried mushroom material, and filter.

Instructions
1. Take a recipient and fill it with your mushroom material
2. Add the alcohol to it
3. Seal the recipient and add a label to it
4. Keep it for 2 weeks in a warm area away from direct sunlight
5. Shake the recipient at two days once (if possible)
6. Then filter the content of the recipient and pour it into dark colored bottles
7. Keep the extract in dark colored recipients stored in the fridge.

Hot water extract or alcohol extract? Which one is the best and why?
Some people claim that hot water extract is superior to that of alcohol extract because the target extracted substance are polyssacharides, while these compounds under ethanol presence are denatured. By contrast, ethanol extraction focuses on triterpenes. If we’ll mix hot water extract with alcohol extract we’ll get a double extract containing both polyssacharides and triterpenes which makes our extract more potent, and therefore more efficient in treating a wider range of ailments.

Dosage: Generally, 3 tsp/day is the standard dosage. They are taken with 30 minutes before meals in the morning, afternoon and evening. The extract can be taken up to 3 months with two weeks of break after.

Check out this video made by Daniel Vital on hot water vs alcohol extracts.