A representative sample of 2 to 10g of dried mushrooms is ground to a fine powder by mortar and pestle. The powder is mixed with 100 mL of dilute acetic acid in a 250-mL beaker. The pH is readjusted to pH 4 with glacial acetic acid. After standing 1 h, the beaker is placed in a boiling water bath for 8 to 10 min or until the internal temperature of the acid mixture reaches 70°C. The beaker is removed and cooled to room temperature under running water. The acid mixture is separated from the mushroom powder by suction filtration using glass wool. The filtrate is brought to pH 8 with concentrated ammonium hydroxide and quickly extracted with two 50-mL portions of diethyl ether. Gentle mixing instead of shaking should be used to prevent an emulsion. The ether is dried over sodium sulfate, filtered, and evaporated under nitrogen with no applied heat.

Crude psilocin will appear as a greenish residue. Recrystallization from chloroform/heptane (1:3) yields white crystals. The resulting powder can then be submitted to infrared and mass spectral analyses.

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my questions:

1. what is glacial acetic acid?

2. what does "dried over sodium sulfate mean?

3. what does evaporated under nitrogen mean?

also.. are there substitutes which can be used instead of diethyl ether? where can i find diethyl ether?

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i would be happy if we could further refine this technique to be able to do it with more widely available solvents

i can't answer any of thoose questions but there is a psilocybin extraction method that only uses ethyl alchohol (200 proof everclear bought from your local liquor store). I can't help you out if you are looking for psilocin.

http://www.shroomery.org/6274/Mushroom-Extract

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my questions:

1. what is glacial acetic acid? concentrated acetic acid

2. what does "dried over sodium sulfate mean? the extract (in solvent) was poured into a beaker of sodium sulfate. water binds to the Na2SO4, but not the actives in solution.

3. what does evaporated under nitrogen mean? evaporation in inert atmosphere, getting rid of oxygen. (don't worry too much about this)

also.. are there substitutes which can be used instead of diethyl ether?
where can i find diethyl ether?
some starting fluids have it, spray it into a jar, and use as needed (don't store it..glass promotes peroxide formation, which are potentially explosive)
DCM, though heavier than water, would actually be a more suitable solvent for this sort of extraction

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My question is...

Whats the purpose of this extraction? Why not just eat mushrooms?

a couple reasons
practice of the art (extraction)
and isolation of desired compound (psilocin). some of the mushroom alkaloids may produce undesired side effects, namely nausea. many report "cleaner" trips with the extract

strange tek..

psilocin is much more unstable than psilocybin.. and the acid step will transform the psilocybin into psilocin.. I wouldnt do it this way..


Psilocybe cubensis is many times analysed as having about 50/50 psilocin/psilocybin..

psilocybin is quite soluble in methanol.. psilocin is quite soluble in 70% ethanol.. One could simply do a dry defat (or not even), then extract with methanol first to take the psilocybin, then extract with ethanol to get psilocin..

to store, cover crystals in alcohol and keep in the freezer


that is all theoretical, though, never done it myself so cant say for sure.. but the solubility data I have from a scientific publication

i know of that alcohol tek.. but it doesnt yield white crystals. only brown goo which is kinda hard to clean up. SWIM has been told to try defatting the goo with naphtha and see what it turns out like. SWIM hasnt had time to test yet.. but will eventually as he still has a big glob of goo sitting around.

also i have heard that psilocin is also soluble in ethanol.. it just takes a very long time for it to go into the solution. it takes a little heat(about70C) and a lot of patience.

could one store the alkaloids in alcohol for a long time as long as its kept in a dark place? or will it degrade? since SWIM has too many shrooms he would like to kind of compress them to not take up as much space. also he would like to preserve the alkaloids as best as possible.

wouldn't storing the alcohol at room temp be ok? i thought the only really bad thing for psilocybin/psilocin was oxygen.

another question would be how saturated one could get a ethanol solution with the alkaloids. are they soluble enough to be able to have a good dose within just a few drops of it? one would probably have to decrease the volume of the solution for it to become saturated enough.