I am about to go mushroom hunting with a couple friends in a field we found that looks to be filled with mushrooms. I want to figure out a way to dry what I find though before actually picking them. I know there are desiccant packs and stuff I can buy, but I dont know where to get them from and I am broke anyways. I was wondering if I could use pearlite instead of the desiccant packs to dry out the mushrooms? I know pearlite absorbs moisture and thats what gave me the idea, but could I make a bed of pearlite in a container, with paper towel over it, and put the fresh mushrooms on the paper towel to dry? Would this be effective, hoping that the pearlite absorbs the moisture from the mushrooms. I also heard just placing infront of a fan for long enough works as well, but I would imagine they would lose potency due to oxidizing. Please help me out if you know of any techniques I could use that are effective and cheap.

i am after drying out 1000's of mushrooms over the years, usually what i do:

get the mushrooms and remove any grass, and other junk etc.
place them in a 1 empty wooden chore (take some cloths out their for a few days)
keep them apart from each other as much as you can.
put a small fan in there and close the chore.
i come back in about 2 days ad they are cracker dry.
the mushrooms may need to be cut in half if their big. but mine are small mostly.

im after putting some cat litter silica gel in the chore but its not needed. what i do now is stuff the glass jars with shrooms and then pack in a home made tea bag with silica gel in it.

IMO the silica gel makes a huge difference in the jar, for keeping them dry and they dont smell near as 'wet', they smell really good and nutty!

I,m right in the middle of this at the moment

My simple method is to spread them out on a metal rack
Or screen with a fan underneath blowing up
and a fan blowing accross .
Not fancy but effective

Would the perlite work in that way though? Because I have a huge bag of pure perlite that I have no use for.

Air dry them as best you can.
Next get some dessicant like damp rid and put it in a Rubbermaid container. build a shelf in the container and put your shrooms on it. Close the lid.
This will get em cracker dry.

Where can I buy desiccant from and how much is it?

A cheap easy source of dessicant is silica gel cat liter (pictured below - it was like 7 bucks for that bag). Silica gel is reusable via oven drying - so it lasts a long time.

I dry mine with a fan for 24-36 hours and then throw them into the dessicant jar I made. It's just a glass cracker jar with a little basket in it. That can be done much more simply though - as shown in the diagram at the bottom.

Good luck

vac desiccation. bone dry overnight

pearlite will not work that way. It's not a dessicant. It's claim to fame is it's immense surface area.

Ok, thanks for the info guys. I actually had no luck in finding anything though