What solvents are the best to use when it comes to Psilocybin? I know methanol works well, but this is poisonous and thus something I would like to avoid if at all possible. Also, something that would evaporate cleanly and somewhat quickly would be preferred

if you are looking for non-toxic solvents, ethanol is really your only choice (even though technically its toxic as well, but its not fatal).

Do you know if it is more soluble in higher proof ethanol, or should there be a somewhat decent amount of water in it as well? Like a 99% compared to 70%, because I think I remember reading somewhere that its better in 70...?

ethanol is pretty non-selective, so it should be very soluble afaik (in addition to "impurities" ). the more non-polar (higher proof) the solvent the better, as what you are looking to extract is non-polar, and seeing as how water is polar it doesn't help, but i wouldn't imagine it would particularly hurt (again.. "impurities" ).

Well this is being done as an experiment that I have been wanting to do for quite some time now. I had once come across the idea somewhere of making changa from psilocybin. The only problem is it must be turned to a freebase, which I found out can be done by changing the solutions pH to 5.2...so impurities would not be welcome. So the highest proof everclear would be the way to go it sounds like. I think you can get 99% around here.

But psilocybin is a quite polar molecule (LogP=-1.6) so water extracts it better.

Psilocybin is, according to Merck index, quite insoluble in ethanol, so what you really want to avoid is high-proof ethanol.


Psilocybin freebase is quite a tricky term and I do not think you can just make smokeable psilocybin by fiddling with pH.

What more would need to be done

This i do not know how to answer. Generally, you cannot have psilocybin in an solution of, say, pH=5 and evaporate said solution to get freebase psilocybin. As the solution evaporates and concentrates, the pH will becoming more acidic. pH is a function of amount of acid (or base) and volume of water; change either and you change the pH.