Dana O'Driscoll Mushrooms are an incredible wealth of medicine, with many of them having a wide range of beneficial effects on human health including being anti-inflammatory, supporting or modulating the immune system, supporting the body to feel energized, fighting cancer, and much more. Common wild mushrooms with meicinal content in the North eastern USA, including in Pennsylvania include but are not limited to: Reishi / Hemlock Varnish Shelf (Ganoderma tsugae), Chaga (Inonotus obliquus), Birch Polypore (Fomitopsis betulina), Turkey Tail (Trametes versicolor), Cordyceps (Cordyceps sp.), Tinder Fungus (Fomes fomentarius) and Lions Mane (Hericium spp.). But in the case of all of these mushrooms, to extract the most medicinal benefit, you want to use a double-extraction.
This is a brief introduction to Mushroom double extraction. The Pennsylvania School of Herbalism has a four-hour, self-paced online Mushroom course ($40) that offers much more information about different mushroom-based medicinal preparations, foraging and identifying common medicinal mushrooms, medicinal actions and profiles of common mushrooms, and much more.
Why Double Extract? Mushrooms and Healing Compounds
Mushrooms heal us through multiple kinds of chemical compounds. Just because a mushroom is listed as medicinal in a particular area doesn’t mean if you simply consume the mushroom all of the medicine is bioavailable to you. This is because for most mushrooms their medicinal actions look like this:
- Hot Water Soluble
- Polysaccharies (beta-glucans, arabinoxylanes)
- Glycoproteins
- Enzymes and Micronutrients (b-vitamins, potassium, phosphorus, zinc)
- Culture metabolites (antioxidants, ergothioneines, antimicrobials)
- ·Alcohol Soluble
- Triterpenoid compounds, which are extracted only by glycerin or alcohol.
- Steroid-like compounds that address inflammation (support balanced blood fats, regulate blood pressure, adaptogen, modulate histamine response)
- Sterols and Lipids – affect the whole body
- Unique mushroom specific compounds (erinacines – Lion’s mane)
I will note here about Chaga – a lot of people want to drink Chaga tea because it tastes great. When you are using Chaga tea, the tea itself contains about half of the total medicine of the mushroom. If it is the half you need, great! But if you are looking up scientific studies online and see all the benefits, they are not all accessible in the tea. The tea will extract the beta-glucans (immune system support, regulation of blood sugar, and modulating insulin), the melanin (anti-oxidant and UV-based skin support), and the polyphenols (antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, combats insulin resistance, combats chronic inflammation). However, it does not extract triterpenoids which fight against cancer, inhibits tumor growth, is anti-inflammatory, anti-viral, and support liver health. It also does not extract the sterols, which regulate cholesterol and provide additional anti-inflammatory effects. So if you want the full medicinal range of Chaga (including the cancer fighting and life extending properties), you will want to use a double-extraction. All of the other medicinal mushrooms also benefit from a double-extraction.
Supply List
To create a double-extracted mushroom tincture, you need:
- Spring water or distilled water*
- High proof alcohol (150 / 75% alcohol, usually sold as Everclear or 190 / 95% grain alcohol). In Pennsylvania, you need a permit from the PA Liquor Control Board to purchase this for tincture making.
- Mason jar with a lid
- Measuring cups
- Dried mushroom chopped into small pieces
- Straining tools: wire strainer, cheesecloth, and optionally, a stainless steel potato ricer for pressing
- Crock pot or double boiler
*If you are on city water, let the water sit out overnight and most of the chlorine will evaporate.
Double Extraction Step-by-Step
1. Dry your mushrooms. If you are starting with fresh, wildharvested mushrooms, you will first want to dry them. Thus, begin by cut your mushroom into small pieces and dry it in a dehydrator at 95 degrees or on the counter for a few days (assuming low humidity). This step is necessary because water content of the end double-extraction matters, starting with dried rather than fresh allows you to easily know how much water is in the final product for the purposes of long-term shelf stability. The smaller the better. Some people grind their mushrooms, but I never have.
2. Tincture your mushrooms. Create an alcohol-based tincture of your mushroom using high proof spirits (150 or 190 proof, see notes above). Put a clear label on your tincture so you remember what you used, as this matters later. To tincture, place your mushroom material in a jar and pour over alcohol, ensuring that the mushroom is fully covered. Sometimes the mushroom might absorb some of the water in the alcohol, so check a day later and see if you need to top it off.
3. Wait. Shake your jar of mushroom tincture every few days. Wait 4 weeks, and continue to occasionally check on your tincture. If you have larger mushroom chunks, I would instead wait 6-8 weeks to ensure all of the medicine has been extracted.
4. Strain and press your tincture. Your next job is to get all of the alcohol out of the mushroom. I usually start by pouring my entire tincture through a wire strainer. Then, I will either get a cheese cloth or use a stainless steel potato ricer. I will squeeze the last bit of the mushroom tincture out of the mushrooms. Make sure you get all the small bits of mushroom out, which may require you to use another piece of cheesecloth or an even finer wire strainer. Set this aside. For larger batches, I use a small fruit press (which you can see pictured below).
5. Take the same mushroom matter and decoct it (make a mushroom tea). “Decocting” refers to making a very strong tea with the mushrooms. You can do this on a crock pot with a “warm” setting, in a double boiler, or even using a mug warmer and a mason jar. The key is that you do not want to boil the mushroom matter or even really make it too hot (this can break down the medicine). So you want to do this low and slow over a 24-48 hour period.
Thus, add your mushrooms and spring water to your pot, fully covering your mushrooms, and then put on the lowest heat. Keep the lid on, checking it every so often, and top it off with water if necessary. Optional: I like to also do a cold water extraction to ensure all the medicine is extracted. So before I move on, I will put the water decoction (with mushrooms still inside) in the fridge for 24 hours.
6. Strain your mushroom decoction. Now you will do the same thing as above- strain out your mushroom material from the water, using wire strainers, cheese cloth, and/or a potato ricer. Ensure all of the bits of the mushrooms are out. You may end up with a bit more liquid than you need—don’t let this go to waste! Use it in soups, etc.
7. Compost or return mushroom matter to nature. With gratitude, return your mushroom material to nature or to your compost pile. These mushrooms have given you their medicine, and we honor them by not throwing them in the trash or taking them to the landfill but rather returning them to the living earth.
8. Combine your decoction (tea) and tincture (alcohol) with a goal of 35-40% alcohol content. A rate less than 35% will not have as long of a shelf life.
- The proof of the alcohol in the USA is twice the percentage of alcohol by volume.
- .80 proof spirit is 40% alcohol
- 100 proof spirit is 50% alcohol
- 151 proof is 75.5% alcohol
- 190 is 95% alcohol
8A) Measuring your alcohol tincture to see how much you have. This will determine how much decoction you need to add.
- If you have 151 proof you can add the tincture and decoction in equal parts to get a tincture that is 37% alcohol. That is, if you add 2 cups alcohol and 2 cups decoction, you get 4 cups of mushroom tincture at 37%.
- If you started with 190 proof, you can add 1.5 cups of decoction for every 1 cup of alcohol to get 37%.
You can also use a distillation calculator to help you: https://homedistiller.org/wiki/htm/calcs/calcs_dilute.htm
8B) Combine the tinctures in the appropriate ratio. Many of them will go cloudy when they combine and then in an hour or less, you will see the polysaccharides and triterpines settle to the bottom. This is normal and not a problem. Just shake your tincture before you take it.
Storing and Enjoying Your Mushroom Tincture
Storage: Your mushroom tincture has an indefinite shelf life when properly stored: Store in a mason jar. Change the mason jar lid evey 1 years to a new lid (or use BPA-free plastic). The alcohol will eventually start to break down the lid. Store in a cool, dark place
Most mushroom tinctures work best when taken longer-term. That is, they are working to support a healthy body and help keep you strong, active, and well.
Dosage: You can get a small dropper bottle to use for your mushroom tincture. To take: start with 5 drops a day and work your way up from there. A standard medicinal dose for health maintenance is usually 5-15 drops. If someone had an acute condition and was actively fighting something serious with mushrooms (cancer, for example) the acute dose could be much higher (1 dropperfull 2-3x/day)
Shake your mushroom tincture before each use (polysaccharides/triterpines will precipitate out).
Variations on the Double Extraction
Single or Double Marc: Debate exists about whether to extract the same mushroom material both in water and alcohol.Some suggest you should extract different mushroom material in water vs. alcohol. A good overview of the research and differences between herbalists is at : https://theherbalacademy.com/blog/make-medicinal-mushroom-double-extraction-tincture/
I have always extracted the same mushroom material and have found that it makes effective tinctures, so it is what I teach through the Pennsylvania School of Herbalism and what I use myself.
Single Marc: Order of Extraction: If you are extracting the same mushroom material, the other question is whether or not to do the alcohol or water extraction first. If you do the water extraction, you would need to freeze it for the month you are doing the alcohol extraction.
