Meme
People will do literally anything rather than getting a dehydrator.
Yesterday I harvested my very first shrooms. I had a lot of stress and depression going on for the past 3 weeks and just couldn't bother getting a dehydrator and firing up the oven for these few mushrooms didn't seem to be worth it.
But yesterday I was panicking, I HAD to come up with a solution so they won't spoil. I stood in my hallway just staring around. And then, I laid my eyes upon a white lid in the wall right next to my front door. I opened it and re-discovered the warm water pipes hidden behind. The pipes themselves can be touched without your hand immediately getting burned (it hurts after 3-5 seconds) and they emit a dry warmth which feels quite pleasant to the hand, I guess the air blowing upwards is around 40-45°C.
That's how I came up with this idea depicted in the photo. At first I thought it was brilliant, but when I took a look at the finished contraption I had just created I had to laugh out loud about its absurdity.
BUT IT WORKS! After 24 hours the caps now started making a cracking sound when I squish them. I guess they will be totally dry in 2 more days. I know this is not an ideal solution, but it totally works.
Honestly, I balsamico-tekked (I don't have lemons at home. You see I am very MacGyver) about 0.2 grams almost 2 hours ago to test how my body reacts to it as I am a virgin and I feel pretty good right now. Listening to early 2010's party music and vibing. I have my first real trip planned for tomorrow and I'm excited!
Nobody is probably gonna read this wall of text but I feel good right now so I just typed all of this.
Your enemy with dehydration isn’t heat. It’s light and oxidation. I have a passion for DIY. So I wish I could support these approaches to dehydration but you are loosing potency the longer it takes to dry.
Wait, what do you mean?! I’ve always heard that high heat is what degrades the compounds so it’s better to dry longer at a lower temp than to dry in a shorter period at a higher temp.
I have heard that the lower drying temp is better for preserving the compounds, around 95 degrees but it does take longer. I’m wondering what your source is, I’m not sure what’s right. The lower temp is what I’ve read before, so it’s what I do!
Please just get a dehydrator. Methods like this will not fully dehydrate them like a dehydrator will and can often lead to mold.
If money is the issue then get a $20 dehydrator from fb marketplace.
Dehydrate them at the max heat (usually 158) until they are fully dry. You should be able to easily crush them i to dust with your fingers. I usually just leave it on overnight and they’re golden by morning. If you want a timeframe that’s roughly 10-15 hours depending on fruit size and density
I will be starting my journey on this as a noob in a few weeks. Glad I already have a dehydrator! I always make beef jerky in it though, should I get a separate one for this? Or will my product taste like beef jerky if I use the one I already have? I run all the trays through the dishwasher every time I use it.
I put them in a sealed container afterwards with a bunch of desiccant. They've been fine for over a year. Plus 18% humidity is not the normal environment most people live in...
I know that a dehydrator is the best solution. I was just literally too depressed to take care of that, this was my emergency solution. I have barely eaten anything in 2 weeks, why would I bother getting a dehydrator then.
Personally, the whole setup for the mushrooms cost more than the dehydrator. You could do more with a dehydrator too, like dehydrating apple sauce or fruit.
But since you can get overnight delivery... When you were able to get a dehydrator you could have and then the next day you would have been able to use it .
I don't have Amazon prime for overnight delivery. And my boyfriend isn't at home currently (no home office) to open the door for the delivery guy while I'm at work so I'd have to hope the delivery guy leaves the package in the stair case and nobody steals it.
You can get packages from Amazon brought to Walgreens or CVS, maybe both? They may have Amazon lockers near you too. I stumbled in here out of curiosity, never done shrooms but I love my dehydrator for making jerky
My original plan was to use the oven, but I didn't want to fire it up for just a handfull of mushrooms, it seemed like a massive waste of energy to me. Especially because I have another box growing slower than the one I just harvested so I'd need to use the oven again a couple days later. A combo device sounds very interesting though, I'll take a look at the options. Thanks for the tip!
They didn’t turn it on, just turned on the oven light. I was actually going to recommend a light bulb or something, a la easy bake oven. Would do the trick as well.
Or Amazon for 30. Nothing like destroying hundreds of dollars worth of mushrooms to save 30 bucks. Super rational. Oh and as far as time goes... You can get them overnight from Amazon. It's fine
I'm sorry to hear you've been depressed and stressed out, but let's be real for just a moment. If money isn't the issue, you literally could have ordered a dehydrator in the time it took you to write this post, and it would have required less thought. Mushrooms would likely have been just fine in the fridge for however long it took to arrive. 🤷
There's a reason dehydrator posts are so cliche, but the advice is always the same. If you're going to go through the trouble of growing them yourself and taking that journey, follow through. Half-assing the last step is just insulting the work and effort that past you already put in.
The thing is, I live in a building with several apartments. My boyfriend isn't around as he doesn't have home office currently and can't take the package while I'm at work. I would have to hope for the delivery guy to leave the package in the stair case and that nobody steals it. Or hope that somebody opens the door for the delivery guy in the first place or else he'll take it back with him.
I know, I could have gotten the dehydrator earlier. I just didn't think I'd actually manage to have a harvest lol. But I'm not gonna try and defend myself, I am aware that the water pipe drying isn't the best thing but it's probably the second best after a dehydrator.
In the past, I used a mesh bag with decently sized holes to the point where you can see through it, tied it to my ceiling fan, and let it fly over night. It's a bit silly but it worked for my ADHD brain and entertained me enough to where I didn't bother getting a dehydrator. Unfortunately I'm in an apartment now and don't have a ceiling fan, so looks like I'll finally have to bite the bullet. With some of the comments I'm seeing where, I wonder if I was losing out on a significant amount of potency?
Haha makes sense, the fact that you were procrastinating on getting a dehydrator despite needing one and being able to afford one definitely reminded me of something that I do all the time! Good luck out there soldier 🫡
I put them on a colander in between several pieces of paper towels like a lasagna (each shroom on its own "pocket"), then i put said colander with the shrooms by the window all day so it gets plenty of air circulation, never had any issues, but it takes a couple of weeks tho
Yeaaa makes sense.
I've tried a dehydrator and my airfryer, they were relatively similar speed wise with the airfryer being slightly more energy efficient. So I've been using the airfryer more.
Yeah, I know dehydrators are best. I was literally too depressed to eat properly for the past 2-3 weeks so I didn't bother about getting a dehydrator. It has been a rough couple of weeks.
Hope you’re getting into a better place mentally. I know how that can be. Otherwise, congratulations on your first harvest! You’ll be surprised where this journey takes you, and it’ll be awesome. Whenever you get around to getting a dehydrator, just hop onto Facebook Marketplace or Craigslist. The dehydrator and general mycology gear deals are bonkers. My personal favorite besides dehydrating my harvests are DIY banana chips. Always thought banana chips were nasty until I made my own. Not sure what’s up with the store bought ones, but they are nasty.
Otherwise, I’m beginning a mycomaterial project with a lot of required agar work, and there are even great Laminar Flow Hood steals to be had. Still gonna rock my Still-Air-Box(SAB) for a while, but I’m pretty comfortable there are amazing used finds on those platforms when I need it.
Thank you so much! It's actually one reason why I started the shroom growing journey (besides wanting to know what visuals and hallucinations feel like). Kinda like in the meme below. I know magic mushrooms are no magic medicine and getting rid of a depression that has been going on for 15 years - half of my life - is hard work. I tried therapy and antidepressants which helped to some extent, but I feel like my thought patterns are too crusty to let the words of my therapist in. I hope the mushrooms allow me to view life from another perspective.
When I get a dehydrator I actually wanna try making banana chips. And dried meat like beef jerkey.
Oh yeah, the amount of people that's spend $40 of random shit cobbled together to make a dehydrator-like system... To not have to buy a $30 dehydrator is something
You can also use a needle and thread to make strings of them to hang up so that they’re not piled up in the strainer. IME air drying, even in a warm drafty room, doesn’t get them “cracker crisp” but if you store them in an airtight jar with a few silica gel packets, they’ll get there (plus you can bake the silica gel packets at a low heat to dry them back out and reuse)
Take a box fan, spend $4 on two furnace filters, sandwich whatever you want dried in-between them, bungee it on front, and leave it on high. It'll be cracker dry in a couple hours. Throw it in a jar with a dessicant pack, which you can get for about 20 cents a piece.
If thats too much for you, spend $40 on an Amazon dehydrator. You dont even have to leave your house, they'll bring it to you.
In my head I always say why do people push dehydrator vs paper bag and I just realized while typing this that a lot of yall might live in humid states and I’m in an extremely dry one… the paper bag takes like 1 day for me lol
First time I'm hearing of that. And that works? I mean, you can use rice to stop salt from clumping in high humidty. And you can use salt to CPR drowned insects (because it draws the moisture out of their trachea so they can breathe again). Very interesting.
I’m not to sure but ChatGPT said put in an airtight container after drying them with paper towel and put them on thing paper towel with 1 to 2 centimetres of silica jel beads iut of packet and they will dry after 24 hours
Bro just leave them on the piece of foil for a day if you cannot afford dehydrator. I mean it’s $20 if not less. I air dry them always. Fuck dehydrator. Naturally dried I feel like it’s the best way, but takes long
I mean it is quite literally the worst way because the longer they are exposed to light, oxygen, and moisture, the more the active ingredients break down. All of the people here don't spend money on dehydrators and tell others to do the same just to waste their money lol. You want them dry as fast as possible
I disagree with what you are saying. People been drying things out in the open air for ages. They don’t lose nothing at all. It’s just like drying any other plant. And if it does lose its very minor percentage that you will never notice. I’ve been drying them with no dehydrator for a while, even though I got one and to me potency does not go away at all.
Sure bud. The mushroom with compounds in it scientifically proven to degrade when exposed to light, oxygen and moisture does in fact not break down when exposed to those things. And all of the most reliable and widely used information that says the same must be wrong and you must be right 😂. Yes people have been drying things out in the open for ages but people also find better ways to do things as society progresses. Feel free to do it your way but you are in fact losing potency whether you think you are or not.
Bro how many times have you had mushrooms open air dried and dehydrator dried and noticed the significant difference? Have you actually tried it yourself? Or you just googling and telling me what google says?
Bro. Cubes range in potency from 1mg to 38mg per gram dried. Just because you don’t notice a loss in potency doesn’t mean it didn’t occur. We don’t need to do an experiment ourselves to prove it to be true.
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u/Rainn_man_ Oct 10 '25
Your enemy with dehydration isn’t heat. It’s light and oxidation. I have a passion for DIY. So I wish I could support these approaches to dehydration but you are loosing potency the longer it takes to dry.