I’m not usually someone who is that interested in the health benefits of mushrooms, I love growing them because they’re an amazing organism that you can literally watch them grow in front of your eyes; they also taste pretty damn good.
They’re also pretty good for you. Most mushrooms contain a spectrum of minerals, vitamins and fibre as well as being low in calories. Lion’s mane fits on the medicinal and gourmet list. I wouldn’t class lion’s mane as gourmet, I’m not a huge fan of it unless thinly sliced and dripping in butter, not something to make a habit of.
They’re also pretty good for you. Most mushrooms contain a spectrum of minerals, vitamins and fibre as well as being low in calories. Lion’s mane fits on the medicinal and gourmet list. I wouldn’t class lion’s mane as gourmet, I’m not a huge fan of it unless thinly sliced and dripping in butter, not something to make a habit of.
A lot of research still needs to be done with Lion’s mane and be aware there is a lot of anecdotal and sensationalism surrounding these mushrooms so take everything you read with a pinch of salt!
I grew some lion’s mane on Sawdust and Soy Hulls. I yielded about 230g on my first flush, I have the second flush coming through now but they’ll be for butter. Granted it’s only a little Lion’s mane but they were only little bags in my little fruiting chamber!
I sliced the fruits up into ¼ inch to 5/16ths of an inch thick.
Next, I spread them out on my dehydrator.
And left them on too high of a setting I think. I experienced some yellowing of the fruit as it dried, so turned it down from setting 6 to setting 3. However, i’m not sure this made much difference to the potency of the fruits.
After 2 days the pieces dehydrated to about 23g, losing about 90% of their weight as a mushroom is mostly water! I threw the pieces into my nutribullet and left it to pulse for about a minute
The result was a fine powder that went everywhere. My concern was the powder clumping together due to the moisture in the air. I think you could prevent this by adding stabilising compounds to it but I didn’t bother doing much research about long term storage.
I then grabbed the pill maker I bought off Amazon and the capsules. I split 100 caps from the bodies of the capsules, then dropped the bodies into the lower shaker unit.
You’re supposed to shake them and they all just drop in but the reality was a bit less easy. Some go in upside down, some double up and some just won’t go in. Having sausage fingers makes dealing with the 00 size capsules harder, but we got there in the end.
Once the capsules were all seated, I added the powder and scraped it around the plate until all the capsules looked full.
I took the tamper and pressed the powder into the capsules, then used the remaining powder to top them back up. I could have tamped down again but I didn’t have any more powder so left them like that. Next, I took the caps and repeated the process with the cap portion of the jig. The same problems were experienced having ham fists and all, but we got there eventually!
I inverted the cap jig onto the body jig, pressed down and all 100 pills capped at the same time turning out perfect little pills.
This was an incredibly satisfying process and the jig worked extremely well. I was very impressed. The only improvement I would make is adding a set of blanks to the pack. This way you could blank sections off, so you didn’t have to make 100 pills each time. Of course, you could just add bodies and caps to a little section and try to drop the powder in that section without making a mess, but blanks would make it easier.
I weighed an empty capsule on the little scales and zeroed it. Adding 5 different full capsules the average came to 0.25g or 250mg in each. I suspect these capsules could hole double that amount but like I said, I ran out of powder. These should keep me ticking over for 15 days or so until my second flush pokes its head through! Any questions, ask them below or get a hold of me in the contact section! I used the following kit for this project
See the capsule maker here – https://amzn.to/2LvhN0k
See the capsules you’ll need here – https://amzn.to/2Z56ST4
See the dehydrator here – https://amzn.to/36410Lk
Hi! Where did you get the main culture? can you actually get it from a supplement capsule of Lion’s mane?
Hi there! I got it from Mycelia in Belgium!
All the best,
Gareth
Since a lot of the compounds within mushrooms need to be extracted with either hot water or alcohol what is the benefit of just dehydrating and pulverizing the lions mane fruiting body?
Hi Don,
Your body also works to extract the compounds that the mushrooms have. Through acidification and the production of various enzymes in your guts. Alcohol and water extraction are a way of extracting, preserving and concentrating these compounds. I’ll make a blog in the future about extraction of mushrooms!
All the best,
Gareth