Mcpato wrote: ↑Fri Jun 18, 2021 3:24 pm
How much ibotenic acid/muscimol is lost from the drying process of the amanita? Would making a tea from a fresh mushroom be many times more potent because of the lack of loss from drying? Sure it would mostly be ibotenic acid... But that is a moot point anymore right?
From Tsunoda's "Changes In Ibotenic Acid" paper as best I can understand it appears that drying destroys 95% of the ibotenic acid and converts 5%. This is a shocking high amount of destruction! I find these papers a bit difficult to understand, but that is what it appears. If I'm understanding this correctly that makes me suspect that fresh mushroom that was never heated and only used with GAD fermentation would produce a lot of muscimol.
However, fresh mushroom is not easy to come by as it will not be fresh for long. I suppose one could instead pick the mushrooms and immediately put them in jars with the fermenting bacteria. Then, later the mushroom could be removed and the resulting liquid could be stored. It may not go bad due to the high lactic acid content.
The mushroom may not even need to be removed. The issue is getting sufficient lactic acid content by having high levels of lactic acid forming bacteria in the fermentation process. If I understand from the patent ingesting the mushroom may not be good though as we cannot digest that fiber. Though, people often don't worry about mushrooms fiber, so I'm not sure.
Mcpato wrote: ↑Fri Jun 18, 2021 3:24 pm
I know that sanitization is a concern, but the fermentation process is a purifying process, and the cultures we want will almost certainly outpace any "bad" things. Personally I would probably feel safe consuming raw amanita fermented in raw milk until a yogurt like state was achieved, but thats just me... So much potential to explore here. Not just strength of Soma but flavors as well. I hope people will help us explore the possibilities of Soma!
The question I have is about skipping the tea process and just putting the dried mushroom right into fermentation. This may give higher yields because it skips another destructive stage of conversion. As far as I can tell GAD fermentation is not destructive. I think the heator acid and additive process may not be necessary at all because I think the GAD can convert just fine by itself much better than the rather brute force approach of using heat. The heating / acid/ drying was used to convert because it skipped using any GAD fermentation. GAD fermentation was my preferred choice from reading the patent.
In order to do GAD fermentation I do not think raw milk needs to be used; no milk at all. Just something with lots of lactic acid producing bacteria. There are many fermented food products that use lactic acid bacteria. One can also easily buy lactic acid fermenting bacteria at the pharmacy. These bacteria do not need milk to grow. A single capsule can have 20 billion colony forming units. These bacteria only need sugar to grow and that sugar doesn't have to be lactose. It can be sucrose.
So, you could probably take a bunch of this lactic acid bacteria. Pour it into a 32 oz mason jar with spring water 3/4 full which is free of chlorine and chloramine. Melt 1/4 cup of sugar on the stove into the water first. Add a pinch of baking soda or sea salt for minerals. Give it 48 to 72 hours to grow and eat up the sugar so it grows in numbers. Then add the dried mushroom so there is lots of healthy bacteria in there first so nothing goes bad from whatever bacteria is on the mushroom. Give the good bacteria a big head start. This is a starter culture. There will already be high levels of lactic acid in there to inhibit bad bacteria.
Then, however long it takes for the GAD to do its work. I know the patent had a specific time, but it was temperature incubated higher than room temperature to speed it up. I thought it would make sense to powder the mushroom, but amanita dreamer does not say to do that, and also you will end up eating the mushroom fiber, which the patent says can cause indigestion. I'm not exactly sure when/why this happens as people eat mushrooms all the time. So, I need some clarification on that. Also, removing the mushroom may preserve the liquid better. But, this liquid will go bad. But, if you compare this to things like Kimchi, I'm reading that can last 2-3 years in the fridge, so this may last that long too.
Other than using bacteria purchased from the pharmacy one could also use a more traditional source like water kefir grains. This can be bought from many sources and the process is just the same. Water kefir is also supposed to be very beneficial and "kefir" means "feel good" in Turkish. These bacteria and yeast in water kefir may be beneficial for proper immune and neurological function.
The only other issue I have with not making a tea out of the dried mushroom is concern for anything that could be in that mushroom. Do they have parasites or anything else nasty living in there. For certain things the lactic acid and the healthy bacteria could kill that stuff off, but for others perhaps not.
Either way, I would very much like to try using water kefir instead of raw milk to try to make soma. Again, my big question is do we really need to be making the dried mushroom into tea first? I think the GAD can convert by itself based on the patent. I don't think the Vedas talk about making tea first either.