The term “medicinal mushroom” used to draw snickers and knowing glances, but these days science is recognizing legitimate medicinal uses for mushrooms. Reishi mushrooms have been used for centuries in traditional Chinese medicine, and western science is just beginning to explore their many uses.
Medicinal mushrooms such as reishi, chaga, maitake, turkey tail and shiitake contain both water-soluble components, known as polysaccharides, and alcohol-soluble components known as triterpenes. For this reason, medicines made from reishi mushrooms often include a double extraction. This two-step process combines alcohol and water extracts to maximize the medicinal benefits.
Reishi Mushroom Tincture infusing in mason jars.
Benefits of Reishi Mushroom Tincture
Reishi’s water-soluble polysaccharides have been shown to boost immune response, especially in relation to cancer cells. Studies show that “The polysaccharides from G. lucidum are believed to trigger an indirect antitumor mechanism in which the host immune system is altered to target the tumor cells.” Specifically, a type of polysaccharide in reishi mushrooms know as beta-glucans “has the ability to induce both innate and adaptive immune responses…triggering a series of molecular pathways…which in turn, activate the host immune response for immune cell proliferation.”
Reishi’s alcohol-soluble triterpenes go a step further. Science has found that alcohol extracts from reishi mushrooms are “the only known source of a particular group of triterpenes, also known as ganoderic acids, which have been found to have direct cancer cell cytotoxicity on a wide variety of cancer cell lines, such as murine Lewis lung carcinoma (LLC) and Meth-A, and many of them have been suggested to counter angiogenesis and metastasis.”
What does all that mean? Water extracts boost your immune system and help your body combat cancer, while alcohol extracts combat cancer directly. Talk about a one-two punch!
Some traditional reishi preparations involve making a decoction by simmering the mushrooms for 2 hours. This preparation misses the benefits of the alcohol-soluble constituents.
Freshly Harvested Hemlock Reishi
As a whole, western science has proven reishi mushroom extracts to be:
- Analgesic
- Anti-inflammatory
- Anti-bacterial
- Anti-viral
- Anti-oxidant
- Anti-allergenic
- Anti-tumor
Reishi mushrooms have also been shown to reduce blood pressure, blood cholesterol, blood sugar and reduce platelet aggregation that results in blood clots. Its effects on blood sugar were significant enough that it has been successfully used in the treatment of diabetes.
The antioxidant activity of compounds found in reishi mushrooms seem to target free radicals responsible for aging, and reishi helped reverse the effects of aging in lab mice. Reishi works to protect and strengthen the liver and has been successfully used for the treatment of chronic hepatitis B.
Fresh reishi mushroom, thinly sliced to maximize surface area for tincture making. They can be quite tough to cut, but try to slice them as think as you can.
How to Make a Reishi Mushroom Tincture
Ingredients
- Thinly sliced Reishi Mushroom (either purchased dried or wild foraged)
- 80 proof alcohol, such as vodka
- Fresh spring water (or chlorine-free water of any sort)
Equipment
- Mason jar (pint, quart or a half-gallon depending on your batch size)
- Cooking pot
- Filtering equipment: funnel and mesh strainer or cheesecloth
- Tincture bottles for storage
Chopped fresh Reishi Mushrooms infusing in 80 proof alcohol for the first step of a reishi double extraction.
Instructions
Fill a mason jar about halfway with dried reishi mushrooms. Dried mushrooms will expand, and need a bit of extra space. If you’re using fresh reishi mushrooms that you were able to collect yourself, fill the jar 2/3 full.
Cover the mushrooms with 80 proof alcohol, filling the jar to within an inch of the top rim.
Three half gallon mason jars extracting reishi mushrooms in alcohol. It takes about 1 pound of fresh mushrooms to fill a 1/2 gallon mason jar for tincture.
Let the mixture extract for 4 to 6 weeks. Ideally, it should be kept in a cool dark location like a pantry. To maximize extraction, shake the jar as often as you remember (daily would be ideal).
After the alcohol extraction is complete, strain through a fine mesh strainer and set the alcohol aside. Measure how much alcohol extract you had remaining and make a note of it.
Filtering a reishi mushroom tincture through a fine mesh strainer.
Place the strained mushrooms into a pot, and add about a half gallon of water for every 2 cups of mushrooms. Simmer the mushrooms on low for 2 hours, keeping an eye on the water level. Do not let it boil dry.
The water extract should be reduced to about half the quantity of alcohol extract. For example, if your strained alcohol extract was a total of 16 ounces (2 cups), you’ll want to reduce your water extract to 8 ounces (1 cup).
This 2 to 1 ratio will ensure that your final extract is roughly 30% alcohol, which will be shelf stable.
Once the water extract has cooled, mix it with the alcohol extract and bottle in an amber tincture bottle.
Store in a cool, dark place and take a dropper full daily for best results.
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Hi Ashley!
I was just wondering if the same tincture process would work for shiitake mushrooms?
Thanks!
Yes! To the best of my knowledge, the process is the same for any mushroom tincture.
Thank you for the awesome info, Ashley! I live in VT myself, and recently harvested a bunch of Reishi in St. J (so exciting!). Was wondering if green glass tincture bottles would be sufficient as well? Don’t want to mess anything up when working with this precious medicine!
Thanks!
Wonderful! They’re plentiful right now =) My gut reaction would have been that green glass bottles would be just fine, but I did a bit of google research and it turns out that green glass only provides minimal UV protection. Amber bottles are the best, and cobalt blue bottles are a good second choice. From what I’ve read, green bottles are only colored for decorative reasons and shouldn’t be used with light-sensitive products.
That said, if you’re going to keep the tincture in a dark cabinet that stays closed all the time, it doesn’t much matter how you bottle it.
Hi, am in the middle of boiling the water and reishi. Not that it is written, but I am assuming the mushrooms at this point should be strained also from the water before adding to the alcohol?
Yes, definitely. Strain the mushrooms out of the water, cool the water and then add the water back to the alcohol extract.
Is there a reason to use 80 proof alcohol for the extraction of the triterpenes? Would it not be more efficient to use a much higher proof since 80 proof is 60% water? I’m glad I found your website! It has a lot of valuable information on it.
There is research showing that very high alcohol in the first extraction can damage the water-soluble compounds and that high proof liquor should only be used when extracting tough resins. Some herbalists actually extract the water-soluble portions first to get around this, but then they have to add plain high proof alcohol to the water extract to keep it from spoiling while the mushrooms extract in alcohol. Extracting in a low proof alcohol, then extracting in water is sort of a middle ground solution.
Thank you for sharing useful information, the mushrooms in the picture I see is not mature enough. As the mushroom grows darker and there is no white flecks around the mushroom ears. Should use mushrooms mature, then the mushroom will be in the best state.
That’s true for Ganoderma lucidum but not the eastern hemlock reishi we have here (Ganoderma tsugae). Hemlock reishi has a white edge even when it’s very large. I’ve tried waiting until they get bigger, but if I don’t pick them within 24 hours of seeing them the slugs get them. In a wet climate like Vermont they don’t last long, and you have to pick them while you can.
Yes, mushrooms in nature are very difficult to develop. In my country, the traditional way of cooking mushrooms with water, the way to soak my fungus with wine is very good, I will share this use in our country. Thanks for the author.
Hello, I am very happy to know your blog because I feel very interested in articles about Reishi mushrooms
Dear Tu,
If you like to read about mushroom science and health you might like to know the work of PAUL STAMETS. He is an expert. He has U-Tube presentations. He also produces high quality mushroom products. We could save the ecology of the planet with fungii if only humankind would wake up!
I also am very happy to have found this excellent blog. Thanks Ashley!
Thank you for a wonderfully informative article! I was lucky enough to find some on my walk today and I have a question. How do you clean the mushrooms? Should I just brush off the surface dirt and trim away the blades of grass that the fungi grew around?
Yes, just dust them off and trim out any vegetation. Wetting them in water will degrade them quickly, so don’t actually “wash” them. If you’re making a tincture, they need to be chopped anyway, so just chop off the dirtiest parts if they won’t dust clean.
Thank you!
Hello, From N.H I wonted to ask do you have a printable version about working with the mushroom brew.
? Thank you. You are very good at what you do.
I don’t have a printable version, unfortunately. I’ll look into getting a plugin for the website that converts pages to a printable version though. Glad it was helpful, even if you couldn’t print it…
I have tinctured my mushrooms in high alcohol content grain alcohol. Is it ok to just dilute the alcohol down to 80% before adding the water, or have I already damage the polysaccharides? Thank you. I love your blog!
If a high alcohol was going to damage the constituents, then yes, the damage is done. There’s some debate about that, and I’m not sure that there’s anything conclusive as to whether or not high alcohol really does damage it. It might, but I don’t know that it’s been thoroughly tested. Since it’s done, I wouldn’t worry about it. There are so many medicinal compounds in the reishi, so I wouldn’t worry about a chance that one or two are weakened or removed. The rest will still be there.
To answer the other part, if you’re going to dilute it down, I would dilute it down with more boiled reishi extraction (rather than plain water). Since you used a high alcohol content, it’ll still keep if you use a bit more water extraction in the mix, but you don’t have to. A bit higher alcohol in the finished tincture isn’t a big deal, but it does give you the option of adding more water extraction without it spoiling from being over diluted.