Mushroom
extracts: the “double-extraction” process
In traditional Chinese medicine, almost all remedies are decocted
for long periods of time over a low heat. This decoction is then
reduced in volume (through evaporation) to concentrate the plant’s
constituents and essence and increase the potency of the medicine.
Sometimes, the decoction is evaporated completely and the resulting
powder is bound with honey into small pills, for convenient dosage
and administration. The bottom line is: Chinese medicine, in preparing
items from its Materia Medica, does not use tinctures (probably
because distillation is a relatively recent concept, and Chinese
medicine is thousands of years in the making).
Medicinal mushrooms, while native to all corners
of the world, have come into Western herbalists’ medicine
chests from China. Therefore, if we are to make a tincture or liquid
extract of a medicinal mushroom, we are forging into uncharted territory!
Therefore, the recipe I use to extract these powerful medicines
combine elements of Chinese and Western techniques.
The basic idea is to combine a tincture (which emphasizes constituents
like phenolic compounds that are mostly alcohol-soluble) and a decoction
(the traditional way). For example:
· Take your dry medicinal mushrooms. Divide them into two
equal parts.
· Using the first part, prepare a tincture (probably 1:5
or thereabouts) with a menstruum made of 70% alcohol, 20% glycerin,
and 10% water. The glycerin helps keep an emulsion, or a proper
mix, when the next steps are taken. Set the tincture aside, and
let steep for 4-6 weeks.
· After you’ve strained the tincture, take the unused
mushrooms (the second part you saved at the beginning) and decoct
them for at least one hour, preferably 2 or more, in twice the volume
of water than what you used for total menstruum volume. Keep adding
water if necessary.
· At the end of the decoction process, strain the mushrooms
out and reduce the volume of fluid you have left so that it equals
the volume of strained tincture. Take this off the heat, and allow
it to cool completely (important point!).
· Finally, combine the strained decoction and strained tincture,
mixing well with a whisk. The final product should be roughly 35%
alcohol by volume.
A final note: if you didn’t use glycerin,
or you mixed the decoction in when it was not cool, you might end
up with a thick “gel” as part of you extract. This would
not mix up, and looks really weird. It is apparently a gel of polysaccharides
that precipitate out of solution if the above steps are not properly
followed. While harmless, it is just not attractive and makes proper
dosing a bit more difficult.
