Did you get to try the hollandia yet?

These are some general notes on truffles / sclerotia which I hope will make things clearer (I didn't see this post till I came back from holiday otherwise I would have answered earlier).

The High Hawaiians are usually very good so I'm surprised to hear you had a bad experience, unless they had gone "off" during transit while unrefrigerated.

I've only puked once from bad truffles, and that was from these "Dutchii" which had been left out of the fridge a couple of days. I thought the white stuff was just patches of mycelium but was possibly mould. Either way I had very little warning and suddenly had to vomit about 35 minutes into the trip. I didn't actually feel ill either before or after being sick, so maybe it was just a natural reaction to something that my stomach didn't want me to eat...



The only other time I've had a stomach problem with sclerotia was a few years back when I got really bad diarrhea the day after a trip - it could have been from a meal I ate but I think it was the sclerotia that caused it. Apart from that I've never had much trouble with sclerotia, although it does sit rather heavy in the stomach, and a little bit of mild nausea would not be unusual. Three people all vomiting does sound unusual though, so perhaps there was something wrong with them.

They can look a bit slimy and manky in the sealed pack but usually look better once you open it.



Just for reference, they should look something like this when open (click to enlarge photos):





Being in a sealed pack should help stop them going mouldy, but it can create condensation from temperature changes, and they can gradually go a bit black and slimy when not kept in a fridge.

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i didnt notice a funny smell and they looked ok, they tasted extremely twangy and metalic though

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you say that about needing alot more than 22 g ? the guidelines say 10g for a string trip lol. overwelming trip 15+g .

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The dosage guidelines for sclerotia tend to be fairly cautious; aimed more at clueless tourists than experienced trippers. At one time the general advice for sclerotia was that 10g was a mild dose, 15g was a medium dose (standard amount for a trip) and 20g was a strong dose, but the potency varies quite a lot from one product to another so this isn't particularly helpful.

With High Hawaiians a 22g dose is fairly decent, on a recent trip a few days ago it was enough for that kind of "wording" effect of alphabet soup appearing in the walls e.t.c  within an hour of consumption, plus strong CEV with a sensation of being pulled into the trip and "eaten by something resembling the front of a train". That kind of dose could be quite intimidating for a first-timer, although it should level out into something more euphoric and relaxed after the peak. Bear in mind that if you puke within half an hour of eating this stuff, it won't have had much of a chance to start working properly, it is very dense and takes a while to digest.

I regularly dose with 2 packs of this stuff, but ONLY when I have tolerance built up from a previous trip (if I visit in Amsterdam I tend to do a moderate trip, then a stronger one two days later). Even with tolerance that's a very heavy dose with a real intensity and internal pressure, as if the CEV are an alien force crushing down on you. Without tolerance it's like a chemical warfare experiment with full-blown paranoid delusions and so on. I would have expected 15g of this to give a moderate, if not spectacular, fairly relaxed trip, the sort of dose that would be suitable if you were tripping for the first time.

I think a typical potency for commercially sold sclerotia would be something like 7g sclerotia = 1g cubes, although it can vary - see this post for a rough potency guide - RE: magic truffles dose

This means for a solid trip it's not unusual to have to eat more than 25g, although very potent stuff can knock your socks off even at 15g. Hollandia has a good reputation, so hopefully 15g will be a decent dose, but it really depends on the quality of what you are getting. "Hollandia" is not a real species so it might as well be labelled "very strong sclerotia" - you are relying on the producer to grow something that lives up to the name!

The dragon's dynamite are not bad; they are a lot more pleasant to eat than the Hawaiians and they are fairly consistent, BUT you do need to eat quite a lot to trip properly off them. I like them when I want a decent but not overwhelming kind of trip; I usually eat 2x 20g boxes (re-dosing after an hour) to make up for the lack of potency. "Fun" strong rather than "oh shit" strong if you know what I mean.

15g is likely to be very mild, 20g is getting there... but you would probably need 30g+ for a decently strong trip.



I recently tried "Royal Beluga" for the first time in years and was pleasantly surprised by the visuals off the initial 15g (I re-dosed with another 15g and got a fairly solid trip).





These are sold as loose stones, so they probably wouldn't travel well. You can see a slight white tinge on some of the stones which I think is the mycelium starting to re-grow in flat white patches. These were fine to eat, but I'd avoid anything that's getting to look a bit fluffy....

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yes we are planning to do truffle tea as the last experience really put the mrs off lol.
so im researching the best and easiest way of how to do it. any tips would be a help. thanks

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Might be too late but I'll just paste these links in from my notes:

N.B sclerotia are usually sold fresh so any advice specifically about dry (i.e rock hard) stones doesn't really apply -

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SCLEROTIA TEA
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M11 - making truffle tea http://www.shroomery.org/forums/showflat.php/Number/14130568#14130568

1.  Chop your truffles up.
2.  Place in 1-1.5 cups of water in a small pot.
3.  Add a few splashes of lemon or orange juice to the water.
4.  Add the truffles.
5.  Bring water/truffles to a simmer.
6.  Wait 15 minutes.
7.  Turn off stove, strain truffles out with a strainer by pouring water into a separate container (make sure the separate container is heat tolerant).
8.  Wait to cool.
9. Add more orange juice to tea to improve taste.


http://www.shroomery.org/forums/showflat.php/Number/22093166
Truffle Tea questions

Eating Atlantis Truffles - nausea & making tea
http://www.shroomery.org/forums/showflat.php/Number/10459824/fpart/2/vc/1

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Cervantes
http://www.shroomery.org/forums/showflat.php/Number/18093047#18093047
If you make tea from dry stones, be sure to grind them up first, and lemon tek plush a second extraction really help. Those buggers are much denser than cubes. A second brew can make a difference.
It is my favorite way to injest dry stones. Those fuckers are hard to digest when eaten. I swear I shit much of the magic out.

Cervantes - sclerotia tea
http://www.shroomery.org/forums/showflat.php/Number/18260747/page/6
For the most part it is just like making tea. Boil water. Then add the tea bag(s) and fungus. Let steep. Usually for 20 or so minutes.
Now, I do a couple of tricks with sclerotia. I grind it up in a coffee grinder or something. Then I soak it in lemon juice for 20 or so minutes. Then I make the tea with the sclerotia and lemon juice. Usually, I double extract the fungus just to make sure I get all the goods.
If you do not break the sclerotia up it will not properly extract, as it is very dense. You gotta grind it to eat it dry too, or it will pass right through you.

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Good Luck!

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we split 45g hollandia between two of us. it was still quite mild but we did have. a great night. we have also come to the conclusion that they are very mild and aimed at tourists for dosage.

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we have some liberty caps which are nearly all dry, we have approx 230. was thinking of putting all them in a tea to split between three of us this weekend. any tips as to what to do with them? ie powder them? not sure what to do but we are hoping for a much stronger trip. done some research but im still a little confused with what to do, my main aim is to not loose any potency as i spent hours and hours to pick them!

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chop 'em, mash em, boil em while stirring about a minute, steep 5-10 minutes, strain and enjoy.

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and don't forget to add citric acid or lemon juice. I guess liberty caps are small enough that you wouldn't need to chop them (looking at that tek I wouldn't bother powdering them either).

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looking forward to saturday

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Let us know how it goes

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musiclover420 said:
Next time try tea maybe?

Not sure how well that works with truffles but it seems like it should help.

Also some ginger and or lemon could really help.

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JohnQBensis said:

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musiclover420 said:
Next time try tea maybe?

Not sure how well that works with truffles but it seems like it should help.

Also some ginger and or lemon could really help.

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This^.

A friend and I made a tea from truffles once. The experience was pretty intense. The taste was god awful as was expected. Word of advice though, cool the tea before drinking. Hot tea with a flavor like that is horrible. I still get shivers thinking about that taste...

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Aldebaran said:

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looking forward to saturday

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Let us know how it goes

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yeah truffles are just grim lol. i found with lemon that it was just about doable when hot, as it got colder it got even worse. shivers is an understatement.

aldebaron.....will do