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Offlinesporecap
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Dehydrator vs. air drying investigation (some math involved) * 8
    #25503824 - 10/01/18 03:58 PM (6 years, 3 months ago)

Hey,

I recently got myself into mushroom cultivation business and have just harvested my
first flush,  which turned out great, actually much better than I expected. I want
to thank all the people here on the forum who have contributed to the amazing wealth
of helpful information and tek's.

Since I saw questions about how to dry mushrooms properly popping up quite frequently,
and I faced this task myself just now, I decided to perform an investigation of how
the drying processes with a dehydrator differs from simple drying in air in terms of
speed and final water content.

The setup was the following:
Psylocybe cubensis of the (supposedly) variety Mexicana were grown in an 8qt monotub/shoebox
using oats spawned to coco coir.
This is what the first flush looked like:


Mature fruits from the first flush were harvested, cutting the stem right above the
substrate. The average size was about 3inch/8cm, with an average weight of 5g.
Immediately after cutting 10 fruits of different size and weight were selected and
their wet weight determined, called weight at time t equal zero w(0).
Six of them were put into a dehydrator, which had no temperature regulation, but
is supposed to operate at 75-85C/167-185F according to the manual. The remaining four fruits
were put onto a paper towel in open air in a room which temperature varied between 21-25C/70-77F
during the Night/Day, with an average humidity of about 30-37% which is rather low
and should be conducive to the drying process. Therefore,  the conditions for open
air drying can be expected to be quite favorable, while in general worse results than
the ones I obtained should be expected.

After starting the drying process, the weight of every fruit as a function of time w(t)
was measured every hour, with some breaks in between (nighttime,work).

Results:
For all fruits a considerable and continuous loss of weight was observed,
until a point where the weight would stabilize and no further change as
a function of time could be recognized.

The absolute weight in grams as a function of time for all fruits is shown in this figure:

The legend indicates which lines correspond to the different fruits: "Dehyd. 8.15g"
shows the starting weight w(0)=8.15g and means that it has been dried
in the dehydrator. "Air 5.09g" correspondingly means drying in open air of a fruit
with w(0)=5.09~g.
The axis on the left shows the weight w(t) as a function of time t in hours,
indicated by the bottom axis.

One observes a very sharp drop in weight for all fruits in the dehydrator, until
a constant baseline is reached. For the open air drying the weight decreases as well, but
significantly slower. The shape of the curve ]w(t) mirrors the one of an exponential
decay, i.e. it is of the form Formula: 0 , where Formula: 1
is a constant number. Mathematics aside, what this means is that the fruits are always losing
a constant fraction of their weight due to evaporation of water. For example, it could be that
each hour 25% of the weight is lost, therefore, in the beginning, where the fruit is heavier, the
loss occurs quite rapidly, but later it slows down, because 25% of a fruit which has already lost
most of its original weight is much smaller.

This can be seen very clearly in this logarithmic plot:


The plot shows exactly the same data as above, only the y-axis is now on a logarithmic
scale. This means the intervals on the left axis have a different spacing and become finer
at smaller values, making it easier to see the final weight.
As a mathematical sidenote, every exponential function Formula: 2
will appear as a straight line in a logarithmic plot with a negative slope. We see that
this is indeed true for all curves here, except for the part where the fruit has been dried
completely and the curve becomes flat.
From the slope the number Formula: 1 in Formula: 2  can be
extracted, which will give us information about the drying rate over time, i.e. how many
grams of water per hour are lost, which we will do in a moment.

In this plot it appears that the slope is quite similar for all fruits in the dehydrator,
independent of their starting weight. The same goes for the open air drying, where the
slope is much smaller. This means that both big and small fruits lose roughly the same
relative amount of water per hour.
Looking closely, one can still see that the slope is a bit steeper for the lightweight
fruits. Therefore, as expected large fruits will take longer to dry (likely because
of a worse surface/volume ratio).

By fitting to the data we obtain an average value for a~0.7 for the dehydrator
and a~0.1. Therefore, on average the drying curve for the dehydrator
is Formula: 5, and Formula: 6.

Converting this value, we obtain a drying rate of about 50% in the dehydrator, compared
to about 10% for open air drying, i.e. every hour the fruits loose half their weight in
the dehydrator, while for open air drying they only loose one tenth of their weight per hour.
Therefore, a dehydrator is about as 5 times as efficient as open air drying!

This is mirrored in the time it takes until a fruit is fully dry: In the dehydrator after
5 hours every fruit is completely dried (your mileage might vary!), while it takes
between 20-40 hours in open air!

Now let's have a look at the final water content after drying.
In the next figure you see the relative weight as a function of time w(t)*100/w(0) in %
on a logarithmic scale. Here the different drying rates between the fruits become very
evident, smaller fruits dry much faster than bigger ones.


The important point is the final relative weight: For the dehydrator it bottoms out slightly
below 8%. In open air this value is almost obtained as well, but after a much longer timescale.
On average it is slightly above 8%. This I attribute to the rather low humidity in the room,
in general I expect open air drying to perform worse, so it might end up at 10% or even higher.

Interestingly, even though the final relative weight of all fruits was rather similar,
only the ones from the dehydrator were cracker dry, while the open air dried ones still
had a certain flexibility.
But small differences at this level are actually huge in relative terms!
Let us assume that the dehydrator achieves a final relative weight of 8%, while
open air drying achieves 9%. While the difference seems negligible it is actually not,
because this percentage is calculated from the starting weight Formula: 7 and not the
final weight Formula: 8!
A difference of 1% dryness for a dried fruit results in
Formula: 9 difference
in water content!
What this means is that a fruit dried to 8% actually has 12.5% of its weight lost in water
compared to a fruit dried to 9%. This makes a significant difference and explains why the
air dried fruits where still a bit spongy compared to the ones in the dehydrator.
(Not to mention that the cracker dry fruits are more potent per weight, because the active substances
are not "watered down" by an additional 12.5% water content).

In conclusion:
We can summarize above observations to two main results:
On average, a dehydrator (in my case) is about as 5 times more time-efficient
than drying in open air under favorable conditions with ~35%RH. For example, 5h in the
dehydrator compared to 25h in open air were needed. In general, if humidity is higher,
even longer times are expected.

Second, a dehydrator reaches a lower level of dryness which makes a significant
difference in final water content (more than 10%), which makes the difference between
spongy or cracker dry.

Thanks for reading up to this point. If you found it interesting, please let me know
your comments! Or if you spot a mistake, or have suggestion on what to improve,
please tell me as well :wink:
PS: The LaTex parser seems to be buggy? Everytime I use more than one \frac the result
is garbled...

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InvisibleShroomspective
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Registered: 09/26/15
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Re: Dehydrator vs. air drying investigation (some math involved) [Re: sporecap]
    #25503876 - 10/01/18 04:26 PM (6 years, 3 months ago)

Like the level of detail that's gone into the post...but I'm struggling to accept the results that air drying is more effective than a dehydrator. I'd have liked to have seen both compared at 24hrs, given that is the usual runtime. Also drying on paper leads to liquid leaching out, air drying shoudl be on a rack to prevent that occuring

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InvisibleLadysKnight
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Re: Dehydrator vs. air drying investigation (some math involved) [Re: Shroomspective] * 1
    #25503911 - 10/01/18 04:42 PM (6 years, 3 months ago)

"On average, a dehydrator (in my case) is about as 5 times more time-efficient than drying in open air under favorable conditions..."


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InvisibleShroomspective
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Re: Dehydrator vs. air drying investigation (some math involved) [Re: LadysKnight]
    #25503939 - 10/01/18 04:51 PM (6 years, 3 months ago)

Aha I was reading the second point as in lower being less than

"Second, a dehydrator reaches a lower level of dryness which makes a significant difference in final water content (more than 10%), which makes the difference between spongy or cracker dry."

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InvisibleLadysKnight
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Re: Dehydrator vs. air drying investigation (some math involved) [Re: Shroomspective]
    #25503953 - 10/01/18 04:56 PM (6 years, 3 months ago)

True. You can't put too much water in a nuclear reactor.


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OfflineElectronic_Abyss
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Re: Dehydrator vs. air drying investigation (some math involved) [Re: Shroomspective]
    #25503970 - 10/01/18 05:02 PM (6 years, 3 months ago)

Well, this answers why anything I've air dried is still suspiciously flexible despite lasting so long. Never would've the difference is so small, or that minor difference was all it needed to have such a huge effect. Good write up dude, I appreciate the graphs.


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OfflinePhantomDragonX
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Re: Dehydrator vs. air drying investigation (some math involved) [Re: Shroomspective]
    #25503990 - 10/01/18 05:08 PM (6 years, 3 months ago)

Makes a lot of sense, as air drying especially at high humidity will take a while as evaporated water will 'linger' around whereas a dehydrator (a good one) will be moving low humidty air at a greater rate past the shroom to actively remove the evaporated water.

Also to note, no use having a dehydrator if you don't have air-tight storage afterwards,  as water can rehydrate.

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InvisibleShroomspective
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Re: Dehydrator vs. air drying investigation (some math involved) [Re: PhantomDragonX]
    #25504028 - 10/01/18 05:21 PM (6 years, 3 months ago)

:whathesaid:

These tend to be my long term storage method, keeps for years

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InvisiblebodhisattaMDiscordReddit
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Re: Dehydrator vs. air drying investigation (some math involved) [Re: Shroomspective] * 1
    #25504067 - 10/01/18 05:34 PM (6 years, 3 months ago)

Air drying sucks. Now there's a proof.

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OfflineJohn1212
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Re: Dehydrator vs. air drying investigation (some math involved) [Re: sporecap]
    #25583699 - 11/01/18 09:25 AM (6 years, 2 months ago)

Nice detailed info!

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OfflineDr3
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Re: Dehydrator vs. air drying investigation (some math involved) [Re: John1212]
    #26192200 - 09/16/19 04:17 PM (5 years, 3 months ago)

"
In conclusion:
We can summarize above observations to two main results:
On average, a dehydrator (in my case) is about as 5 times more time-efficient
than drying in open air under favorable conditions with ~35%RH. For example, 5h in the
dehydrator compared to 25h in open air were needed. In general, if humidity is higher,
even longer times are expected."

So I tend to read in many places about relative humidity. But this is irrelevant without knowing the absolute humidity, and thus the total amount of moisture in the air. 35% RH relative to what?

Or maybe I misunderstand humidity : |

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OfflineKizzle
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Re: Dehydrator vs. air drying investigation (some math involved) [Re: Dr3]
    #26193761 - 09/17/19 11:58 AM (5 years, 3 months ago)

RH is what's important for drying. That and the temperature of mushrooms themselves.


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Offlineverum subsequentis
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Re: Dehydrator vs. air drying investigation (some math involved) [Re: Kizzle]
    #26193793 - 09/17/19 12:12 PM (5 years, 3 months ago)

I suppose that's why it's called relative humidity. Check.

Thanks for all the thought and detail put into this write up. This is the type of stuff I love. That being said, all experienced growers (dryers) already knew this.... just without all the graphs and details.

The real questions are:

A: how long will each of these store without dramatic potency loss.

B: will the air "dried" fruits mold over time while being stored.

C: How much would a fan have helped the air dried fruits

D: Where would drying in the sun fall into this equation re: time to dry and potency loss.

Granted, coming to absolute truth regarding potency loss is a bit of a tricky situation as, Not all fruits are identical in potency, every consumer has a different tolerance/ natural response to the actives, and each consumer is in a completely different state each time he/ she does a potency test (different emotional/ mental state... slept more/ less than last time.... ate more/ less recently than last time.... Is in a different set and setting... bla bla bla.

Edited by verum subsequentis (09/17/19 12:12 PM)

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OfflineStephie
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Re: Dehydrator vs. air drying investigation (some math involved) [Re: verum subsequentis]
    #26193800 - 09/17/19 12:17 PM (5 years, 3 months ago)

I think it would also be interesting to test a hybrid method.

My grandfather for example uses a hybrid method to make jerky which starts with salt/spice assisted sun/air drying before finishing in a dehydrator.

I may have to set this one up :smile:

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InvisibleStygianKnight
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Re: Dehydrator vs. air drying investigation (some math involved) [Re: verum subsequentis] * 2
    #26193809 - 09/17/19 12:21 PM (5 years, 3 months ago)

RH is how saturated the air is at its current temperature.  The more saturated it is the harder it is to move water into it and when it reaches 100% saturation it dews and turns to mist/clouds/rain/dew.  Warmer air has a higher holding capacity than colder air and thus heating up air can reduce its RH and cooling off air can increase its RH, where the temperature it reaches when it hits 100% RH is called its dew-point.

Since drying is pumping moisture from the shrooms into the air, the total amount of water vapor in the air is less important than how likely it is to absorb more.

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Offlineverum subsequentis
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Re: Dehydrator vs. air drying investigation (some math involved) [Re: StygianKnight]
    #26193843 - 09/17/19 12:34 PM (5 years, 3 months ago)

very well said.

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Offlinesporecap
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Re: Dehydrator vs. air drying investigation (some math involved) [Re: verum subsequentis]
    #26193881 - 09/17/19 12:59 PM (5 years, 3 months ago)

Quote:

verum subsequentis said:
The real questions are:

A: how long will each of these store without dramatic potency loss.

B: will the air "dried" fruits mold over time while being stored.

C: How much would a fan have helped the air dried fruits

D: Where would drying in the sun fall into this equation re: time to dry and potency loss.




These are good questions, and I am also still wondering about how potency is affected :/
The general line of thought is that the faster the better (enzymes breaking down the actives over time) and heat does not affect potency. So a dehydrator at highest setting is the way to go. But as you said it close to impossible to test this due to varying fruit potency. And without some kind of liquid/gas chromatography equipment...
What I consistently observe is that air dried fruits bruise heavily while drying, while the ones in the dehydrator basically don't bruise at all. Does this mean the cells get damaged more while air drying since the fruit has time to decompose or sth like that?:confused:

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OfflineShaperDreaming
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Re: Dehydrator vs. air drying investigation (some math involved) [Re: sporecap]
    #26193886 - 09/17/19 01:05 PM (5 years, 3 months ago)

Quote:

sporecap said:
I am also still wondering about how potency is affected



I did some thinking on this topic lately.

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Offlinesporecap
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Re: Dehydrator vs. air drying investigation (some math involved) [Re: ShaperDreaming]
    #26194031 - 09/17/19 02:35 PM (5 years, 3 months ago)

Quote:

ShaperDreaming said:
Quote:

sporecap said:
I am also still wondering about how potency is affected



I did some thinking on this topic lately.




Wow, thanks a lot for the link, somehow I missed that. Will go through all the papers when I have the time.
But I guess there'll be a lot of conflicting information, like the guy from reddit who claimed only minor potency loss while one of the sciencedirect paper claims that "drying at an elevated temperature (60°C) leads to decomposition of 90% of psilocin." On the other hand the paper could only extract 1/3 of the amount of psilocin from fresh mushrooms compared to freeze-dried ones, which sounds contradicting but just means the extraction technique has a significant effect as well. How all of this affects the potency and bioavailability of actives in our shrooms in practice might be a whole different thing.
I was thinking about splitting a large fruit symmetrically in 3 pieces (cap and stem), and consuming one part fresh, one air dried and one thrown in the dehydrator. Still this might not give any reasonable results due to different set & setting, the placebo effect, etc... :shrug:
Maybe we should just shut the fuck up and enjoy without worrying too much:grin:

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OfflineKizzle
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Re: Dehydrator vs. air drying investigation (some math involved) [Re: sporecap]
    #26194612 - 09/17/19 07:34 PM (5 years, 3 months ago)

Quote:

while one of the sciencedirect paper claims that "drying at an elevated temperature (60°C) leads to decomposition of 90% of psilocin."



Yeah, it's kind of useless to only measure the psilocin content. Since it's the degradation product of psilocybin, a higher psilocin content could actually reflect a higher amount of enzymatic degradation occurring to the psilocybin rather than a higher potency overall. I've actually felt the high dried mushroom me be a bit more potent if anything but it's not something I can measure with any accuracy, I just have an impression that it might be the case.


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