Dave Bennett said:

As you can see from that chart you posted drying at elevated temperatures degrades potency. The hotter the drying temperature and the longer the time the faster the alkaloids degrade.

If you are using a dehydrator temperatures below 40C (104F) are recommended by the published research to avoid an unnecessary loss of potency.

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So the table says:

"Temperature stability of mushroom tryptamines from
fungal homogenous powder that was heated in five replicates for
30 min"

I'm reading this as the mushrooms where already dried then made into a powder, it was this homogenous powder that was heated for 30 minutes. If I am not misunderstanding here, how is this even close to dehydrating whole mushrooms

Dave Bennett said:

That's what I'm saying. The chart doesn't show the potency loss of fresh to dry fruits and prove that elevated temperatures don't degrade potency. To work that out you'd have to multiply the potency loss in 30 minutes at your drying temperature into your total drying time in hours.

I can post scores of other research papers that all conclude that elevated temperatures during drying, extractions and storage degrade potency but it all boils down to very simple principles of high school chemistry.

Potency loss is a chemical reaction and heat acts as a catalyst that speeds up chemical reactions. There's a rough rule of thumb in chemistry that every 10C (50F) increase in temperature doubles the speed of a chemical reaction. So every 10C increase in drying or processing temperatures doubles the loss of potency.

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I get that most of that, I think

What I am saying is that if you expose 1 gram of powdered mushrooms and 1 whole fruit that weighs 1 gram to oxygen(open air) the powdered gram will loose it's potency a lot quicker then the whole fruit because of the increased surface area.

So I don't think the chart can be used in any way to determine the potency loss during dehydration. It's a chart for how the already dried and powdered mushrooms hold up in different temperature, right?

I would think time matters here and how much extended time is needed to run the dehydrator at 35°C before they are completely dry as opposed to 70°C for 24 hours

I do not disagree with you or the papers you refer to, I just don't see how that chart is telling us anything about the loss of potency in whole fruits during dehydration.

Dave Bennett said:

And this is borne out by the results of this paper I posted above that found that at 90C, 17% of the psilocybin content in a solution degraded into psilocin per hour. And at 70C, (around dehydrator top temperature) 3 to 4% of the psilocybin content degraded into psilocin per hour. So again, for drying you'd have multiply that potency loss into your drying time in hours.

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Well, now I know for certain that this is above my pay grade, because if I have 100mg of psilocybin and lost 4% every hour, I would have 0mg psilocybin after 24 hours at 70°C

Dave Bennett said:

You've misunderstood that chart you posted. If you read underneath it shows the potency loss at the various temperatures in just 30 minutes. And people dry their mushrooms for hours.

And as the conclusion of the paper states, low temperature drying at room temperature is best for preserving potency, "To prevent the degradation of fungal tryptamines during sample processing, the most suitable conditions were to dry the fruiting bodies in the dark at room temperature."

As you can see from that chart you posted drying at elevated temperatures degrades potency. The hotter the drying temperature and the longer the time the faster the alkaloids degrade.

If you are using a dehydrator temperatures below 40C (104F) are recommended by the published research to avoid an unnecessary loss of potency.

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Kloakk said:

Dave Bennett said:

And this is borne out by the results of this paper I posted above that found that at 90C, 17% of the psilocybin content in a solution degraded into psilocin per hour. And at 70C, (around dehydrator top temperature) 3 to 4% of the psilocybin content degraded into psilocin per hour. So again, for drying you'd have multiply that potency loss into your drying time in hours.

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Well, now I know for certain that this is above my pay grade, because if I have 100mg of psilocybin and lost 4% every hour, I would have 0mg psilocybin after 24 hours at 70°C

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CoolBreeze06 said:

Lots of testing by folks over the years here. Oxidation is what kills potency, not heat from a dehydrator. Dehydrator heat may cause slight loss. Oxidation by drying low and slow runs a higher risk.

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