Making Fresh Magic Mushroom Honey

Once you have a grown a bunch of fresh magic mushrooms, there are many ways to cook, extract and enjoy their goodness. One of our favorite concoctions is what we fondly call “Magic Honey” – honey infused with fresh, chopped up Psilocybe Cubensis mushrooms. This post covers a few tricks required to get a good honey / mushroom mixture.  These honey jar or bottles can store for months to years and are a great way to microdose. A teaspoon of magic honey in your morning oatmeal adds colour to your day!

How to make magic mushroom honey

Table of Contents - How to Make Magic Mushroom Honey

Full Bleed Fresh Magic Mushroom Honey

There are two main methods of preserving mushrooms in honey – chopped mushrooms and whole mushrooms. With chopped mushrooms, most of the psychoactive chemicals “bleed” from the mushrooms into the honey, making it potent as well. For this reason, this method is called the “full bleed” preservation method. With whole mushrooms, less of the psychoactive compounds escape from the mushroom to the honey due to the smaller surface area of contact with the honey. This method is called the “zero bleed” preservation method. This name is somewhat deceptive, as some of these active compounds do escape into the honey, but to a much lesser extent than a full bleed. In the following how-to, we cover the “full bleed” preservation of about 120g of fresh magic mushrooms in 750cc of natural honey. Enjoy!

Items needed
  • 120g Fresh Cubensis Mushrooms
  • Sharp Knife and Chopping Board
  • Empty 750ml glass bottle with Cap
  • 1L French Press
  • Paper Towels, Funnel
  • Plastic Sieve Netting
  • Long Teaspoon for Mixing the Honey
Notes & Tips
  • Always try to cover chopped mushrooms with honey, as soon as possible to prevent oxidation.
  • Try to find thick, pure honey. The thicker the better, as it will dilute with the mushroom water content.
  • If your mushrooms are extra wet, use less than the recipe calls for.
  • Avoid licking honey off the spoon (or elsewhere), as you'll soon find yourself staring at walls.
Bee faced mushroom shaman
Tassili Bee Shaman / John Speaker Art

Video Tutorial : Preparing Magic Mushroom Honey

Step 1 : Chop up the Fresh Mushrooms Finely with a Sharp Knife

This is a long and rather tedious process, but can really be considered a labour of love. Chopping up each mushroom by hand, and giving the process the attention it requires. While chopping up these mushrooms in a blender can also work, we found that it introduced more micro air bubbles into the honey. Occasionally place chopped mushrooms in the french press and cover with honey. If you need to take a break, you can apply the plunger of the french press lightly on the mushrooms so that a thin layer of honey bleeds over them, thus preventing their oxidation. Continue chopping mushrooms and adding honey into the french press, until you get to about 650ml of liquid.

Step 2 : Pour Mushroom Honey Mixture into Bottle

Pour the mushroom / honey mixture  from the french press into the empty 750ml bottle using a funnel. Fill up the remaining space in the bottle with regular honey so that it reaches about half way in the neck of the bottle.

Step 3 : Build a Filter to hold the Mushroom material down in the Bottle

Cut out a strip of plastic sieve netting and roll into a shape that can plug the bottle neck in such a way that will allow honey to pass through, but not solids. It should be a comfortable and not too tight of a fit as you push the rolled sieve net into the bottle neck.

Step 4 : Seal the Bottle. Then Mix Bottle Contents and Expel Air

Pour some fresh honey to completely cover the bottle neck and your makeshift plug / filter. Once the bottle is filled to the brim close the bottle with a cap and allow to rest fo a couple of hours.

Step 5 : Mix Bottle and Watch for air Pressure Building up

Over the next few days, turn the bottle around every few hours. You will notice that the mushroom material will tend to float and rise to the surface. Turning the bottle up-side-down mixes the active ingredients in the mushrooms with the honey and infuse it. Allow small bubbles of air to slowly collect and every so often, top up the bottle up with honey if larger air cavities form. 

26 Responses

    1. Usually 2-3 weeks for the mushrooms to get properly infused with honey, while turning the bottle every couple of days to get things to mix up.

      Reply

  2. Thanks for the recipe! How long do these keep for? Also during warm summer months (it gets I to the 80’s or 90’s inside my place) do you I need to store the mixture somewhere cooler or is that not a concern with the honey storage method?

    Reply

    1. You ask a tricky question, and i will try to elaborate. Firstly, i’ve had bottles keep for over two years and counting, so they store well. There’s a delicate balance between the ratio of mushrooms (and liquid within) and honey. The more mushrooms / liquid you add, the more likely that you will dilute the honey beyond it’s capacity to act as a preservative…and then the whole mixture of honey and mushrooms may start fermenting – which is what you want to avoid. All of this to say – I always try to store my magic honey bottles in the fridge, and thus avoid the possible process of fermentation over time.

      Reply

      1. How do you stop blue honey from fermenting? I used dried 🍄 ground up in a coffee grinder– and a week later there’s a layer of foam on top 🤦‍♀️ please help. I don’t want to waste them or their potency. I may have used too much, but I thought it would be fine since they were dried and ground up.

        Reply

        1. Ideally you should have mixed the dry mushrooms with about 50% water weight ( i added a dry mushroom / honey mix recipe in the comments of this post). For now though, just keep turning the bottle up-side-down every few hours to allow the mushrooms to mix with the honey better. After a few days, just keep turning it from time to time. Also, ideally, keep the honey bottle in the fridge. Good luck!

          Reply

  3. You mentioned this was good for micro dosing. Ive tried micro dosing with no results from other shroom recipes. What if you want to get really high? Will this do the trick and if so how much do I need to dose? This recipe has a little over 4 oz’s and you said too many shrooms may water it down and be able to ferment. What is the most one could add before this may happen. Thank you for the videos.

    Reply

    1. To be fair, the most recent studies have shown little promise in microdosing (check this article). The summary is “While microdosing elicited transient increases in scales associated with mood-elevating effects, it was not sufficient to promote enduring changes to overall mood or cognition in healthy adults.” Saying all that, you can preform the following rough calculation for dosing with honey: “Say you put 120 grams wet mushrooms in one liter honey, and mixed it well. 100ml honey would be the equivalent of 12 grams wet mushrooms, 1 ml would be 1.2g of wet mushroom…which would be the equivalent of about 0.1 grams dry mushroom”. This is a very rough calculation as many of the variables are not exact…but it gives you a sense of magnitude. Practically speaking, always start with very low doses and increase if needed. As for stronger experiences with honey…I don’t think it’s the right medium for ingesting large quantities due to the high sugar content.

      Reply

      1. The good Doctors at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore would probably disagree with you. If you havent already you should check out their current work.

        I have a few problems with this study. Beyond the small sample size they reported “ Daily questionnaires showed credible evidence (>99% posterior probability) of improved ratings of creativity, connectedness, energy, happiness, irritability, and wellness on dose days compared with nondose days, and these effects remained when controlling for preintervention expectancy. “.

        Certainly not pointing a finginer at you but i dont see how they can claim “While microdosing elicited transient increases in scales associated with mood-elevating effects, it was not sufficient to promote enduring change”.

        To say I disagree with their assessment is putting it mildly. I dont think these people know what they are doing let alone what they are trying to claim.

        Came for the recipe. Stayed for the abstract.

        Reply

        1. Thanks for these valuable conversation! I believe the Johns Hopkins gang have proved that higher doses of Psilocybin (they came so the magical dose of 2.5 grams of dry mushrooms) have therapeutic value if used under specific conditions. There was no contest over this, and the research results were conclusive. However multiple studies around microdosing haven’t been as conclusive as far as I know, and have been shrouded by anecdotal observations. Saying that, I am also aware of situations where small quantities of psilocybin have helped dramatically in improving the quality of life of people with various neural conditions, around which there is still no research at all. To sum up, I think we’re still in the very early stages of understanding psychedelics, not to mention the added complexities of how it can affect each of us differently. I wish I had some links to help support my claims, but considering we’re all about growing, I’ll leave it at that.

          Reply

  4. how potent does the honey get ? also would the raw shrooms/left overs still be as potent or the whole thing including the honey gets even more potent from the honey/jarred environment? .just dont have that much mushrooms lying around XD

    Reply

    1. The honey isn’t very potent. A quick calculation would be: 2 lb of honey have 140 grams of wet mushroom added to them, which is equivalent to about 20 grams of dry mushrooms. 2 lb honey would be about 120 teaspoons, so dividing 20g by 120 teaspoons – each teaspoon would have around 0.16g mushroom (assuming all the psilocybin gets mixed equally in the honey).

      In practice, this number is usually a bit higher higher, as dry mushrooms no longer contain psilocin, while fresh mushrooms that were preserved in honey, do keep some of it.

      Reply

  5. Thank you so much for the written and video instructions! You explained everything very well! My question is that what if I have dried mushrooms? Do I grind them into a powder and allow them to dissolve in the honey? Also… you don’t use a double boiler to speed up the infusing process or is this harmful to the shrooms? Again, you really did a great job! How-to videos are not just a walk in the park! Thank you immensely!

    Reply

    1. This is a really good question. A bit of background – when you add fresh mushrooms to honey, you are also introducing a significant amount of water into the mix. At some stage, if the honey gets diluted too much, it looses its preserving abilities and will start to ferment. This means you are limited in how much fresh mushrooms you can add to the honey.
      Now to the answer – I have successfully made mushroom honey with dried mushrooms, and the key was to hydrate the mushrooms a bit before mixing them with the honey. This method of using dry mushrooms can be used to make MUCH stronger honey concoctions, as you can introduce much more mushroom material to the honey as there is no water in them. Saying that, you really need to hydrate the mushrooms a bit with clean, distilled water so the Psilocybin can dissolve and mix with the honey.
      A quick recipe can be:
      – 1 lb honey
      – 40g dried mushrooms
      – 50cc distilled water.

      Crush the mushrooms into small pieces (about 1/4″). Add the water, mix and let it soak for no more than two minutes. Add and mix the mushroom and water mixture well with the honey. Make sure all the mushroom material gets covered. Occasionally shake and turn over the honey/mushroom container over the next few days. Allow about two weeks for good infusion. Good luck!

      Reply

  6. Do you eventually filter the mushrooms out? How do you access the honey without getting chunks in my coffee? Thank you.

    Reply

    1. No need to filter the mushrooms. The active ingredients seep overtime into the honey itself. The more you stir and shake the bottle over time, the more the psilocybin will seep and spread out into the honey,

      Reply

      1. Hi, I am also wondering about filtering because my stomach has issues digesting the mushroom walls. I get nausea and gas that lasts the whole trip. Filtering through a micron bag should work fine though i think, just may lose a bit.

        Reply

        1. Filtering the mushrooms even with a tea strainer would work to keep the solids out. What i have found is that sometimes it’s not the mushroom body that causes the nausia, but that it’s just part of your mushroom trip experience….which might be worth investigating further.

          Reply

        2. I have chronic stomach inflammation and experience digestive issues as well specifically with the fiber-rich mushrooms. I have found that using some digestive enzymes along with prebiotics and probiotics helps a lot. You may want to look into it. Also, I have found it is best to take the mushrooms on an empty stomach and then eat something light after about half an hour. Be aware that taking excess liquid will dilute the HCL (Stomach Acid) and make it harder to digest the fibers. However, taking some Ginger shortly after helps me significantly as it helps break the fiber molecules. Hope it helps!

          Reply

  8. What’s the filter at the top of the bottle for if you just seal it anyway? Also why have a French press? It wasn’t used at all?

    Reply

    1. Good catch! Before closing the bottle, I use a food grade plastic mesh to help push down the mushrooms below the honey line (as they tend to float on honey). This prevents them from meeting air, oxidizing or moulding up at the top of the bottle. The french press…is used when you don’t have enough mushrooms to fill up a bottle. You can chop up smaller qualities of mushrooms and mix them with honey at the predefined ratios…and use the lid of the french press to push the mushrooms down under the honey line, for the same reasons above. You can keep doing this until you have enough mushrooms / honey mixture to fill a bottle.

      Reply

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