Wienerwoods' Microscopy Adventure

[Wienerwoods]

@bubblekarma @Roark @tripaholic88 @Kallybear39 @hb5_darthkush @TimeTraveler @derek420colorado @Roasty McToasty @Coffee&Kush

I've got some cool things to share.



After two failed attempts (turns out it was bad spawn) at making a monotub, I had finally generated enough spawn to inoculate one with the first cloned culture I had made. The tub started colonizing alright, but slowed down and had pretty much stalled when there were still a few spots of uncolonized coir/verm substrate left on the surface.

At 23 days (holy shit) I decided I wouldn't wait any longer and induced fruiting conditions. The introduction of FAE rejuvenated the mycelium and it continued colonizing the substrate, stronger and faster than before. In less than a week hyphal knots started appearing and at day 10 I spotted the first pins.

A few more pics from a couple of days ago:

But that's not all! During that one's long colonization time I also made another tub. I took a lot more care when mixing it so the tarp is installed correctly, trimmed with scissors and most importantly, it contains all of the substrate this time. The new one took only 6 days to colonize. The only thing I did differently was replace some of the normal, non-permeable tape on two of the bottom holes with micropore for increased gas exchange.

I also finally figured out how to do a properly clean extraction on the shrooms to yield crude alkaloids. The trick, it seems is to convert all the psilocybin into psilocin first and then doing the dreaded freebasing. Oxygen, light, heat and alkaline conditions are all involved and all destroy psilocin remarkably quickly so the extraction has to be fast and some precautions have to be taken to maximize yield. It's still not very efficient but since mushrooms are finally in unlimited supply I don't think that matters much. The pure psilocin reportedly produces a very clean trip. I haven't been this excited in some time.

I will do an update on this later on.

 

[Wienerwoods]

Another thing I wanted to write about is syrian rue. My interest in the harmala alkaloids multiplied around New Year's when I discovered its synergistic effects with cannabis. The cannabis high is unbelievably strong, longer lasting, more euphoric, less couch-locking and you actually need to smoke less to achieve it. A neutral remark is that appetite no longer seems to get stimulated. Food still tastes great, but you get no urges to eat anything and everything.

That alone is really cool, but the ultimate combination seems to be 150 mg of oral harmala HCl with 2.5g shrooms and weed. A combo like this produces highly individual subjective effects but for me at least, especially right after the peak, smoking weed produces a feeling I would describe as very similar to 200µg LSD but amplified and more euphoric.


In the past few months, I have made several extractions from syrian rue seeds and yielded 5-6% alkaloids by weight. It's a super simple procedure but still a lot of work due to all the filtering required.
I recently found that the seeds don't have to be ground up if the initial extraction is done using a pressure cooker at 15 PSI. This also saves me a shitload of time. It now takes 3 days to extract and purify what took 5 days before.

In practice, there are two forms of the harmala alkaloids (the extract is a mix of Harmine/Harmaline):
the water soluble salt form and the water-insoluble freebase. Freebase is about 15% lighter than the salt form.

Both can be taken sublingually, but freebase tastes less bitter.
Both can be taken orally, but freebase upsets your stomach a lot more.
Freebase can also be smoked, which is really convenient but rather nasty due to all the stains the smoke leaves. Big clumps of freebase can also turn into rock and easily clog a joint for example. To avoid this it needs to be mixed in well.

^freebase (left) and HCl salt (right)

^HCl crystals forming in saline solution (first manske)

^Freebased alkaloids falling out of solution and settling behind a speaker playing the 50Hz frequency.

^Highly purified salt crystals (after third manske)

 

[Wienerwoods]

Small update on the pinning progress.

I've never seen anything like this. There are only a few fruits that don't have a very pronounced conical cap. They look extremely cool. The fruitbody that this clone is from exhibited a very subtle nipple but nothing close to these even as a pin. If only clones didn't become senescent as they multiply.

 

[Wienerwoods]

The first flush was harvested this morning.

Yield was about 400 grams (400*0.07 = 28 dry grams)

 

[Roasty McToasty]

The first flush was harvested this morning.

Yield was about 400 grams (400*0.07 = 28 dry grams)

Nice haul dude, they look lovely.

 

[Wienerwoods]

Thanks! It's quite an amazing feeling to harvest this much after all that PF-tek. Two months of work gets condensed to just a few weeks of what I really wouldn't even call work! Information-wise it's a fair bit more involved but all the studying pays off really well.

 

[Roasty McToasty]

Ya man, I had a much harder time trying pf tek. WBS spawned to bulk has served me well for years.
Will you remind me of the strain your using?

 

[Wienerwoods]

Will you remind me of the strain your using?

This is the Argentinian cubensis. Multispore looks just like a normal cubensis would but I seem to have gotten lucky with a clone I took off a PF-tek fruit - IMO the nipple looks really cool during all stages of maturity.
Soon I'll hopefully be getting some penis envy prints. Those ought to be fun!

 

[Roasty McToasty]

This is the Argentinian cubensis. Multispore looks just like a normal cubensis would but I seem to have gotten lucky with a clone I took off a PF-tek fruit - IMO the nipple looks really cool during all stages of maturity.
Soon I'll hopefully be getting some penis envy prints. Those ought to be fun!

Ya bro, PE is awesome. I didn't get huge yields, but the fruit is POTENT. For yield I have had great results from Escondido, people seem to like the buzz a lot too.

 

[Wienerwoods]

Ya bro, PE is awesome. I didn't get huge yields, but the fruit is POTENT. For yield I have had great results from Escondido, people seem to like the buzz a lot too.

The alleged difference in potency is what interests me the most - maybe they contain constantly more psilocybin and less psilocin for some reason? In any case the hype is real