The Humdrum Extraction Process
Each of our mushroom products contains a potent, full-spectrum extract of a particular functional mushroom.
People have been making, extracts, including mushroom extracts, for thousands of years. Coffee, for example, is actually a hot water extract, because it draws out the caffeine and other molecules from the ground coffee beans and puts them into solution. A mushroom extract is similar; we use hot water or a mix of water and food grade ethanol to capture the compounds of interest, while removing any unwanted contaminants, as well as solid parts of the mushroom that are indigestible. The difference from tea and coffee is that we then greatly concentrate that extract by removing the water and ethanol.
Most products on the market use desiccated Chinese mushrooms that are extracted or partially extracted. That extract is then shipped to other parts of the world where it is further processed with other ingredients, packaged and marketed.
Here at Humdrum, we only use 100% pure mushroom fruiting bodies in the extracts that go into our chews. When you buy mushrooms at the store, you are actually buying the fruiting body of the mushroom. There is no grain or mycelium in our chews.
Our mushrooms are grown on in special growing chambers that provide filtered air and the optimum temperature and humidity for each species. Most species are grown on a special substrate containing organic oats and clean wood chips.
Humdrum’s extracts and mushrooms chews could not be fresher, because our mushrooms are harvested on the same day, at the same farm facility in which our extraction process occurs, and that extract goes into our mushrooms chews immediately.
Humdrum’s five-step extraction process:
1. Fresh Mushroom Preparation
Mushroom fruiting bodies are harvested at the optimum time, cleaned and immediately dried under low heat to remove water. They are then extremely finely chopped and placed in distilled hot water or diluted food grade ethanol, or both in sequence, depending on the species and the specific compounds we are collecting.
2. Extraction with Ultrasound
We then treat this liquid-mushroom solution with ultrasonic waves, at power levels and lengths of time that are specific to each species.
Ultrasound works by creating microscopic bubbles in the liquid. Those bubbles actually very quickly and efficiently open the mushroom cell walls, allowing a greater amount of precious intracellular compounds to escape the cells and dissolve into the solution.
This greatly boosts the yield of precious molecules, while protecting them from the high heat that most other companies expose them to during extraction.
Most companies use a powdered extract made overseas, and use high heat and long extraction times (up to weeks) to soften the mushroom cell walls and let the molecules seep into solution. Our use of ultrasound greatly increases the speed, potency and yield of the extraction process. Some of the precious compounds degrade in high heat over time, but because ultrasound allows us to use lower temperatures, we can prevent degradation.
4. Dual Extraction
Most beneficial compounds in functional mushrooms are either primarily water-soluble (such as the 1,3 1,6 beta-glucans), or alcohol-soluble (such as the triterpenes and other similar compounds). For most, but not all, mushrooms, in order to extract the full spectrum of compounds, it is necessary to do both water and ethanol extractions in sequence. This is called a “dual extract”. First, we capture compounds that are more soluble in water, then we those that are soluble in ethanol, using ultrasound with each, separately.
5. Concentrating the Extract
Concentrating the extract allows us to deliver a much greater amount of bioactive compounds, in a much smaller volume.
The remaining mushroom solids are strained out of the extracts, and the water and ethanol are vacuum-evaporated away , We’re left with two concentrated liquid-free mushroom extracts, which we combine at a 50-50 ratio. This dual extract is 10 times more concentrated than the same amount of dried mushroom by weight, and it delivers 10 times more bioactive compounds to you than the same weight of unextracted mushroom powder would. It is the last ingredient added to our already-cooked but still liquid chew recipe, avoiding any exposure to additional heat.
Our Extraction Ratio
The extraction ratio of each functional mushroom extract tells you how much dried mushroom was used to create the extract in the chew you receive.
We use 10:1 extraction ratios to make all the extracts that go into our chews. What does 10:1 mean? For example, our 10:1 extracts are produced by starting with 10 kg of freshly dried mushroom fruiting bodies. We use an ultrasound extraction method with hot water and/or ethanol to release the compounds into the liquid and remove any unwanted contaminants. This liquid’s volume is then reduced under a vacuum, allowing use of much lower temperatures down to 1 kg of a liquid free extract. This is 10 times more concentrated than the original volume, yet retains all of the soluble beneficial compounds from the original 10 kg of dried mushrooms.
Of course, it’s much more convenient to eat one of our sweet and tasty chews than having to eat ten times that weight in dried mushrooms, or 100 times that weight in fresh mushrooms, (fresh mushrooms are about 90% water by weight)
Each of our chews contains about 1250 mg of a 10:1 extract, equivalent to 12.5 g of dried lion’s mane mushroom, or about 115 g (about 4 ounces, or ¼ pound) of fresh lion’s mane mushroom. That’s equivalent to eating a healthy portion of cooked mushrooms for dinner, for the same benefit - or, actually more benefit than that healthy portion – because, even with lightly cooked mushrooms, some of those active compounds are still locked behind undigestible cell walls, unavailable to you even if you eat them. That’s how we can deliver a daily dose that is among the highest in the industry, with the fullest spectrum of valuable nutrients, to you, every day!