INSTRUCTIONS How to test psilocybin (magic mushrooms)?
How to test magic mushrooms?
Analysing mushrooms is confusing. Fungi contain hundreds of chemicals, some of which cause false positive results for psilocybin, the main active psychedelic ingredient. For reliable results we recommend to use a lab analysis service, but if it’s not available try the following two simple methods:
- Bruising
- Observation
The best test for psilocybin (magic mushrooms)
The only truly reliable (and simple) way to check if mushrooms contain psilocybin is to pinch them when they are not fully dried and see if any blue bruising appears.
Apart from bruising, other two distinct characteristics of psilocybe mushroom species are:
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They have a veil around their gills when growing
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Purple-brown spores that leave distinct prints
Psilocibe mushrooms bruising
Psilocybin (magic mushrooms) test kit
Unfortunately contrary to popular belief (and some false advertising) Ehrlich reagent, the most popular test for “shrooms” is NOT specific to psilocybin (or psilocin). Ehrlich reacts with a pink color change to all indoles, such as psilocybin, but also other alkaloids, like tryptophan. This means that non psychoactive mushrooms can produce false positive results with Ehrlich reagent.
False positives are usually not a dead end but there are no good follow-up reagent tests for plants or fungi.
White button reacting with Ehrlich
Reagents presumptively indicate PRESENCE, but not PURITY or QUANTITY. To detect all ingredients and estimate potency it’s required to use an additional purity test kit. A positive or negative test result does not indicate if the substance is safe. No substance is 100% safe.
23 September 2021 @ 16:46
There is now a psilocybin test kit available. I was one of the first customers for them and wrote up a review of it [redacted].
I didn’t compare the results with a proper lab test, so I can’t confirm if the numbers I got were accurate, other than that it didn’t detect any psilocybin in champignons I bought from the supermarket.
6 October 2021 @ 08:15
Thank you for your comment. We are aware that psyloc(yb)in can be extracted and identified, however we can only agree with your own conclusion about that particular product – “As with most tests involving eye balling a colour chart, it was hard to pick where to place it”. Your own result photo does not match the reference chart at all. Unfortunately that test kit is neither reliable nor precise, and at 15 EUR per test we strongly feel it is worse than flipping a coin. We looked into reagent potency tests, but they are dishonest and not up to our standards.
11 November 2021 @ 18:28
Ignore step one. This is terrible advice, if found by someone foraging. Do NOT eat a mushroom if your only indicator is that you’ve pinched it and it’s turned blue.
There are many mushrooms you can pinch, and they turn blue. That are non-edible or non-psychadelic.
And many that are even poisonous. This is a myth.
11 November 2021 @ 19:02
It’s no myth, please take a look at the recently published research paper https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdfdirect/10.1002/ange.201910175. Of course no presumptive analysis method is infallible, but blue bruising (along with two other features, most notably gills and purple-brown spore print) provides strong evidence that a particular mushroom is an active psilocybin mushroom. In any case you should ALWAYS assume a sample of unknown origin can contain an unexpected substance – unless you have access to lab testing.