Amanita pantherina caps that are immediately vacuum packed upon arrival and stored at 0C to preserve potency and to create the storage conditions that support efficient solid state decarboxylation of Ibotenic acid to muscimol which continues during storage.
Store your dried amanita in a sealed bag in the freezer. Remove as much air as possible. It really makes a difference. Vacuum packed Amanita stored at 0F will actually increase in potency over time compared to storage at 70F, where potency loss over time does occure.
During extraction and decarboxylation, some new variables to consider testing are:
1. Water contains dissolved oxygen. Musicmol reacts with Oxygen. Boiling the water for 30 min before adding the powdered mushrooms will remove a lot of the dissolved oxygen. During extraction and decarboxylation, try to keep the water temp just below the boiling point. The bursting bubbles are like an egg-beater mixing the muscimol in the hot water with oxygen in the atmosphere. This promotes oxidation of muscimol. Keep the pot covered. This will condense a lot of the evaporated water back to the pot returning the small 2-4% of muscimol carried off with the steam via entrainment. The lid also helps create a lower oxygen environment inside the pot. The most efficient method is using a pressure cooker. Heat your acidified filtrate (extract) at 250F for 45-60 min. You will get 30% more muscimol yield than boiling in a round bottom flask with a condenser attached. Decarboxylation at 250F is about 4X faster.
While it is possible to make a concentrated paste extract, evaporating off teh water with heat will degrade a lot of or even almost all of the muscimol. Muscimol more stable than Ibotenic acid, but muscimol is still a reactive, unstable compound. A is possible the pastes will be active, but it will cost you a lot of muscimol in the process. Important note, muscarine, a toxin, is very thermally stable. It will not degrade during a concentrating step. Muscimol will degrade. So, you are increasing the ratio of muscarine to muscimol in the final product. Negative side effects from muscarine toxicity are more likely using paste concentrates than mushroom tea.
Most mushrooms bioaccumulate heavy metals. Extracting your mushrooms in acidified water will extract more heavy metals than using pH neutral water. Ibotenic acid and muscimol are both very water soluble and easily extracted into water. Steeping powdered amanita 5-10 min in 200F water is enough. Some stirring is helpful. Steeping whole mushrooms or mushroom pieces yields less actives than steeping powder.