I get my lions mane dried from Asian grocery. I’m interested if anyone has resources for growing these?
Kim, ask member Bicep as he grows mushrooms professional.
I do batches occasionally, usually about 40 lbs at a time. I dry them and grind into powder. They are a very tasty mushroom when fresh, and last quite a while in the fridge too.
In winter it is hard to get a good bloom on them because the CO2 builds up and since you need nearly 100% humidity, this gets hard to pay for the air exchange. In summer I plan to build a little , part underground, hut with walls made of something that can evaporate water and cheaply finish them. It’s a hobby and takes more time and effort than I can maintain the enthusiasm for.
Also the mycelium has the really good stuff, so really a person should be eating that. You have to use ground corn and do small batches to allow air circulation. I have read the papers about this, but not mastered it yet.
I recommend anyone interested get started by reading Rush Wayne’s book on Non-Sterile Mushroom Cultivation. Before that one he did a couple on Growing Mushrooms the Easy way (with peroxide) Volumes 1 and 2. Paul Stamets has written several books also and they are fun to read. Mycelium Running is the best.
Hey Bicep… you sell any of the 40 pounds of Lions Mane powder?
I might need to road trip up to see you in Iowa.
Seriously!
How about we group order, for Bicep to produce?
Unfortunately, this is a very sketchy study, not actually on humans.
“Laboratory tests measured the neurotrophic effects of compounds isolated from Hericium erinaceus on cultured brain cells”
I hope that this is true.
Lions mane is a supplement I took for quite some time, but felt no subjective results or noticed any effect on my blood tests.
It would be very hard to measure the effect on humans.
Lions mane has been highly touted by several Youtube health gurus and that is what prompted me to try it. Because my supplement stack tends to get out of control, I eliminate those supplements that don’t have a subjective or measurable result.
Yes, I tried several brands before I stopped taking it.
If any of the forum members have experienced a significant subjective or measurable result I would like to hear it.
BTW: The majority of people that I have checked out seem to have a financial interest or tie to the suppliers.
In this case, Dr Dae Hee Lee from CNGBio Co has an interest:
“CNG Bio Corporation was established in February, 2015 based on a corporation named CNG Organic Farming Association, which is a traditional firm that has professionally manufactured only mushrooms over 40 years since 1972 (been through 2 generations).”
https://cngbio.gobizkorea.com/mini/site/miniSiteMain.do?domn_id=cngbio
Wow - I think thats about $5,000 worth in any California store where you can buy them (e.g. Whole Foods, or the Berkeley Bowl)… 
Are they hard to grow? Where do you get your seeds?
I’ve not ever noticed anything, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t work since I don’t know whether I would have declined without. I think humans are pretty bad at noticing things that happen over time. The longer the time the worse we are.
There is a long list of well known chemicals that are present in respectable amounts in the Lion’s Mane: Beta-D-Glucans,Galactoxyloglucan,Glucoxylan,Mannoglucoxylan, Xylan,…Glutathione and ergothioneine. Also respectable amounts of Spermadine,and vitamin D2.
The one’s unique to Lion’s Mane:
Hericenones and Erinacines, and the Erinacines come from the mycelium only.
So it is a delicious and nutritious food and nearly 90% water so the dried powder is a great supplement. It is being grown more cheaply than I can compete with, but I’m not doing it professionally (though I’ve sold a few).
I buy Shiitake more and more because I think it works well also, though if you started taking it you would say you feel nothing different.
https://sci-hub.ru/10.2220/biomedres.40.125
You don’t have to believe studies either, but they are out there.
Yes, here they are about $5/lb and my college roommate from Dallas sent me a picture of one in a store there for $35/lb. If we had a market like that here I would feel completely different about it.
I usually go to North Spore to buy plugs, you get 100 for about $15. That keeps me going for about a year. You use plates with Agar, in a couple weeks transfer to jars of corn, then that will be the “seed” for bags of sawdust, which turn into the mushrooms.
When I got started it was because my son in law bought me a bag of sawdust from the farmers market and it grew a couple pounds of Lion’s Mane. I thought "wow, this guy is turning sawdust into mushrooms that are worh $5/lb. I’m in.
For me a batch is 50 lb of sawdust, supplements and water. While I’m at it I usually do a couple or three batches.
We (wife and I) went up to see the kid that grew the bag I bought to Sioux Falls. Dakota microgreens and mushrooms. He gave me a tour and talked about how he got started, he was just getting started. To tell you the truth, my impression was that he was more likely to get high on his supply than to actually run a business. My impression was wrong. This guy is actually hitting it out of the park, I don’t know how he did it. You can now buy 5 different kinds of mushrooms from Hyvee from his plant.
I’d love to drop in on him again. He can’t be doing it like he was when we were there. Also the marketing. Seriously a lot of work to run a business like that and he was renting his place. Nothing but respect for this guy.
I’m a conventional Iowa farmer. I raise corn and beans now. Years ago my brother and I raised enough popcorn to feed the state of Iowa for a year and it was all ear harvested. Hard work and lots of risk and I don’t need it any more.
Shamelessly…
A PDF copy of “Mycelium Running” see link below;
https://drive.google.com/file/d/13Jptk-LRSkO2xWN5WLGFO6ObeJcTPyjF/view?usp=drivesdk
And a PDF copy of “Growing Mushrooms the Easy way” Volumes 1 and 2
culture-eau-oxygenee-Vols1-2new.pdf (462.8 KB)
Growing Mushrooms with Hydrogen Peroxide–Updates
Too bad it doesn’t seem to be a permanent fix. You have to keep swallowing.
4 capsules 3 times a day seems like a small dose to me. I take a heaping tablespoon.
I’d like to see what happens if you take the Erinacine with it. They have the real power.
That is the site I watch monthly for studies done on medicinal mushrooms.
Just for @Bicep
Life Extension magazine had an update on mushrooms too!
Uploading: Life Extension musg 1.jpeg…
I already like mushrooms - just need to eat more I guess. Bicep you have a friend discount on those tasty fungi?
FWIW…
Do not know anything about this company{below link] just came across as I am looking. They list bulk powder and capsules.
Hello all. I had a major head injury at 35 years of age. A subdural haematoma for which I had emergency brain surgery at a New Zealand hospital. I lost what was an almost photographic memory. I did all the things required to get it back (reading and memory stuff) but I stopped progressing after about 8 years. Then I tried lion’s mane and things started to return in a different way. The best example I can give (as all of this is subjective) is, for instance, as you leave your house to go out suddenly you remember to go back in and grab something that you may need for whatever the reason for your outing was. I.e it just’pops into your head’. It was that popping into my head that returned after taking the mushrooms. Apparently micro dosing pyschedelic mushrooms has the same effect. I, of course, would have no direct knowledge of that whatsoever. definitely worth pursuing if you live in a more enlightened part of the world though.
Hi, and welcome to the forum! Good to hear that things have moved in the right direction after the head injury. Are you still taking Lions Main mushrooms on a regular basis? How do you take them - eating the actual mushrooms, or a supplement or powder?