Is Dual Extraction Necessary for mushroom

Whether a mushroom extract powder should be extracted with water or alcohol or both is a question that comes up often.

Hot water is a very traditional extraction process and is the most common. Only alcohol is rarely used when making extract powders. When both water and alcohol are used, this is called a dual extract.

It is important to make sure the correct solvent is used since many mushrooms do not need dual extraction and may potentially be negatively impacted. Not only that, in many cases, non-water soluble compounds can be preserved without the need for alcohol extraction.

Note: This is addressing commercial mushroom extract powders where the liquid has been removed. If you are making your own tinctures this generally does not apply unless you are precipitating out a portion of the alcohol (see Dual Extract with Less Beta-glucans).
What is an extract?

An extract is defined as “a substance made by extracting a part of a raw material, often by using a solvent such as ethanol or water. Extracts may be sold as tinctures or in powder form”.

In this case, the raw material is mushrooms and the solvents are water and alcohol (typically ethanol).
How is a hot water extract made?

Think of a traditional hot water extract similar to making a soup stock or bone broth.

The raw materials could be mushrooms or vegetables or beef bones. These get cooked in hot water for a set period of time. Once the cooking is finished, the liquid is drained off and preserved and the solids are thrown away.

Cooking with hot water will extract out any water soluble compounds from our raw material. These will now be contained in our liquid. Compounds that are not soluble in water will be left in the solids that get thrown away at the end of the cooking period.

Note, a commercial mushroom extract is a bit more complex than this in terms of pressure, temperature, surface area of raw materials but the example above is a good general simplification.

Now, our final liquid can either be consumed as a liquid or in the case of an extract powder, this liquid is put through a spray dryer which evaporates all the water, leaving you with a powder.

For mushrooms, the primary water soluble compounds are polysaccharides like beta-glucans.
But what about non-water soluble compounds?

If we want our extract to contain non-water soluble compounds, we will need to extract the raw materials with something other than water. This is where the alcohol comes in. The alcohol will extract the non-water soluble compounds into our liquid.

With the leftover solids from our hot water extraction, we will now add them to a mixture of alcohol and water and continue to cook the solids for a set period of time. Once the cooking is done we will separate the liquid from the solids and add this liquid to our first hot water extract liquid.

Voila! A Dual Extract.

This is all and well but was it really necessary?
What are these non-water soluble compounds?

There’s a lot of talk specifically about the need to use dual extracts to get a “full spectrum” of compounds available in the mushroom.

But what are these compounds?

For reishi, we have triterpenes like ganoderic acids, many of which are non-water soluble. These are an important component of reishi which should be present in any reishi product. Triterpenes give reishi its bitter flavor as this bitterness is a good quality indicator for reishi. Reishi products that aren’t bitter can be assumed to have negligible amounts of triterpenes.

For chaga, we have triterpenes and sterols like inotodiol, trametenolic acid and betulinic acid. These are primarily non-water soluble.

For other mushrooms like cordyceps, lions mane, turkey tail, shiitake and maitake there isn’t any primary non-water soluble compounds of note.

For these reasons, we recommend dual extracts of reishi and chaga like we have in our 5 Defenders but for the other mushrooms, it’s not only unnecessary but potentially detrimental.
Are these compounds present?

The other issue with many of these non-water soluble compounds is the ability to measure them. Many of them cannot be measured so we don’t even know if they are present in the final product.

We can measure the triterpenes in Reishi using HPLC and guarantee them like in our Reishi 415.

Inotodiol in Chaga can be measured although very few labs can perform this test.

The measurement of these compounds adds an additional layer of quality. This is why we recommend that any product you choose have measured levels of beta-glucans and not polysaccharides.

It’s great to say “this is a dual extract” but without any analysis of the compounds that are supposed to be present, you have no proof if they are actually there.

Maybe it was a poor extraction?
Maybe fillers like starch and grain were added?
Maybe it’s being called a dual extract when it’s only a hot water extract?

The term “dual extract” or “hot water extract” for that matter don’t provide any real context without the analysis of the compounds they are meant to extract.
Dual Extract with Less Beta-glucans

We have seen test results of dual extracts that actually have fewer beta-glucans than their hot water extract counterparts. This is due to the fact that polysaccharides precipitate out in alcohol and are removed from the final liquid in the filtration process. This essentially removes many of the beta-glucans.

Herbalist and traditional medicine specialist, Subhuti Dharmananda Ph.D., has said the following in regards to alcohol extractions:

    In some cases, such as the immune-enhancing polysaccharides of astragalus, lonicera, medicinal mushrooms, and other herbs, alcohol is actually a poor medium for extraction because it causes the desired components to condense out of the liquid (thus none is left in the finished product). (1)

Here are some testing details courtesy of Nammex:
Hot water extract vs Dual Extract    Beta-glucans    Alpha-glucans
Reishi mushroom hot water extract    26.23%    4.59%
Reishi mushroom alcohol / hot water extract    5.5%    2.5%

Both extracts are the same ratio. A high alcohol percentage in the dual extract was used specifically to create a high triterpene extract.

So for mushrooms that have few non-water soluble compounds, a hot water extract is a more valid method of extraction. For our 5 Defenders, our shiitake, maitake and turkey tail extracts are all hot water extracts. This keeps the levels of beta-glucans high.
Non-water Soluble Compounds Without Alcohol Extraction

What if, at the end of the hot water extraction process, instead of discarding the solids, you included them in the final product?

Would the non-water soluble compounds be present without alcohol extraction?

Of course they would. As they are present in the raw materials and nothing is being removed during the extraction process, they would end up in the final product.

You may have noticed that our Chaga Extract is a hot water extract and not a dual extract. This is because the extraction process for this product does not remove any of the raw materials. All of the raw chaga is still present in the final extract powder so any non-water soluble compounds are still present.

Our Cordyceps-M, Lions Mane Extract and Chaga Extract are all special proprietary extracts from Nammex that still include the entire mushroom. Nothing is removed during the extraction process so while they are hot water extracts, all the non-water soluble compounds are still present. No medicinal constituents are removed.
The Takeaway

It may be simplistic to say that everything needs to be dual extracted. Extraction is definitely a must for medicinal mushrooms but as we’ve seen above, not all mushrooms need to be dual extracted and in some cases it’s actually detrimental. Plus, without analysis to back up that extraction, it gives no guarantee of quality.

Reprinted from www.realmushrooms.com, If you have any questions, please contact us to delete them. Thank you.