I Grew A Lot of Wine Cap Mushrooms! How do I Preserve and Store Them?

Fungi play very important roles in soil health and quality. Wine cap mushrooms are super easy to grow and are a great choice for beginners. These mushrooms really took off like crazy in my garden, and I am experimenting with different ways of preserving them.
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[@m5317-w8e]

i just got my first wine cap haul as well this past fall. I sliced and dehydrated in a dehydrator and that works great but slow. The other way i did was slicing , sautéing and freezing.

[@terra-blegardeningvideos]

Brilliant! Awesome to hear, thanks so much! That's cool that you have experience with a food dehydrator. I know wine caps have a very high water content, and the chitin can be relatively tough, somewhat complicating the drying process. I will definitely continue to experiment with drying them. Sauteing them before freezing is pretty interesting, I will have to try that. I'd figure it'd probably be a great addition to hummus, soups, stir fries etc. Thanks again!

[@Zulwind]

Grab a NESCO dehydrator and slice them thin and load it up on 95 degrees let them dry overnight and store in glass jars with dry-n-dry desiccant packets. In a gallon jar you can fit probably 5 lbs or more of mushrooms. That whole patch would only be like 3 or four big jars of dry mushrooms. I could eat all that in less than a year just making spaghetti.

[@terra-blegardeningvideos]

Very good information, thank you! That is something I will definitely have to look into and give it a shot.

[@stschubs]

I'm sure you've changed your routine, but Id suggest to get a dehydator. I've freeze dried and dehydrated and had fantastic results with both!

[@terra-blegardeningvideos]

Thank you for the recommendation!

[@snappps]

What about a regular dehydrator?

[@terra-blegardeningvideos]

If you have one, then that is probably one of the best options! I do not lol...but probably should.

[@pacman3536]

Dehydrators are cheap. They last forever....only way to dry mushrooms, at least until you can afford $3000 harvest right freeze dryer. Store the dried mushrooms in a sealed container with a silica pack or two. Otherwise they can get leathery

[@terra-blegardeningvideos]

Very good information! Thank you!

[@beniftp4865]

1:42 Hello, how did you do so much, what soil do you have and what type of mulch did you use?

[@terra-blegardeningvideos]

Hello, when I first spread and covered the wine cap grain spawn in the early Spring, I just made sure there was plenty of mulch ( I think I had 4-5 inches, with a layer of cardboard at the bottom. That Spring I got a pretty minimal harvest. The mycelium continued to grow throughout the Summer under the wood chips. In the Fall, when temperatures began to cool somewhat and moisture was adequate (i.e., after a good rain) there were 2 huge flushes of wine caps. The soil and all the decomposed organic matter they left behind was pretty amazing, at least by standards. I used some of that residual soil as a potting mix for my plant starts the next year. The results were impressive.

[@intothefoxhole7985]

Excalibur dehydrator 10 trays 110f-115f approx

[@terra-blegardeningvideos]

Nice!!

[@lravenhill]

People used to dry things high over a fire.

[@terra-blegardeningvideos]

nice, I will have to try that. It might also add some interesting tones to the flavor! Thanks!

[@anonymousfx5254]

it ruins the taste and destroys the flavor. They are basically getting cooked same as on frying pan. The only way is dry em up by cutting them and drying under sun or in dry place. They usually getting fully dried within 3-4 days and this way they keep natural flavor and can be stored for years in jars. i've done plenty of drying myself and test both over fire and under sun. Over fire they are just like cooked mushrooms, while if they are dried under sun or or dry place- they get to keep natural taste and smell. The best thing you can do is grind those shrooms along with basil and pepper and you get yourself amazing seasoning.

[@sarahpalm7661]

What zone are you in? I'm really tempted to buy some wine cap spores but I'm worried they won't take.

[@terra-blegardeningvideos]

Zone 6b-7. They can definitely be grown further North. Probably South too but I don't know for sure. When temps go above 70F wine caps will go dormant until temps decrease again. Probably the further South one goes, the wine caps would 'fruit' closer to Winter time.

[@LeeValentine001]

Give it a go! Seriously, Wine Cap are so prolific that you'll probably have success just about anywhere. If where you live gets extremely cold / snows, you could experiment with a small patch first and build a mini greenhouse / cold frame to keep them in, or even find a space in the house or garage really. Just make sure not to use any treated material for your substrate (I used dyed wood chips the first time... they grew no problem but I realised they'd potentially be toxic and had to start all over again). A combination of straw (sugar cane mulch is great) and any untreated woodchips is ideal. The mycelium can breakdown the straw rather quickly to build itself up before eating the wood chips, kind of like a combination of kindling and logs for a fire.

[@anonymousfx5254]

Do not dry mushrooms in oven. They are getting cooked and that's not what you want when drying mushrooms for storing. Best way is to to use thread and needle and dry them in dry place, street even under direct sun. This way they dry up and keep their mushroomy smell. Then you place them in jar and keep em in dark place. Whenever you want to use them for cooking, take em out, throw em in water and let em rest in water for hour or so. Then they are good to go. You can also grind them to dust and use as a seasoning .

[@terra-blegardeningvideos]

Thanks for sharing! When air dying, maybe good sun exposure is the key, when I dried air-drying a couple years ago the wine caps 'melted' with maggots eating them from the inside. But they didn't get a whole lot of direct sun exposure. Maybe I will try this again with that in mind.

[@anonymousfx5254]

@@terra-blegardeningvideos also when drying outside the house, take them inside the house after 6pm cause that's when humidity increases and early in the morning there's increased condensation and therefore they will absorb lot of liquid from air and this will cause rot and slow drying. Take them in after 6pm and take em out after 8am(summer example) During rainy days don't keep em outside cause mushrooms absorb liquid too fast and once they do- they rot

[@terra-blegardeningvideos]

Awesome!! Will do, thank you!!

[@minhducnguyen9276]

You can try making mushrooms ketchup out of them. The byproduct can also be used as seasoning. The channel Townsend made a video about this interesting sauce.

[@terra-blegardeningvideos]

Wow! That's crazy awesome! I will absolutely have to try that. I was familiar with their channel, but not that particular video, many thanks for the recommendation. It's also cool that nothing goes to waste, one can make both the mushroom ketchup and the mushroom powder. Thanks again!

[@baneverything5580]

One of these days I`m gonna try to make a mushroom patch. I`ve only seen a few here that I didn`t recognize except one classic "illegal" Muscaria under a pine I accidentally kicked while mowing. Luckily no DEA helicopters landed.

[@terra-blegardeningvideos]

Nice lol, btw I am trying my hand at growing chestnuts this year too, another outdoor edible mushroom.