Making mushroom tincture first time trying.

Was wondering if anyone is familiar with making mushroom tinctures. Started with 100proof.. 50% abv soaked for 4 weeks.  Tested with hydrometer was 26% abv. Sat in Mason jar in dark room. Why the loss of alcohol? I had parchment paper between the top of jar and lid. My first time trying.

Side note did use very small amount of food grade glycerine to keep dried mushrooms submerged. Wouldn't think k be enough to change the abv by roughly 20%.

I've made mushroom tinctures many times, but I've never tested the alcohol content during the process. I'm not sure why the alcohol content went down. I'm also curious what species of mushrooms you used.

At any rate,  at this point I would probably add water, simmer it and do the second extraction as per this video by Tony at Freshcap Mushrooms:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjbmb4JLBTY

This video is probably the best one I've seen on this topic because it's short,  simple and easy to follow the instructions. The double extraction process is best for medicinal species such as lion's mane and the reishi/ling chih group- you'll get the full spectrum of medicinal compounds. Good luck!

Thanks for the video. I was using lions mane mushrooms that I grew and freeze dried. Yes I did do double extraction.  Learned next time not to simmer decotion down so much.  Learned a lot through it; thinking might try food grade 200 proof alcohol.

I'm glad to hear that the video was helpful. Tony at Freshcap Mushrooms has one of the best shows on youtube for mushroom growers, it's called The Mushroom Show.

I also sometimes use Everclear 200 proof 100% grain alcohol for my tinctures. That way you can add quite a bit of extra water and not worry about anything strange growing in it.

If you're heating an alcohol/water mix the alcohol will likely evaporate more quickly than the water, could that be where the alcohol loss came from?  

I didn't heat the alcohol. Though you  would be correct if it were the situation. Starting to think maybe the glycerin changed density thus making it seem lower? Even tho was small amount.

Also used distilled water for decotion. Reading tap water is full of minerals and what not. Taking up space of the compounds i want in it but not getting where distilled is well more or less free of most impurities thus getting more of what you want.  I would believe same then for alcohol which my thinking is 200 proof should be free of things I'm not wanting.