Introduction
BaltiSpore is committed to quality at every step of our mushroom tincture process. We’re a local Baltimore-based company that either grows our own mushrooms or sources them responsibly, and we extract their goodness with care. In this article, we’ll walk you through our dual-extraction method, explain why we insist on using only actual mushroom fruiting bodies (never mycelium on grain), and how our sourcing practices ensure transparency and trust. By understanding our extraction process and sourcing standards, you’ll see why BaltiSpore’s tinctures stand apart in terms of purity and potency.
Fully Integrated In-House Tinctures (Baltimore Grown)
One of the things that makes BaltiSpore special is that we’re fully integrated for many of our tinctures. This means we grow, harvest, extract, and bottle certain mushroom varieties entirely in-house, right here in Baltimore. For example, we cultivate Lion’s Mane, Cordyceps, Reishi, and Turkey Tail mushrooms at our urban farm. These mushrooms are lovingly grown under controlled conditions until their fruiting bodies are mature and packed with beneficial compounds. We harvest them at peak potency and immediately begin our extraction process on-site.
By managing cultivation ourselves, we maintain complete quality control from start to finish. Grown and bottled in Baltimore, these tinctures reflect our hands-on approach and minimize any supply chain uncertainties. Local cultivation also means the mushrooms don’t lose freshness or potency in long transit — they go from farm to bottle in the shortest time possible, locking in all the natural goodness. We’re proud that our Lion’s Mane, Cordyceps, Reishi, and Turkey Tail tinctures are truly Baltimore-grown products, giving you a direct connection to our homegrown fungi.
Responsibly Sourced Mushroom Fruiting Bodies
For some of our other mushroom tinctures, we take a responsible sourcing approach. Not every type of mushroom thrives in our urban farm setting or is feasible to grow year-round, so for varieties like Chaga, Tremella, Poria, and Maitake, we partner with trusted suppliers. We carefully select trusted farms and foragers who can provide us with high-quality fruiting bodies of these mushrooms.
Crucially, even when we source mushrooms, we never compromise on quality. We ensure our partners use sustainable and ethical practices (for instance, Chaga is wild-harvested in a way that doesn’t harm its native environment). They ship us only the actual mushroom fruiting bodies — no mycelium mass, no fillers. Once these raw mushrooms arrive at our facility, we handle everything else in-house: we dry or prep them as needed and then perform the extraction and bottling ourselves. This way, we apply the same level of care and oversight as we do with our homegrown varieties.
By responsibly sourcing certain mushrooms, we can offer a broader range of tinctures while still guaranteeing that every BaltiSpore tincture is made from 100% real mushrooms. No matter if we grew it or a partner did, the extraction and preparation happen under our roof, under our quality standards. This transparency in sourcing means you’ll always know where the mushrooms in your supplement came from.
Our Dual-Extraction Process (Hot Water + Alcohol)
Whether our mushrooms are homegrown or responsibly sourced, all BaltiSpore tinctures go through a dual-extraction process (also called a double extraction). This traditional technique uses two solvents – hot water and alcohol – to draw out all the beneficial compounds from the mushroom. Why two steps? Different important compounds in medicinal mushrooms require different extraction methods.
In the first step, we perform a hot water decoction (essentially a long simmer or boil). This extracts the water-soluble compounds, chiefly the polysaccharides known as beta-glucans parkseed.com. Beta-glucans are renowned for their health benefits – they’re a type of soluble fiber linked to immune support, heart health, healthy cholesterol levels, and blood sugar regulationparkseed.com. By simmering the mushroom fruiting bodies in water, we break down the chitin in the cell walls and release these beta-glucans into the solution.
Next, we extract the same mushroom material in alcohol (a long soak in a high-proof alcohol). This pulls out the alcohol-soluble constituents, notably triterpenes and other bioactive compounds that water alone can’t extractparkseed.com. Triterpenes (such as ganoderic acids in Reishi) are associated with antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties, among other wellness benefitsparkseed.com. Some of these compounds are only present or most abundant in the mushroom’s fruiting body and require alcohol to dissolve out.
Finally, we combine the two extracts (the water decoction and the alcohol tincture) into one potent solution. This dual extraction ensures that our tinctures deliver a full-spectrum of beneficial compounds. As one source puts it, to get the complete benefits of medicinal mushrooms, both the hot water and alcohol extractions need to be performedmindfullmycology.com. We don’t cut corners on this process. In fact, each species of mushroom gets its own optimized treatment – we adjust extraction time and temperature depending on whether it’s Lion’s Mane, Reishi, etc., to best capture its unique constituents. The result is a tincture that contains the best of both worlds: the polysaccharides (like beta-glucans) and the terpenes/phenolics, all in one bottle.
Only Fruiting Bodies, No Mycelium or Fillers – Our Quality Promise
When we say our tinctures are made from 100% mushrooms, we mean the actual fruiting bodies of the fungi. We do not use mycelium grown on grain, and we certainly don’t include any grain fillers. This is a deliberate choice for quality and efficacy. The fruiting body (the part of the mushroom you can see and touch) typically contains the highest concentration of the very compounds people seek from medicinal mushroomsnammex.com. Analyses have shown that real mushrooms are rich in beta-D-glucans and very low in starch, whereas mycelium cultivated on grains has the opposite profile – low in beta-glucans but very high in starchy fillernammex.com. In other words, a lot of “mycelium” products on the market are actually a lot of grain with relatively few mushroom compounds.
By sticking to fruiting bodies only, BaltiSpore avoids those shortcuts that dilute the effectiveness of the final product. Research also indicates that mushrooms grown on their natural substrates can produce important secondary metabolites (like the triterpenoids in Reishi or Chaga), and mycelium-on-grain simply lacks the precursors to create thosenammex.com. For example, one analysis noted that certain triterpenes found abundantly in Reishi mushrooms aren’t even detectable in Reishi myceliummindfullmycology.com. This is why we refuse to use mycelium biomass as an ingredient – it just doesn’t measure up to the real thing.
Beyond the mushrooms themselves, we don’t add any fillers or fluff to our tinctures. There are no extra starches, no artificial flavors, and no unnecessary additives. The liquid in each bottle is purely the concentrated extract of the mushroom (along with the food-grade alcohol and water used as solvents). The tinctures might have a natural earthy taste – a sign that you’re getting an authentic extract. We believe in delivering potency over palatability, so while some brands might dilute their product or mix in sweeteners, we keep ours as potent and pure as possible. You can always dilute a dose in coffee/tea or water if the flavor is strong, but you can’t add back missing compounds that were never there to begin with!
Finally, our commitment to quality is backed by transparency. We’re happy to share exactly how we make our products and what goes into them. No misleading marketing here – when we show a picture of a Reishi mushroom on our bottle, it’s because that’s what’s inside the bottle (not some mycelium grown on rice with a tiny bit of mushroom). We also make sure each batch undergoes quality checks, and we adhere to stringent standards for cleanliness and extraction efficacy. It’s all part of our “no shortcuts” ethos.
Conclusion: Transparency You Can Trust
Choosing a mushroom supplement should come with peace of mind. At BaltiSpore, we’ve built our process to be transparent and trustworthy at every step, from cultivation or sourcing to the final tincture. If it’s one of our fully integrated tinctures, you know the mushrooms were grown right here in Baltimore by our team. If it’s a tincture made from responsibly sourced mushrooms, you know we’ve vetted our partners and still done all the extraction work in-house to maintain quality control. And in every single tincture, you can trust that the only mushroom material used is the true fruiting body, extracted twice over (hot water + alcohol) to capture all the beneficial compounds without any fillers.
We hope this behind-the-scenes look at our extraction process and sourcing gives you confidence in the quality of BaltiSpore’s products. We’re passionate about mushrooms and refuse to take shortcuts that would compromise their benefits. When you take our tinctures, you’re getting the result of careful cultivation, rigorous dual extraction, and a commitment to purity and potency. In short, you’re getting the mushroom supplement we’d want to buy for ourselves. Thank you for trusting BaltiSpore, and as always, happy mushrooming!