What Is A Magic Mushroom Spore Vial?

Cultivating your own magic mushrooms at home is a highly satisfying, months-long challenge that comes with the added benefit of growing a potentially limitless amount of Psilocybe mushrooms for your own consumption. If you want to take control of your psychedelic life, this is how.

The first step in growing magic mushrooms is sourcing spores—but then they need to be stored. The best way to purchase and store magic mushroom spores is in a spore vial. Easy to use, reuse, and store for long periods of time, here’s all you need to know.

What is a spore vial?

A spore vial contains spores capable of producing Psilocybe mushrooms. In most cases, they contain spores from one of the many different strains of Psilocybe cubensis magic mushrooms. Usually, the vials themselves are made of glass and have a rubber cap that keeps them airtight and uncontaminated.

If the spores within are spread evenly, which can be achieved with a vigorous shake, then you can expect around 1,000 spores per millilitre of solution. This gives you plenty of growing capacity.

Spore vial vs spore syringe

You may have seen spores available online in syringes, rather than vials. There are benefits to this—the most obvious being ease. However, there are several reasons why a spore vial might suit you more than a mushroom spore syringe.

Primarily, the shelf life of spore vials is superior to syringes. While syringes last for around six months in the right conditions, vials can hold out for two years. So, if having a secure stock of magic mushroom spores to hand is something that appeals to you, vials are the safest bet.

Vials offer greater efficiency per millilitre too. Plastic syringes charge with static electricity, causing the spores to stick to their sides when stored for a long period. This means that when it comes to inoculating a substrate, you’ll be injecting fewer spores if they’ve been stored in a syringe compared to a glass vial.

Finally, due to the shape and size of a vial, they’re slightly better in terms of storage. Spore syringes tend to be large, and the needle can bend and break when in storage. A compact glass vial can tuck away nicely in the corner of the fridge.

How to use a spore vial for magic mushrooms

Using spore vials is a very easy process, as is reusing them. Here’s how to do both.

Instructions for using a spore vial

1. Vigorously shake the vial to evenly disperse the spores.

2. Insert a syringe through the rubber/silicone membrane in the top of the vial. This will reseal itself, meaning there’s no need to expose the solution to air. Pull back on the plunger to suck up the required amount of solution.

3. (Optional) If the syringe has been used before, or has been stored outside of its original packaging, then you’ll need to sterilise it. To do this, first suck up some isopropyl alcohol. Then, empty this, and repeat with boiling water, then empty. Finally, hold the needle in a flame until it is glowing red. Once the syringe is cool, it's ready to use.

4. Now it’s time to inoculate. You may be using jars with microporous tape on the top, a grow bag with a silicone seal, or some other method. In any case, pierce the seal with the needle, inject the necessary amount of solution into your substrate (or solution), remove, and, if necessary, reseal.

5. Now you wait to see if the mycelium colonises. It’s best not to reinject excess solution back into the spore vial just in case it has become contaminated. But you will be able to store the solution in the syringe for up to six months.

Instructions for reusing spore vials

Once you’ve emptied a spore vial, there’s no need to throw it away. If you create your own spore prints, you can then create your own spore solutions and store these in your existing vials.

1. You’ll need to sterilise the vial. You can do this in a pressure cooker or in a pot of boiling water.

2. Create your spore solution. To do this, create a spore print by leaving a mushroom cap on a piece of paper or foil. Then, scrape the print into sterilised water in a sterilised container (perhaps a shot glass). Suck this up using a sterilised syringe, following step 3 above. You can then decant this into the spore vial.

3. Store it appropriately and use as described above.

Are spore vials legal?

In most countries, magic mushroom spores are legal. Usually, it’s either the Psilocybe mushrooms that are illegal, or the psilocybin molecule.

In many cases, spores are sold for the purposes of microscopy, rather than cultivation. Spore microscopy is the practice of observing fungal spores under a microscope for scientific investigation.

In any case, it’s worth checking what your own domestic laws are before purchasing any potentially illegal substances.

How long do spore vials last?

As mentioned, a magic mushroom spore vial will last up to two years if stored in the correct conditions. But what are the correct conditions?

There are two essential factors. The first is that it needs to remain airtight. Fortunately, vials are designed to be airtight, and until it comes to manually refilling them, there should be no need to open them. The second is the storage temperature; around 2–8°C or 35–46°F is perfect—so a refrigerator should do it.

As you can see, magic mushroom spore vials are probably the best way to store your shroom spores. With a long shelf life, easy usage, and coming with the potential to be continually reused, they offer reliability and flexibility to anyone serious about cultivating magic mushrooms at home.

Adam Parsons

Professional cannabis journalist, copywriter, and author Adam Parsons is a long-time staff member of Zamnesia. Tasked with covering a wide range of topics from CBD to psychedelics and everything in between, Adam creates blog posts, guides, and explores an ever-growing range of products.

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