The Caps are Fabulous! The secret of Shiitake Umami flavor from dried Shiitake shrooms

Thanks for the nice feedback on my first Shiitake Shroom order! Since I did not dry them all the way - the person immediately put them in a crock pot for cooking! I knew the flavor would be strong since the smell intensified very strongly as I dried them.

These are NOT your "sawdust" indoor grown shrooms!

Wild shrooms are strong Lentinan value - over twice as much - since the shroom is competing against other fungi and also it's in the SUN - so it gets better biophoton activation.

Yes too much heat from sun is the big problem - not just the logs drying out but also it favors other fungi taking over - the main competitor being Trichoderma. But the Shiitake then creates a medicinal antibacterial enzyme to compete against the trichoderma!

So growing shrooms in the wild is very unpredictable -

The order was put in a YEAR AGO and finally had some results.

But I am sending my next batch out also - since again these shrooms were not dried all the way. The Japanese Shiitake company says they dry down to less than 9% water but then I read how the drying temp is slowing increased to only 140 F. - and after about six hours of drying I think? So starts out at maybe 100 F. and then ever couple hours is increased. Then just one hour at 140 F.

That way they are really sealing in all the flavor without too much denaturing or breaking down of the amino acids.

You do want to start drying right away to preserve the lentinan as it begins breaking down as a protein - after four hours.

So I did start drying right away and at low temp - for several hours - and then just did one hour at 158 F. which is the maximum temp for preserving the amino acids....

But I did not slice the mushroom caps - I left them whole - and so they don't dry all the way. The Japanese also do not slice their mushroom caps before they package the shroom for sale.

So I think there is a very delicate balance here - to maintain the amino acids as an active food while also drying the shroom just enough to activate the glyanic umami flavor.

Three umami receptors (T1R1 + T1R3, mGluR4, and mGluR1) were identified. There is a synergism between glutamate and the 5′-nucleotides. Among the above receptors, only T1R1 + T1R3 receptor exhibits the synergism.

 Umami the Fifth Basic Taste: History of Studies on Receptor Mechanisms and Role as a Food Flavor

So this proves that our brains really do taste Umami as a distinct flavor!

 5′-guanylate from dried shiitake mushroom [3] were also found to have umami taste.

 5′-Guanylate is produced by decomposition of ribonucleic acid. In living cells, ribonucleic acid does not contact with ribonuclease and then the decomposition does not occur. When cells are dead, cells are broken and ribonuclease contacts with ribonucleic acid. Then 5′-guanylate is produced. Optimum temperature of the enzyme is 60~70°C.

 fascinating.

  Content of 5′-guanylate in a raw mushroom is rather low but is very high in dried mushroom. In the process of drying, cells of mushroom are broken and 5′-guanylate is produced by decomposition of ribonucleic acid by ribonuclease.