#hypomyces lactifluorum

[notquitebilateral]

So. Tried another Hypomyces lactifluorum (lobster mushroom) pink dye, after accidentally forming a lake on mine last time. Started off nice and pink, I was expecting good results. Got a little concerned by the initial pigment uptake.

It turned out vivid! Not as pink as I may have wanted, but a fabulous salmon color nonetheless! The first photo is the out of the dyepot no rinse, the second is after rinsing. The small skein is a little spin I had to do because I forgot to grab a undyed sample before tossing it into the pot, it is unmordanted so did not take dye as well.

Then my purple onion skins may have been overcooked and I got a brown. •́⁠ ⁠ ⁠‿⁠ ⁠,⁠•̀

[bumblebeeappletree]

Lobster mushroom (hypomyces lactifluorum) is a wonderful fungi used to create various natural colors for your textile and craft projects. It brings a range of pink, peach, orange and purple to protein fibers like wool & silk. Lobster mushrooms are pH sensitive, so you can expand your natural dye palette by adding household items like vinegar and baking soda to shift the color to an acidic or alkaline bath. If you are a fungi fanatic with a love of foraging, the lobster mushroom is ready to be picked! This tutorial will show you how to make dye from this mushroom, shift colors with pH modifiers, as well as the resulting color swatch samples on wool yarn.

CHAPTERS

0:00 Introduction - Lobster mushroom

1:29 Lobster dye - IFFS 2022

2:27 Characteristics

4:31 pH sensitivity

4:50 Fiber prep

6:33 Ratios

7:16 Dye prep

8:25 Making skeins

9:49 Making dye

10:42 pH shift

13:18 Fiber results

15:39 Wrap up

17:48 Sneak peek of next tutorial

18:22 Bloopers

SUPPLY LIST

Lobster mushrooms

pH modifiers - lemon juice, vinegar, cream of tartar, baking soda, washing soda

pH neutral soap

Scale

Measuring spoon

Nut milk bag, cheesecloth or muslin

Pot with lid

Spoon

Tongs

Textile - wool yarn shown in video

[deathandmushrooms]

Lobster Mushroom - Hypomyces lactifluorum

Lobster mushroms aren't a species of mushrooms so much as the delicious result of a particular mold inhabiting a russula mushroom. They shrivel and toughen but get more delicious. 🦐🍄✨

[mushroomgay]

Some shroomy Bois I found hiking last fall. Been wanting to get out into woods too, this quarantine is driving me nuts. Miss seeing cool fungi (that's also the first lobster mushroom I've found!)

[Submitted by @winking-owl​]

How gorgeous!! Sorry it’s taken me a while to reply. I’m super jealous of that lobster mushroom - I’ve never actually found one myself, and really want to try one. 

Top photo looks like a variable oysterling (Crepidotus varibilis), though more golden than I’d expect, so perhaps not!

Second is definitely the distinctive rooting shank (Xerula radicata) - you can’t mistake that elegant stem. You got super lucky on edibles here; did you gather any of them?

Thanks for sharing your cool fungi, I’m missing the woods a lot.

[fungusqueen]

Ate/cooked Lobster Mushroom (Hypomyces lactifluorum) for the first time last night. I added some Chanterelles and attempted to make a creamy vegan dish (sort of) resembling a chowder. I’ve never tasted lobster before but the texture is very firm and rich in a way I’d assume lobster would be.

I cut off (most of) the Lobster Mushroom skins and saved them to be dried because the skins can be used to create pink tones as a natural dye. If your mushroom has dirt on it, it’s best to peel, cut, or brush off the dirt instead of rinsing your mushroom in water. You can also use a wet paper towel to do this. I then chopped up the lobster mushroom and tore apart pieces of chanterelle and dry-sauteed the mushrooms until some moisture was released. Mushrooms hold a lot of natural moisture so doing this before adding any fat will help to concentrate their flavor. I then added vegan butter, parsley, very finely chopped celery and simmered for awhile until the celery softened and the mushrooms developed a crispy edge. I added about a cup of unsweetened almond milk to create a creamy sauce and let it reduce. Overall, you want to cook any mushroom dish for at least 8 minutes; undercooked or raw mushrooms can produce gastrointestinal distress. If I had been sticking closer to a typical chowder recipe, I probably would have chopped the mushrooms finer and added more almond milk for a creamy soup but this looked pretty good to me at this point and I was gettin hungry. This was excellent served with fresh bread, perfect to soak up the buttery mushroom sauce. Another mushroom species has been added to my “Mushrooms I’ve Eaten” list!

[thebashfulbotanist]

The best lobster mushroom I've ever found! Lobster mushrooms aren't one species - instead, they occur when the parasitic fungus Hypomyces lactifluorum infects a Russula (brittlegill) or Lactarius (milkcap)! This mushroom was probably a Russula brevipes, a short-stemmed brittlegill, before being infected. Short-stemmed brittlegills are large white, fragile mushrooms technically edible, but don't taste like much of anything. When infected and turned into a lobster mushroom, they turn orange, get a crisp texture, and even taste a little like their namesake - way better than before! 

[brittanyeburgard]

Reminiscing about molds parasitizing mushrooms this summer...

[notquitebilateral]

Hypomyces lactifluorum in a pot, going to get orange I hope, could play around with vinegar to make it a pink as well, but I want to get the orange color first. I wonder what would happen in I overdyed the light yellow skein I have...