If you shop for functional mushrooms, you will often see terms like hot-water extracted, alcohol extracted, or dual extracted.
It can sound as though "dual" must automatically mean stronger or better. It does not.
Extraction is the process used to separate selected compounds from mushroom material. The appropriate method depends on which mushroom is being processed, which compounds are being targeted, and what the finished ingredient is intended to deliver.
What is a mushroom extract?
Mushrooms contain many different compounds within their cellular structure.
Extraction uses a solvent - most commonly water, alcohol, or a combination - to move selected compounds out of the mushroom material and into an extract that can then be filtered, concentrated, and dried.
Different solvents are better suited to different chemical fractions. That is the important part.
What is hot-water extraction?
Hot-water extraction uses heated water to recover water-soluble mushroom compounds. For functional mushrooms, one important group is beta-glucans - the fungal polysaccharides discussed in our guide to Beta-Glucans, Polysaccharides & Terpenoids.
Hot-water extraction remains an established method for obtaining mushroom polysaccharide fractions. Recent reviews of Reishi, for example, continue to identify hot water as one of the main extraction approaches used for Ganoderma polysaccharides.
After extraction, the liquid can be filtered and concentrated into a powdered ingredient suitable for capsules or other supplement formats.
What does alcohol extraction do?
Alcohol - commonly ethanol - can recover compounds that are less water-soluble.
Reishi is a useful example. In addition to polysaccharides, Ganoderma species contain a large family of triterpenoids, including ganoderic acids. A 2025 chemical-analysis study of a Ganoderma lucidum ethanol extract identified a triterpenoid-rich profile.
Water and alcohol are therefore not competing technologies. They are different tools for extracting different chemical fractions.
What is dual extraction?
Dual extraction uses both water and alcohol. The material may undergo one extraction and then another, or the fractions may be produced separately and combined.
The goal is usually to recover a broader range of compounds than either solvent would capture on its own. This approach can make sense for species such as Reishi when both polysaccharide and triterpenoid fractions are desired.
Is dual extraction always better?
No.
The number of extraction steps does not tell you the quality or potency of the finished ingredient by itself.
A well-made hot-water extract standardized for beta-glucans can be exactly what the manufacturer intends to produce. Adding alcohol extraction does not automatically make it superior.
Extraction method vs. actual specification
Two products might both say "dual extracted" yet provide no information about beta-glucan or triterpenoid content. Another product may use hot-water extraction and clearly disclose a meaningful beta-glucan specification.
Extraction method tells you how an ingredient was made. Standardization and testing help tell you what the finished extract contains.
Both matter, but they answer different questions.
How Noomadic approaches mushroom extraction
Noomadic uses fruiting-body mushroom extracts only. Our mushroom ingredients use hot-water extraction, and all mushroom extracts used in our mushroom supplements are standardized to 30% Beta-D-Glucans.
That gives us a clear specification instead of relying on extraction terminology alone.
What should you look for?
- What mushroom species is being used?
- What part of the fungus is used?
- What extraction method is used?
- What compounds is that method intended to recover?
- Is the extract standardized to anything meaningful?
- Is beta-glucan content actually disclosed?
- If triterpenoids or other compounds are advertised, are they actually measured?
The bottom line
Hot-water extraction is particularly useful for recovering mushroom polysaccharide fractions, including beta-glucans.
Alcohol extraction can target less water-soluble compounds, including important Reishi triterpenoids.
Dual extraction uses both approaches when a broader chemical profile is the objective.
But dual extraction is not automatically better. A better question is: was the extraction method chosen for a reason, and can the manufacturer tell you what the resulting extract actually contains?
Sources
Selected references supporting this article: