Melmac Strain Mushrooms: The Extraterrestrial Shroom Strain
Melmac shroom strain is a lab-created variant of the famous Penis Envy mushroom strain 🧪🍄
Melmac is a strain of Psilocybe cubensis magic mushrooms.
The name is believed to reference the American sitcom Alf, which aired from 1986 to 1990, following the friendly extraterrestrial Gordon Shumway from the planet Melmac who crash-landed onto Earth and is taken into an American household.
As for the mushroom strain’s origin, Melmac is a lab-bred variant of the famous Penis Envy mushroom. You might also find this strain named “Melmac Penis Envy” or “Homestead Penis Envy.”
There are even some stories floating around that Melmac shrooms are closer to the original Penis Envy that was on the market in the 1970s than the Penis Envy cultivars sold today.
Regarding physical characteristics, Melmac mushrooms have a similar phallic shape and a strong psilocybin potency, like the more famous Penis Envy. What really distinguishes them from Penis Envy are their deep golden wavy caps and warped stems.
In this article, we’ll dive into this strain’s specs, history and how to grow them yourself successfully.
Melmac Strain Specs
| Potency | Above Average 💪 |
| Cultivation | Intermediate |
| Species | Psilocybe cubensis |
| Suggested Substrate | Brown Rice Flour + Vermiculite (BRF-Tek) |
| Sold By | Spores 101 (🇺🇸/🇨🇦), Miracle Farms (🇺🇸/🇨🇦), Sporeslab (🇨🇦), The Magic Mushrooms Shop (🇪🇺) |
Potency & Psilocybin Content
If the lore surrounding the Melmac mushroom strain’s origins is true, then it should have a higher-than-average psilocybin content, just like the original Penis Envy strain. However, most experts speculate that the potency of a given mushroom strain depends more on the growing conditions than its genetic material alone.
Thanks to the efforts of the Oakland Hyphae and the Psilocybin Cup, there’s more information available now about the potencies of shroom strains sold by popular cultivars.
The Psilocybin Cup is an event where cultivators and psilocybin mushroom breeders can enter their shroom strains to compete for potency, appearance, and taste, attaining recognition and awards.
The Melmac strain has been entered into the Psilocybin Cup six times so far. The strongest submission to date was entered in the Spring 2022 competition by Chad’s Mycology NPB. This sample tested 1.45% total tryptamine levels (psilocybin, psilocin, baeocystin, and other tryptamine derivatives combined).
The average potency for this strain is much lower, at around 0.98%. This places it in the “above-average” category, which ranges from 1% to 1.8% of total tryptamines.
The average psilocybin levels of this strain are around 0.84%, and the average psilocin levels were just under 0.1%.
What Do Melmac Mushrooms Feel Like?
The effects of Melmac are generally similar to other Psilocybe cubensis strains, which typically intensify the user’s mood at the time. In the right setting, it causes a sense of euphoria, deeper feelings of empathy, and a sense of connectedness to nature.
Experiences with Melmac shrooms can vary from one person to the next based on the dose taken, unique body chemistry, experience with psychedelics, mindset, and setting.
On a full psychoactive dose of Melmac shrooms, people report intense visual and auditory hallucinations with vivid colors, patterns, distorted sounds, and an altered perception of time, with effects lasting up to six hours.
Sometimes, a shroom trip goes wrong, leading to nausea, vomiting, anxiety and panic attacks, and even poor decision-making that can lead to accidents and injury.
Where To Buy Melmac Shroom Spores
Melmac mushroom spores are harder to find than the Peny Envy strain.
Our go-to source for rare shroom strain spores that ship to Canada and the US, Ralphsters, doesn’t carry the strain.
We haven’t ordered from this company before, but Mush Love Genetics, out of Denver, Colorado, says it has these spores in stock — but it doesn’t say whether that’s in a spore syringe, swap, or culture in an agar plate.
Here are some other vendors to check out (most don’t carry this strain but have other, closely-related strains instead):
- If you live in the United States — MYYCO, Spores 101, Miracle Farms
- If you live in Canada — Spores 101, Sporeslab, Planet Spores
- If you live in Europe — The Magic Mushrooms Shop (🇪🇺), Shiny Spores (🇬🇧)
→ View all spore vendors & grow kit suppliers
The History Of Melmac Mushroom Strain
The history of Melmac mushrooms is closely tied to Terence Mckenna’s discovery of the Penis Envy strain in his adventures in the Amazon Rainforest in the early 1970s.
One story goes that Mckenna collected the wild spore sample to send to mycologist Steven Pollock. Pollock isolated the genetics that led to the Penis Envy strain as we know it today.
Another story exists of another mycologist, Richard Guiterrez (Rich Gee), isolating and stabilizing the genetics from Mckenna’s spores, which would eventually become Penis Envy.
The Melmac mushroom strain emerged throughout the iterations of breeding techniques to produce high potency and stable Penis Envy shroom genetics.
Some mycologists argue that Melmac is just another name for Penis Envy, which is why it also goes by the name “Homestead Penis Envy.”
It was given an original name, separate from Penis Envy, because of its unique physical features — the deep golden cap color with its wavy texture and gnarled stems.
It’s believed that the Melmac might be the closest sub-variant of the strain among other popular variants such as Albino Penis Envy, Penis Envy Uncut, and Penis Envy #6, which came about through mutations.
The Melmac strain is rarer than other Penis Envy sub-variants listed because these shrooms are known to release very few spores from their fruiting bodies.
How to Grow Melmac Mushrooms
Penis Envy shrooms are a surprisingly easy strain to cultivate. However, Melmac shrooms are more of a novelty strain as the genetics are challenging to come by, and they tend to produce a low fruiting body count with smaller subsequent flushes.
Nonetheless, Melmac shrooms are still a highly sought-after strain due to their faster-than-normal colonization speed and their ability to produce exceptionally potent mushrooms under the best growing conditions.
We recommend a quick read-through of our guide on cultivating magic mushrooms to get started using the PK-Tek method, which in our opinion, is the most straightforward and reliable way to grow magic mushrooms.
This method involves inoculating sterile jars with your Melmac spores, allowing them to colonize, and transferring them into a fruiting chamber where you’ll harvest your crop.
The whole process, from inoculation to reaping the fruit of your efforts, takes anywhere from five to seven weeks.
The ideal environment for most cubensis strains, including Melamac, is as follows:
- Humidity — High (>80%)
- Substrate — rye grain, wild bird seed, brown rice flour, vermiculite
- Temperature — 20–28 ºC (68–82ºF)
- Light — None
- Airflow — Low
Melmac shrooms, like most Penis Envy offshoots, are fairly resistant to contaminants. Ensure you’re setting yourself up for success by being extremely attentive to the cleanliness of your working station and tools.
The most notable difference with Melmac is that it’s faster to colonize, but it does tend to have a longer growing cycle — with the fruits reaching full maturity around the six to seven-week mark, so patience is key with this strain.
When the caps open, you’re ready to harvest your mushrooms.
Carefully pinch the mushroom at the base of the stem. You could eat them fresh or allow them to dry fully before consuming them, and for longer storage.
After the first flush, don’t throw out the cakes. You can expect a few more flushes from your cakes, though each flush will be sparser and sparser as Melmac isn’t known for its impressive yields.
Similar Strains To Melmac Mushrooms
Melmac magic mushrooms are a variation of the Penis Envy mushroom strain. This strain and variants of Penis Envy are known for their exceptional potency and are fairly easy to cultivate with a bit of care.
Of course, if you want something similar that’s much easier to source, go for the Penis Envy strain, but if you’re looking for a high potency that’s a bit more unique, we have some fun strains for you to look into.
1. Albino Penis Envy
Albino Penis Envy (APE) is a genetic mutation of the famous Penis Envy strain with one main difference — the lack of pigmentation resulting in pure white fruiting bodies, which makes for a visually impressive mushroom.
Just like the original Penis Envy, Albino Penis Envy is easy to cultivate but tends to produce lower fruit yields.
2. Tidal Wave
Tidal Wave is a hybrid of the Penis Envy and B+ strains, which won the 2021 Psilocybin Cup for the highest potency strain.
These mushrooms are characterized by their wavy caps, which is where they get their name.
This might be a more appealing option if you’re looking for a fast-fruiting mushroom that’s known to produce bountiful flushes without sacrificing potency.
3. Brazilian Strain
Brazilian shrooms hail from the country they’re named after and are known to be exceptionally potent and easy to grow, as they’re much more resilient to contamination.
One thing to keep in mind is that during the fruiting phase, you’ll need to give them a bit more attention than other strains. They enjoy very humid environments, which means you should keep the fruiting chamber consistently moist.
What’s the Difference Between A Species & A Strain?
A species of mushroom refers to a group of fungi that share a similar set of characteristics and genetic makeup and are capable of interbreeding to produce fertile offspring.
On the other hand, a strain refers to a subgroup within a species that has diverged due to growing environments but retains enough similarities to be considered the same species.
For example, “Psilocybe cubensis” is a mushroom species, but there are hundreds of strains within that species, such as the Melmac strain and Golden Teacher, each with distinct characteristics and preferred growing environments.
Recognizing these strains helps us understand the shroom’s ideal growing environments and potential effects for a given strain.
FAQs: Melmac Mushroom Strain
1. How do you identify the Melmac strain?
Melmac mushroom strains closely resemble Penis Envy mushrooms in their phallic shape. With the cap very close to the stem, people note that it looks like a circumcised penis.
The defining characteristics of Melmac from other Penis Envy subs-variants are its deeper golden cap with slight waves and gnarled stem.
2. What does the Melmac mushroom strain feel like?
Mushroom trips are a very individualized and dose-dependent experience.
Melmac strain is known to be stronger than average in potency, so smaller amounts tend to go a long way. Still, in doses from 2–4 grams, it produces a typical psilocybin mushroom high that intensifies the mood and feelings of the user.
In the right setting and mindset, it can cause profound changes in thought patterns that lead to a higher capacity for empathy, a deeper connection to nature, and euphoria.
When things go wrong, people can feel panicked and paranoid and make poor decisions that make them more accident-prone. Milder side effects from any magic mushroom experience are an upset stomach, vomiting, and mushroom yawns.
3. What’s the best way to grow Melmac mushrooms?
We’ve outlined the PK-Tek method in this article for growing Melmac mushrooms. In our experience, this method has been the easiest and most reliable way to grow Psilocybe cubensis mushrooms.
Compared to the Golden Teacher strain, Melmac can be a little more challenging and requires more patience for its slow fruiting time — but it’s still possible to grow Melmac as long as you carefully follow instructions.
Melmac and other Penis Envy strains take well to all substrates, including brown rice flower, rye grain, wild bird seed, and manure.
4. What are the dosage recommendations for Melmac shrooms?
It can be challenging to get accurate psilocybin doses from your mushrooms as each strain, flush, and even the time of harvest can affect their potency.
Melmac mushrooms generally have a higher-than-average potency — so a smaller dose can go a long way.
Taking between 2–4 grams is considered a moderate dose that will provide a full psychoactive mushroom experience with heavy visuals and auditory hallucinations, feelings of euphoria, and an altered thought pattern.
Anything higher than this is considered a “heroic dose,” which should be reserved for those with experience and who are ready for a more profound mind-bending trip.
Some people may choose to microdose this strain to improve mood, concentration, relaxation, and overall well-being without experiencing a high. In this case, try for 0.2- 0.5 grams.
5. What’s the best way to consume Melmac mushrooms?
The best way to consume Melmac shrooms will depend on the experience you’re looking for.
Some of the popular methods to avoid the texture and taste of dried mushrooms include brewing them in tea, making chocolates, or combining them with other herbs in capsules (Scooby Snax).
Brewing it in tea may be gentler on the stomach, but it often requires higher doses of mushrooms to reach the same level of effects as swallowing them whole.
If you’ve got the time to make them or can find magic mushroom chocolates, you’re in for a real treat. They can offer pre-measured doses of mushrooms and just taste better in general.
Scooby Snax are more of an underground approach to dosing mushrooms, which involves finely grinding dried mushrooms and other herbs and natural ingredients like ginseng, guarana, bee pollen, and ginger to complement the effects of the shrooms and curb some of the negative side effects.
They’re easy to make at home with some inexpensive equipment, and we think these are ideal as a microdosing method.
