Mushroom shelf life, species by species.

The table

Every figure below assumes the mushroom reached you within a day of harvest, is stored at 34–38°F in paper or an open container, and has not been washed. Break any of those and subtract two to three days.

Seven days or more

• King trumpet — 7 to 10 days. The outlier. Dense, low free water, and it firms up rather than softening as it ages. Store whole and it will outlast everything.
• Beech / shimeji — 7 to 10 days. As long as the bouquet stays intact. Separate the cluster early and it drops to four or five.

Five to eight days

• Black pearl — 6 to 8 days. The thick-capped hybrid; the best keeper among the oyster family.
• Blue oyster — 5 to 7 days. Reliable if it stays dry. Cap-edge curl is the first sign of age.
• Shiitake — 5 to 7 days. Handles the fridge well and dehydrates rather than slimes, so late-week caps are still good.
• Lion’s mane — 5 to 7 days. Only if it arrived dry-picked. Yellowing at the top shows age before texture does.
• Maitake — 5 to 7 days. Relatively dry fronds make it robust; slightly aged maitake roasts particularly well.

Four to six days

• Chestnut — 4 to 6 days. Caps dry and crack at the edges before they spoil.
• Pioppino — 4 to 6 days. Stems go limp first; limp stems still braise perfectly.

Two to three days

• Pink oyster — 2 to 3 days. The fastest-decaying mushroom in cultivation and the clearest case for buying local.
• Golden oyster — 2 to 3 days. Thin flesh, bruises easily, colour fades as it goes.

Different rules entirely

• Reishi — months. Dried and sealed it keeps almost indefinitely; it is brewed, not eaten. Fresh antler reishi should be sliced and dried or tinctured within a few days.

Read this table before you shop, not after. If you buy once a week, build the week around king trumpet, beech, black pearl and shiitake, and treat pink and golden oyster as the thing you cook the night it arrives.

Why published figures disagree with each other

Most shelf-life numbers online are copied from produce handbooks written about Agaricus — button mushrooms — and then applied to species that behave nothing like them. Others quote laboratory conditions no kitchen achieves. Ours are what we see in our own cold room and hear back from restaurant accounts, which is a lower and more useful bar.

Two things that move every number

Whole versus cut: portioning ahead of time costs two to three days on any species. Packaging: sealed plastic costs the same again. Those two decisions matter more than the species difference between blue oyster and shiitake.

The mechanics are in paper bag versus container, and if you would rather never manage this, the Share resets you to day one every week.

Common questions