CH 03 Lab data Updated
How strong is Penis Envy? The lab measurements
Peer-reviewed measurements of psilocybin and psilocin in Penis Envy and Albino Penis Envy, how they compare with 12 other cubensis strains, and their limits.
- Penis Envy, total
- 17.59 mg/g
- Albino Penis Envy, total
- 12.33 mg/g
- Rank
- 2nd and 5th of 14
- Peer-reviewed studies
- 1
In the only peer-reviewed measurement we found, Penis Envy contained 17.59 mg of tryptamines per gram of dried mushroom, of which 15.49 mg psilocybin and 1.77 mg psilocin. That placed it second of 14 cubensis strains grown under identical conditions. Albino Penis Envy came fifth with 12.33 mg/g (Sharchaton et al., 2026). One culture, one harvest, one laboratory: a useful reference point, and no guarantee for any other bag.
The study
Sharchaton and colleagues, at Tel-Hai Academic College and the Shamir Research Institute in Israel, grew 14 named cultures in separate growth chambers on the same coco coir and vermiculite substrate at 25 °C. Cultures came from Psilution Ltd. (Israel) and Wombat Labs (Dallas, Texas). The fruiting bodies were freeze-dried, ground and analysed by HPLC, at least three times per strain. DNA barcoding confirmed that all 14 were Psilocybe cubensis. The paper appeared in the Journal of Fungi in 2026 and is open access (PMC13412672).
The numbers, in milligrams per gram of dried mushroom
| Strain | Psilocybin | Psilocin | Total tryptamines | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mak IND | 19.60 | 0.65 | 20.65 | 1 |
| Penis Envy | 15.49 | 1.77 | 17.59 | 2 |
| Sat | 13.53 | 0.38 | 14.36 | 3 |
| Jedi Mind Fck | 11.58 | 0.99 | 12.70 | 4 |
| Albino Penis Envy | 11.38 | 0.67 | 12.33 | 5 |
| Jack Frost × Golden Teacher | 11.03 | 0.15 | 11.38 | 6 |
| Enigma | 7.91 | 0.11 | 8.11 | 7 |
| Jack Frost | 4.95 | below detection | 4.95 | 11 |
| Oak Ridge light | 2.03 | 0.49 | 2.62 | 14 |
Selection from Table 1 of the paper; totals include small amounts of baeocystin and related compounds. The full table has all 14 strains.
Three things the table shows
Penis Envy had the most psilocin of all 14. At 1.77 mg/g its psilocin was the highest in the study, more than twice the 0.67 mg/g of APE and more than ten times the 0.15 mg/g of Jack Frost × Golden Teacher. Psilocybin is converted into psilocin in the body (Dinis-Oliveira, 2017), so both count.
Albino is not stronger. APE measured about 30 percent less than the pigmented Penis Envy. Claims that the albino form is the strongest of the family do not hold for these two cultures.
Lineage did not predict content. Jack Frost, which shops describe as a cross with Albino Penis Envy, measured 4.95 mg/g, among the lowest. The Penis Envy family name on a culture says nothing reliable about what it contains.
How this compares with other measurements
A second laboratory study, using a different method (LC-MS/MS), measured five other cubensis strains at 0.88 to 1.36 percent of dry weight for psilocybin plus psilocin, or roughly 8.8 to 13.6 mg/g (Goff et al., 2024). Penis Envy's 17.6 mg/g lies above that range. Comparisons across studies are loose: growing conditions, drying and extraction all differ, as the Sharchaton paper itself points out.
The popular claim that Penis Envy is "three times stronger" is quoted and doubted in the same Leafly article (Levenson, 2022). No study supports a fixed factor. In the one direct comparison, Penis Envy had about 1.5 times the total of Jack Frost × Golden Teacher and about 3.6 times that of Jack Frost.
Converting to one number
Because psilocybin turns into psilocin in the body, pharmacologists sometimes express both as psilocin. With molar masses of 284.25 for psilocybin and 204.27 for psilocin (PubChem), one milligram of psilocybin corresponds to about 0.72 mg of psilocin. On that basis, per gram of dried mushroom in the study:
| Strain | Psilocin equivalent per gram |
|---|---|
| Penis Envy | about 12.9 mg |
| Albino Penis Envy | about 8.8 mg |
| Jack Frost × Golden Teacher | about 8.1 mg |
| Jack Frost | about 3.6 mg |
This is arithmetic on the published means, not a measurement of its own. It shows how much the same gram can differ between cultures, which is the point of the effects and portion page.
Limits of a single study
- Single mushrooms differ. For six of the strains, the team also measured five individual fruiting bodies. Psilocybin varied with a coefficient of variation of 12.81 to 23.39 percent within one strain from one chamber. In Jack Frost × Golden Teacher, single mushrooms ranged from 6.81 to 12.38 mg/g. Penis Envy was not among the six.
- Flushes differ. An older study found that psilocybin in cubensis varied by a factor of four across successive harvests from the same culture, and that psilocin was often absent in the first flush and peaked by the fourth (Bigwood and Beug, 1982).
- Storage matters. In one storage study, dried cubensis kept in the dark at room temperature lost least, and fresh mushrooms stored at minus 80 °C lost most (Gotvaldová et al., 2021).
- Names differ by supplier. A culture sold as Penis Envy elsewhere may not match the one measured.
Weighing precisely
Content per gram is high and variable, so judging a portion by eye or by the number of mushrooms is unreliable. A scale that reads to 0.01 g gives a repeatable weight. Dutch-Smart sells one in its accessories range.
