Ultrasonic Lion's Mane extract: what the word on the label means

"Ultrasonic" on a Lion's Mane label means sound waves did the extracting. It's one of the best tools there is for the job, because ultrasound does two things at once. It opens the mushroom up, and it breaks what comes out into particles small enough for your body to take up.

We've extracted with ultrasound since March 2022, and it's one of the primary methods behind our Lion's Mane Triple Extract. The method has its own page if you want the full picture.

Is "ultrasonic" the same as "ultrasound"?

Yes. They're two names for the same method, and you'll see both on bottles and in research papers.

What does ultrasound actually do to a mushroom?

Sound waves passing through a liquid make tiny bubbles grow and then collapse. That's called cavitation, and each collapse is a small, sharp burst of force. [1] It does with sound what older methods do with long hours of heat or strong alcohol.

The first job is opening the cells. A mushroom's cell walls are built from chitin, a tough fiber, and much of what people want from Lion's Mane sits behind it. Researchers have shown ultrasound breaking fungal cells apart and releasing what was inside into the liquid. [2] There's more on that wall in our piece on what a mushroom cell wall is made of.

The second job is making things small. Ultrasound is one of the standard ways to make nanoemulsions, where droplets are broken down far below anything you could see. [3]

Is an ultrasonic Lion's Mane tincture more bioavailable?

That's the reason to use it. Smaller particles give far more surface for your body to work with, and nanoemulsions are one of the main ways researchers make hard-to-dissolve compounds more bioavailable. [4] The research comes from food and drug science, and the same physics applies to a mushroom extract.

Ultrasound is also one of the standard ways to form liposomes, tiny spheres with a membrane like your own cells' that carry compounds inside them, and it shrinks them down to nano size. [5][6] We call ours nano-encapsulation. If you want to know how liposomes carry what's inside them, we cover it in our piece on liposomal delivery.

So we use ultrasound to its full capacity: to get more out of the mushroom, and to put it in a form your body can use.

People at our booth ask whether our extract is an alcohol or a powder, and a tincture usually means alcohol. Ours is neither. It's a water-based extraction, suspended and stabilized in vegetable glycerin, with no alcohol in it.

What does our label say?

Six things our Lion's Mane label tells you, each one different.

• Ultrasonic Extracted. How it's made.
• Fresh Fruiting Body. The part of the mushroom. We grow our Lion's Mane on wood in New Smyrna and extract it fresh, not dried. Why the part matters is in our piece on mycelium or fruiting body.
• 1,887 mg per serving. How much Lion's Mane extract is in each serving.
• Alcohol-free. No alcohol in the bottle, and no alcohol burn under the tongue.
• The directions. 1 to 3 ml a day under the tongue for 30 to 60 seconds, or into any drink. One serving is 1 ml.
• Store in a dark cool location. Where it lives between servings.

That's the label on our Lion's Mane ultrasound extract, the Lion's Mane Triple Extract.

Why water and not alcohol?

Our first batch was alcohol-based. Early on, in our first year at the markets, a customer who liked Lion's Mane told Andrew the extract was hard to get down. That stuck with us, because nobody keeps up a daily habit with something they dread.

So Andrew set out to make it without alcohol, and ultrasound is where he ended up. That's the extract we sell now. The rest of the story of that first batch is in our piece on Lion's Mane through time.

What does it taste like?

Sweet, with a slight tart note. It's like tamarind, or a mild balsamic vinaigrette. People at the booth ask whether it has much of a taste. It does, and it's an easy one to take every day.

What should you look for on any Lion's Mane label?

Five lines tell you what's in the bottle:

1. How it's made. "Ultrasonic" or "ultrasound" means sound waves did the extracting.
2. The part. Fruiting body or mycelium.
3. The amount per serving. A number in milligrams on the Supplement Facts panel.
4. The liquid. Water, alcohol, or both. "Alcohol-free" tells you there's none in the bottle.
5. The directions. How much, and how to take it.

The deeper read: what researchers find when they use ultrasound on Lion's Mane

Researchers keep reaching for ultrasound on this mushroom. Three studies:

• In a 2026 study, ultrasound applied to Lion's Mane in water recovered more of the mushroom's membrane-associated proteins than the same extraction without it. [7]
• Another 2026 study used ultrasound to pull polyphenols out of Lion's Mane and worked out the conditions that gave the best yield. [8]
• A 2020 study developed an ultrasonic method to extract erinacine A, one of Lion's Mane's signature compounds, along with polyphenols, from lab-grown Lion's Mane mycelium. [9]

All three started from dried mushroom or mycelium. Ours starts from fresh fruiting bodies, grown on our own farm and extracted on the same property. More on the mushroom itself is on our Lion's Mane page.

Sources

1. Ashokkumar M. The characterization of acoustic cavitation bubbles: an overview. Ultrasonics Sonochemistry. 2011;18(4):864-872. doi:10.1016/j.ultsonch.2010.11.016
2. Cheung YC, Liu XX, Wang WQ, Wu JY. Ultrasonic disruption of fungal mycelia for efficient recovery of polysaccharide-protein complexes from viscous fermentation broth of a medicinal fungus. Ultrasonics Sonochemistry. 2015;22:243-248. doi:10.1016/j.ultsonch.2014.05.006
3. Modarres-Gheisari SMM, Gavagsaz-Ghoachani R, Malaki M, Safarpour P, Zandi M. Ultrasonic nano-emulsification: a review. Ultrasonics Sonochemistry. 2019;52:88-105. doi:10.1016/j.ultsonch.2018.11.005
4. Vikal A, Maurya R, Patel P, Kurmi BD. Nanoemulsion Technology in Oral Drug Delivery: A Path to Enhanced Solubility and Bioavailability. Current Pharmaceutical Design. 2025;31(36):2881-2896. doi:10.2174/0113816128370159250401012611
5. Rohilla S, Dureja H. Recent Patents, Formulation and Characterization of Nanoliposomes. Recent Patents on Drug Delivery and Formulation. 2015;9(3):213-224. doi:10.2174/1872211309666150629105900
6. Yamaguchi T, Nomura M, Matsuoka T, Koda S. Effects of frequency and power of ultrasound on the size reduction of liposome. Chemistry and Physics of Lipids. 2009;160(1):58-62. doi:10.1016/j.chemphyslip.2009.04.002
7. Ahmed T, Juhász A, Bose U, Terefe NS, Colgrave ML. Proteomic Evidence Indicates Ultrasound-Assisted Extraction Enhances Recovery of Membrane-Associated Proteins in Hericium erinaceus. Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. 2026;74(22):17627-17642. doi:10.1021/acs.jafc.6c05128
8. Liu H, Zhao C, Pang S, Shu Y, Chen L, Wang J, Bai H. Ultrasound-Assisted Extraction of Polyphenols from Hericium erinaceus: Optimization, Bioactivities and LC-MS-Based Chemical Profiling. Molecules. 2026;31(7):1138. doi:10.3390/molecules31071138
9. Valu MV, Soare LC, Sutan NA, Ducu C, Moga S, Hritcu L, Boiangiu RS, Carradori S. Optimization of Ultrasonic Extraction to Obtain Erinacine A and Polyphenols with Antioxidant Activity from the Fungal Biomass of Hericium erinaceus. Foods. 2020;9(12):1889. doi:10.3390/foods9121889