Storing in the paper bag is perfect. In the fridge. Just before using rinse in a bowl of cold water and drain quickly on a clean absorbent kitchen towel or p-towel. Or salad spinner. 90% water so they do not absorb much water, just don't leave them soaking.

And I have a mushroom brush to aid in getting them clean after a quick rinse.
Things NOT to do....store in a plastic bag, wash before storing, nor soak to get them clean.

Agreed with both. It's okay to leave them dirty in the bag until you use them. If you clean them now, they'll go weird and icky. A mushroom brush should be soft like a face brush, not stiff (as in for potatoes) like a hand brush If you don't have a mushroom brush and don't want to get one, you can clean the top by very gently running the edge of your paring knife across it. Also, cut off the edges of the bottoms of the stems. You can use the point of your knife to get in the cracks, again, gently, just to pry out the soil.

Another thing the Mushroom Council recommends is to just clean them, cook them, and freeze them for your recipes in the future. No worries that way.

I also buy mushrooms at the farmers' markets, but the ones I've bought have not been that dirty. I use my mushroom brush to clean them - no water - and then sometimes I use a dry paper towel if there is anything left. I store them in brown paper bags in the upper bin in my refrigerator.

If I don't use them the same day I purchase them in a recipe, I cook them in butter in a frying pan and freeze them in portion bags - like the information Suzi shared from the Mushroom Council.

A hint about not washing and just wiping and lightly brushing...a few places maybe here but definitely on a chef forum is said to always wash. High School summer job in a small town mushroom farm. A haven for rodents and the compost for growing is often 'fresh'...not nice sweet smelling earth. Barnyard fresh.

Commercial mushroom farms....at least the one I am familiar with in Pennsylvania use steam sterilized compost to grow their crop. And if it's not and is "barn yard fresh"as you say....a rinse isn't going to remove anything harmful.
But that's OK....I used to peel mushrooms!! Consequently I rarely used fresh mushrooms. Then someone gave me a mushroom brush, and Julia child appeared on TV!

From the mushroom growers manual...(i'll find the link)

After the last flush of
mushrooms has been picked, the growing
room should be closed off and a clean up
performed. The room may be pasteurized
with steam or treated with sanitizing agents.
This final step is designed to destroy any
pests which may be present in the crop or
the growing room, thus minimizing the
likelihood of infesting the next crop.

I'm not the only one who does not wash mushrooms with water. I've never had ill effects from not rinsing mushrooms with water, and I eat a lot of mushrooms - probably about 8 oz a week, not counting dried mushrooms.

It isn't necessary, just recommended. Peoples choice. Not even necessary to wash any produce. Many people do not. Just recommended.

Maybe growing conditions are clean, but who's to say someone w/ germy hands wasn't fingering, coughing or sneezing on those things before you came along & bought them? Call me a germaphobe, but I prefer to think I'm just being realistic.

I always wash mushrooms in a gentle stream of water, rubbing the dirt off w/ my fingers & bundling them up in a dishtowel to dry right before cooking.

Cooking helps with germs. :)

The main thing is to avoid the weird misinformation out there, like that you should never wash mushrooms because they'll soak up water and leak it into your food. LOL!! As Linda said, they're mostly water to begin with. The trick is cooking down the mushrooms and steaming out all the water to concentrate the flavor and eliminate any excess water you don't want in your dish.

Confession: I still peel mushrooms sometimes. Rarely, but sometimes. Never button mushrooms, though, or oysters or anything like that. Creminis that are really yucky on top, mostly.

I haven't grown mushrooms in a long time. I did the log method. 6 8ft logs stacked. Drill for the spore plugs, etc. Failed. One good season but did not tend properly. Probably easy but does need attention. Very clean method and don't remember needing to wash. Doubt i did. Long time ago.

Many varieties are not grown in composted soil. They look clean, not covered in soil. I still wash just before cooking. I've been to where produce is flown in from all over the world and see how boxes are handles. No idea how it is first packaged, in-between, then off to your market back room. Lots of handling.

I'll effects of any contamination is not always instant. Can be 10 days - 3weeks.

I just looked at my crate of babyBellas. USA organic. "we recommend all produce be washed before using".

I'm caramelizing onions and mushrooms...most of the mushrooms, freezing some of it. The rest for the weekend.

I read recently that Harold McGee (author of "On Food and Cooking" - The Science and Lore of the Kitchen - and other books), Alton Brown, and Jacques Pépin all suggest washing mushrooms. I know Alton Brown did a test on one of his TV shows and found that after a quick wash (notice I said "quick" not a long soak), the mushrooms absorbed only a small amount of moisture. Which was probably a good thing because cut vegetables tend to dehydrate during storage.

I didn't mention it above, but I will brush, wipe, or wash mushrooms according to how they will be used, the general condition they are in, or the source they come from. As with many things in cooking - it's a choice, not a hard-or-fast rule.

-Grainlady

Filthy kids that eat dirt are no more protected than the few parents that over-protect. A bigger picture exists in big AG, resistant super bugs...over-processed....plants especially have a way of adapting since their sole purpose is to reproduce, make seed. Seed that will survive.

And i just opened an Amazon order....an eager zippy bug ran out. Nothing i've seen before....smashed before i could blink so no possible way to identify.

I triple rinse salad in a big water bowl. A dinner party, before serving, i noticed a slug slithering up the inside of the bowl. It was triple rinsed. Good protein and no harm but not nice to serve to the squeamish.

I don't really like raw mushroom. I actually have no recent memory having them raw. Just don't have the time or patience to fuss with a brush when rinsing is so quick. Nor do i want sand in my spinach. No harm but one lunch spot had a sandy salad one time too many so i no longer go there.

I realize this has nothing to do with obsessive washing....but just an example of how our fear of germs is killing us.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2016/05/26/the-superbug-that-doctors-have-been-dreading-just-reached-the-u-s/

Filthy kids that eat dirt often get pinworms.

LOL! The only way you can get pin worms from eating dirt is if someone with pinworms defecated in that dirt less than 2 hours before.
My grandmother used to say that too....she was born in 1886, and was sure that any mushrooms were poison....and also that eating fish and milk in the same meal would cause poisioning.!

Linda, that reminds me of a latter day Jewish law that says for health that while eating fish and meat at the same meal was okay, they must not be on the same place. It's a baffling kind of thing that a lot of observant people don't do because it's demonstrably not unhealthy to eat them from the same plate and the origins are mostly lost to history. Then I read an article that talked about the rule coming from the era when a very popular condiment for meat was made from fermented fish guts. It was a kind of a ketchup of the ancient world. But if you imagine the Mediterranean climates, even considering changes over a couple thousand years, and the potential bottling/preservation failures, and it becomes easier to guess why putting fish on your meat could be bad for your health. :) Maybe there was some kind of issue with specific fish and dairy foods together when your grandmother was young?

LindaC, my grandmother told me the same thing, but then she soaked fish in milk to get rid of "fishy" taste on things like bullheads and catfish, go figure.

My old doctor agrees with you, BTW. He said we are "sanitizing ourselves sick", and if we aren't exposed to anything we can't become immune to those things.

Nonetheless, I wash mushrooms. I saw the same Alton Brown show, and have been dumping my containers of mushrooms into a sink full of cold water ever since. I don't have a mushroom brush, I just use a paper towel and my fingers and wash off any dirt. We always used to soak morels in salt water to get rid of any little bugs that might be hiding in those honeycombed surfaces, and they were still fine to use, but we usually either dried them or ate them promptly.

I don't wash them until I'm ready to eat them, because they don't store well after washing them. I do have a cousin who used to own/operate a mushroom farm. Everything was very clean and if you went into his buildings you had to suit up and cover your shoes with booties, so there would be no outside contamination. His mushrooms grew on large bags of compost that hung from the ceiling, so they were easier to pick.

Anyway, stir_fry, I'd also put them in the refrigerator, unwashed and in their paper bag. I think they'll be fine for 5 days, when you can wash them and use them.

Annie