Lux DMT Tek
Disclaimer: This tek is a modification of Erowid Norman’s “DMT for the Masses,” with slight variants based on my personal experience. A lot of this will be copy/paste, but that’s not the point, Norman has been credited. There is also an addendum that will be spliced into this tek, just to save time and space.
NOTE: Before performing any extraction procedure, it is always a good idea to read the entire description of the process from start to finish.
DISCLAIMER: Performing this procedure is illegal in most countries. I (Norman and Lux) do not advocate performing it where illegal and I (Norman) do not perform it myself where illegal.
The intent of this tek is to simplify the extraction procedure as much as possible, so that the average person can complete it in a kitchen in one evening (Granted the entire procedure takes almost 48 hrs. to fully complete). While I think that I have accomplished this goal, experimentalists must still do their homework. It is a good idea to read a few different teks before deciding which one to use, and to research safe handling procedures for the chemicals (lye) and equipment required. I (Norman) don’t provide instructions for decanting, siphoning, and filtering, for example, because I assume that those interested in performing kitchen chemistry will educate themselves on such basic procedure. However, I (Lux) will explain some simple siphoning and filtering procedures, because I love you.
Materials (Items with * were added from the Lux experience)
Mimosa Tenuiflora/Hostilis Root-Bark
A heavy-duty Blender (one that will crush ice)
A wide-mouthed glass mixing jar with a tight-fitting lid (a quart jar can do 50 grams of root-bark, a gallon pickle jar can do 200 grams)
Water
Lye (granulated sodium hydroxide)
A dust mask, safety goggles, and rubber gloves (NOT VINYL)
Naphtha (VM&P, not lighter fluid)
Four to Six wide-mouthed 8-ounce glass collection jars this lids (canning or jelly jars work well)
Vinegar
A seperatory funnel or gear to siphon or decant or *plastic syringes (ones with measurements are especially nice)
Coffee filters
A rubber spatula
A freezer set to a very cold temperature (On a scale of 1-10, about an
Non-sudsy ammonia (10% solution, e.g. “janitor strength”, is optimal, but 5% “household strength” will do as well)
*Measuring cups
*A weight scale
*A shot glass
*A glass measuring cup
*A stirring rod or butter knife
*Something to keep yourself entertained
Process (*=Lux edit)
1) Snap the MHRB (Mimosa Hostilis Root-Bark) into small pieces and run it through the blender at high speed. You may have to cut the root-bark small enough to grind properly. Pulverize it until it is just fibers and pink/purple dust. (*Note that commonly sold MTRB isn’t as high of quality as is was in 2006. Currently MTRB is more brown)—it needs to be completely broken down. The dust produced is very fine and astringent to one’s respiratory tract. Unless you dig big cakey boogers, wear a dust mask. After grinding, wait for about 5 minutes before opening the top of the blender, so that the dust has some time to settle. (*At this point, use the measuring scale to weigh out the desired amount of fibers, for accuracy.)
2) Combine the lye and water into the mixing jar. Use 15 ml water and 1 gram of lye for every gram of grinded MHRB that will later be added into the mixing jar. For example: 50 grams of grinded MHRB would require 750 ml water and 50 grams of lye. [Note: Lye is dangerous. BLIND-YOU-FOREVER DANGEROUS. Have a bottle of vinegar handy as an acid to neutralize the caustically basic lye when cleaning up any spills that occur, and wear eye protection and rubber gloves when working with lye. {*Note: Lye is static sensitive and depending on the type of gloves (i.e. vinyl), the lye might leap out of the measuring cup and create a nasty problem.}] [If pre-powdered bark is being used, 1.5 to 2 of the water called for will be required. Pre-powdered bark requires more water because commercial suppliers pulverize the fibrous bits that a home blender leaves intact; this material turns to a sludge in the lye solution that won’t release the naphtha if it’s added while the solution is still sludgy.] Add the lye to the water, while slowly and constantly stirring until it has completely dissolved. Always add the lye to the water, and not the the other way around. Adding water to lye may cause a volcano-like reaction. [Note: Dissolving lye in water must be done slowly because it causes an exothermic (heat-releasing) reaction and this heat can cause dangerous splashing, the container to be too hot to touch, and can even crack non-borosilicate glassware, all of which could lead to dangerous situation.]
3) Add the grinded MHRB into the water/lye solution in your mixing jar. Cap and shake the jar well, then let it sit for about an hour. (*In the meantime, start heating a pot of water over a stove at low temperature. Then pour a cup of naphtha into the glass measuring cup, and place it into the hot water bath. [Note: Naphtha is a highly flammable substance. Using an open coil or an open flame stove top may cause the fumes to ignite. Only use an enclosed stove top or even the burner on a coffee maker to heat the naptha.])
4) Now add to the mixing jar .5 ml of heated naphtha for each 15 ml of water used to create the lye solution. Using a glass stir rod (*Or in the Lux experience a long butter knife), steadily stir the naphtha into the lye solution until it has thoroughly mixed, and then let the jar stand until the naphtha has mostly separated and is floating on top. Then repeat this agitation process three more times. [*From my (Lux) personal experience, it takes about 15-20 min for the naphtha to separate from the water/lye solution in a 750 ml mixing jar. Using an egg timer or digital timer helps with the time management.]
5) After the final agitation, allow enough time to pass for the naphtha to again float to the top, and then separate the two layers. The naphtha (top layer) goes in one of the 8oz collection jars, everything else stays in the mixing jar. A seperatory funnel is the easiest means to accomplish separation of the two layers, but various techniques of siphoning or decanting could also be employed. [*The Lux siphoning method: Using a plastic syringe, steadily position the tip of the syringe into the naphtha layer, and gently start siphoning. If any of the lower brown layer gets into the syringe, just let it settle to the bottom and squeeze it back into the mixing jar. Do this until all the naphtha is extracted. If some is left behind, don’t sweat it.] None of the dark (lower) solution should be allowed into the collection jar—just the naphtha. [Note: If you save the dark (lower) basified solution, this can be used to extract “jungle spice” from: look up Entrophymancer 2008. “’Jungle Spice’: Mystery Alkaloid(s) of Mimosa Root-bark”, The Entheogen Review 16(3): 87-108.]
6) Repeat steps 4-5 above 5-6 more times, but do not add any new MHRB. You will be reprocessing the same original root-bark material, in order to thoroughly extract the DMT from it. [*This is the long repetitive portion of the procedure. It will take about an hour for each extraction, so have something constructional to do while waiting to go stir the mixing jar.] When you have finished, place all collection jars into the freezer and go to bed. (*Or do whatever you desire for the next 8-10 hours.) You will have your “snow globes” waiting for you in the morning.
7) Pour the naphtha from each jar through a coffee filter, saving the naphtha. (The naphtha can be reused for the next batch of extractions, or it can be evaporated off to produce a residue that can be further refined-see “Recrystallized” below.) [Note: It has been pointed out that using fresh naphtha for each extraction results in significantly better quality material, with less DMT-oxide and oils in the final product and a better freeze precipitation.] A lot of paste will stick to the jar, so use a small rubber spatula to scrape this paste from the jar’s sides down into the filter as well. Spread out each filter to dry. There will still be some residue in the jar; a bit of Salvia Divinorum or Cannabis can be used to scrub them out, providing an enhanced aspect to those herbs. [*If these herbs are unavailable, see the “Recrystallization” portion of this tek to extract any remaining DMT from the collection jars.]
The paste must be allowed to dry thoroughly; chop and stir it a couple of times to make sure that this is the case. Once it seems to be dry, crush up any lumps. [Note: Minimize the airflow above your product while evaporating-off the solvent and drying the DMT. Having a fan blowing above the product (not recommended) has been reported to transform white crystals into yellow goo; such airflow may convert some of the DMT into DMT-oxide, which is a yellow, sticky goo (and apparently not as strong as DMT or different in effect, depending on who you talk to).]
9) [Note: If you intend to recrystallize (*Which I would highly recommend) your material in order to further purify it, you can skip this step.] Combine all of the dried material into one coffee filter. Wash this material by pouring freezer temperature non-sudsy ammonia over it and through the coffee filter. [*I ended up pouring the ammonia into a bowl and lightly steeping the coffee filter in it for about 3-4 seconds.] It is imperative that the ammonia you use is of the non-sudsy variety. You can shake the bottle to tell; if it creates suds, get a different kind. Rinsing won’t take much ammonia, about 4 ounces for a 200-gram batch. Stir the powder around while rinsing to make sure all of it is thoroughly wetted. A good bit of the mass will wash away—perhaps 25-45%--but it’s nothing you want to be smoking anyway. You should be left with about 0.5% of the weight of the root-bark in DMT powder. When dried, it is perfectly smokable at this point, but can be refined further by recrystallization. Although recrystallization inevitably results in some product lose, once you’ve had a hit of DMT that left absolutely nothing behind in the pipe, you won’t want to use anything else.
Recrystallization
For our current purpose, the idea behind recrystallization is that the chosen solvent holds more DMT when hot than cold, and that some impurities remain more easily with cold solvent.
Place a glass container holding the DMT and a glass container filled with recrystallization solvent together in a pan of hot water. Shot glasses in a saucepan work well for a gram or two. Again the fumes from the solvent are extremely flammable, so only use a contained electric heating source. The DMT will already be melting if the water is hot enough. Using the plastic syringe, add the hot solvent little-by-little while agitating the DMT until all of the material is dissolved. Use 20-30 ml of solvent (or less) per gram of DMT; you want to use as little solvent as possible. When all of the material has gone into solution, the solvent will be a clear yellow.
Leave the pan of water with the DMT container to cool down to room temperature. Then remove the DMT container and place it into your refrigerator. Later, move it into your freezer. This step-wise process allows for gradual cooling and the precipitation of crystals. You will end up with DMT crystals of varying purity on top of a pellet of slag, which still contains quite a bit of DMT (but also some lye, if you skipped the ammonia wash.) Do the coffee filter bit again to dry the material, and then separate the crystals from the slag. The crystals can be further refined, through one or two more recrystallizations, into pure DMT. The slag can also be further refined or simply dissolved into the next batch. The solvent can be reused or evaporated down, with the residue scraped and cleaned.
This concludes the Lux DMT Tek. Thank you for reading. Remember to be safe and have a good trip. Peace