Hi all,

I couldn't find anything on this in the wiki or a quick search. I read a post somewhere by Q21Q21 that just evaporating naptha leaves an impure spice, about 90% impurities (I think it said that - it might have been 90% DMT, 10% impurities), and to make it really pure you had to dissolve in vinegar etc.

Am I right in presuming a lot of people just evaporate and use, without going through the tincture/vinegar stage?
What exactly are the impurities and are they dangerous?

P.S. I can't find the post I am referring to above.

Evaporating as opposed to freeze precipitation is said to leave some impurities, yes, although I can't answer exactly what those may be or in what proportion. I'd assume they come from the naptha, probably very subtle impurities, and hopefully in quantities less than 10% of the finished product.

However, the majority of the impurities I encounter are plant oils and other alkaloids which I get from the MHRB. These come out when doing long, hot naptha pulls, and result in a spice which is anywhere from gooey brown/red to hunks of yellow crystal. They have naught to do with whether you evap or freeze frecip.

Although do you not always have to evaporate for a bit after freeze precipitation to get rid of the last bit of solvent? Or is there a way of JUST freeze precipitating?

I have had this happen to me as well the gooe brown red. I left my naptha out in the sun to evap quickly and this was the result. I have yet to figure out how to recover the spice as freeze precip or pretty much anything else wont pull it out. A slow evap seems to be the best. But you will end up with dust and airbourne particles.

You should do a test of your solvent before using it. Evap a little on a clear glass dish, it should evap "clean" and have no residue. If is leaves any crap behind, you should try a different brand. These impurities could be nasty and should be avoided (I believe some lighter fluids have anti rust additives for example) What these impurities are depends on what the manufacturer added to the naptha. As BF says, the rest is mainly oils etc from the MHRB and shouldn't be a worry. You can clean most of that out with a Sodium Carbonate wash after your last pull.

re: freeze precip - assuming your freezer is cold enough (ie VERY) you will get all the spice out from freezing it only. You can then store the naptha and re use it. You might get a few mg if you did evap after freezing, but it isn't worth doing.

You will, of course, need to leave the spice out to have the last bits of naptha evap from it before smoking (if that is what you meant). There is no way round that one.

Thanks guys, I think you answered my question pretty well! :-)

A careful, simple re-x isn't supposed to get rid of such impurities? Is the sod carbon wash really needed for a clean product?

I combine all my pulls and do a SC wash. It takes 5 mins and gets rid of 90% of nasties. I always find with a re-x that it is hard to separate the gunk from spice, and I end up mixing some of it back together/ Probably just my method that causes this though.

SWIM opened his freezer this morning and he was very happy with the sight that greeted him



As you can see there are some impurities! It was washed with sodium carbonate before the freeze precipitation but it seems not everything was removed. Would you recommend a second wash or should SWIM recrystalize to get rid of the remaining impurities??

Scrape the crystals that are white and put them to one side. You can then dissolve what is left in a small amount of warm naptha. There will be a sludge layer at the bottom. Decant the naptha off into another jar and freeze precipitate again. You can add a little more naptha to the sludge left from the decant to make sure you get any remaining spice.

I do not believe it is a question of purity/impurity as, "dirty" (The residual naphtha) spice has the same effect on the user as it does when the substance is clean. Re-crystallization cleans the gunk off.

If the outcome of your spice is the normal, "powder" we see from most STB extractions, it is less pure than if the product came out as a clear, solid crystal formation resembling frail glass.

Thank you very much! I'll get right on it!!

Cover your container in saran wrap and poke a bunch of holes or make a number of slits to avoid most dust contamination.

Even after a sodium carbonate wash, a freeze precip can yield some yellowish residue on the bottom (looks a lot like the picture posted above). I dissolve it in acetone and evap it over blue lotus, as it is highly active! As far as I know, it's not harmful and is mainly DMT-N-Oxide. I ended up with a good amount of potent enhanced leaf that works great in hookah.

The yellow is just dmt-n-oxide and possibly a tiny amount of solvent trapped. What you can do is scrape off all the white spice, then with the central yellow part scrape it around so its a thin film over the glass, it will dry up and you will be left with a mix of dmt and dmt n-oxide which is just as potent as the pure white stuff, so scrape that off and dry it on a plate. GREAT for making changa. =p