I'm about to do my first extraction here probably in a couple weeks or so and just had a couple things I wanted to be clear on first. I figured I would follow Noman's tek.

I read somewhere that when you basify you should vent the lye often, as pressure can build up inside the container. I was planning on using probably 180grams of bark in a gallon pickle jar. I noticed that it said that the last bit of naphtha/np extraction should be left in the NaOH jar for about a day or two. So how often do I need to vent everything during this process? I suspect that the gallon jar will be close to full so does that effect things at all?

Also, it says that you should use non-sudsy ammonia for doing the wash of the final product. Mine that I have doesn't even say what strength it is (5 or 10%). When I shook it there was some suds just at the surface of it. That's no good to use? It was the only ammonia they seemed to have at my local hardware store (lowe's).

Forget ammonia, wash with sodium carbonate instead. Noman's tek is a little out of date on this point.

As for pressure, I think SWIY only needs to vent when shaking the bark/lye-solution.

lye+water generates heat which builds up pressure, but only as long as the lye is still dissolving.. once it is dissolved, there is no heat being generated so no pressure building up..

In any case you can always in the last pull just leave the lid on but lightly unscrewed so that just in case, no pressure will build up but also it is not open enough to evaporate too much of the naphtha..


and yes, forget the ammonia wash... either do sodium carbonate wash (sold as pH plus for pool, or make it yourself by putting baking soda in the oven), or just recrystalize after you have gotten your crystals.

Great. Thanks for the help!

One last thing, does it matter how long the collection jars are in the freezer for with the freeze precip? In other words, can the first extractions be in there for a few days so that I could just filter all of the jars at the same time?

Sorry. That was probably kind of a dumb question. It's insignificant I'm sure.

I guess I'll just filter the first jars as soon as I can and put the crystals somewhere for safe keeping until the last one's done.

It's not entirely clear what you are planning to do..

If you're doing multiple pulls, combine them in one jar or tray, evaporate down to a third, seal the jar, put it into freezer for 24-48 hours, and you should have the good stuff.

Yeah, sorry. I think I worded that weird.

Anyhoo, I read that it's best to use Heptane for the recrystallization. I tried finding it today but couldn't. I saw something that said adhesive remover but it didn't say what it was.

I ended up getting a gallon of xylene though. Is this something that can be used for the same purpose or am I confused? I thought I remembered seeing something about xylene or toluene somewhere.

Yes, no, mebbe?

Nevermind, I managed to find some bestine.

Thanks again for the help with regard to the washing guys. I'll just use washing soda like you said.