The procedure I used for those experiments I outlined in my first set of posts in the thread On the Trail of Cinnamolaurine. I have experimentally eliminated the use of hydroxides as the base for extracting phenol-bearing alkaloids. Ammonia or sodium bicarbonate are the preferred bases for these compounds.

Recently I tried extracting alkaloids from sassafras root bark I obtained from a health food store. The base was sodium bicarbonate, the solvent was chloroform, the acid used to salt the alkaloids out was HCl, and the water was evaporated without heat, on a plate with a fan.

The yield from this extraction was good (it's not final yet, I have a couple more pulls to do), and the extract was nice and bitter, and absolutely not salty (tasted a <1mg dab). The yields seem already to be higher than with Limonene. I also threw in some toluene after several pulls had reduced the chloroform to a very small amount (it's pretty warm where I'm at). Salting out from toluene is slower but still effective. If I had added more chloroform, I am sure that the extraction would be done already! It's very effective as a solvent.

I will be tasting this extract at 250mg in a few days to see how effective it is. This will also help determine if health food store sassafras that I have available contains active alkaloids, or if they are deteriorated in some way.