Yes, although the common ion effect might cause some co-precipitation of salt, depending on the concentration of alkaline solution added. You can avoid this by using SC/lye solutions of a limited concentration, or of course by using ammonia.

As long as the sodium ion concentration of your SC/lye solution is no greater than that of a saturated salt solution, there's no chance of salt precipitation. In fact, you have a bit of leeway in the upper direction, because the concentration of chloride ion drops as the base solution is added.

Thanks downwardsfromzero. Appreciated

P.s
Will this manifest also in ph level ?

The pH thing is somewhat different, over in the VDS protocol thread it became clear that pH can change seemingly erratically both because of rates of freebase harmaloid crystal formation and - especially when using SC - dissolved CO2.

Hello everyone. So I just recently made my first batch using Q21’s A/B tek since it seemed like the easiest one (to me) to try for my first attempt. I have a question about doing subsequent pulls. What is supposed to be done with the bark mush during the 24-48 wait for the next pull? Is it supposed to stay submerged in naphtha and covered? Left uncovered and left to dry? Is there any way to salvage the mixture if it did dry out completely? I’m worried I may have ruined the mush and won’t be able to do any more pulls from it. Thanks for any help!

It's not ruined. You could even try pulling from the dry material, in the interests of science. Adding water to bring it to a paste-like consistency might be considered preferable as far fewer small particles would end up in the naphtha when compared to completely dried out material. Or you could add sufficient distilled water - along with some sodium carbonate - to bring it back to a liquid soup. Your options are far from being exhausted; if anything they have increased from having dried out the sludge.

For further meaningful advice it would be helpful if you could describe exactly what you've done, right from the start.

Thank you for the info downwardsfromzero! I’m pleased to hear all is not lost. As far as step by step, I followed Q2121’s tek. After I poured off the naphtha into a glass container I left the bark mush in the bowl and left it uncovered and never poured any naphtha back in. So it has basically just sat in the bowl and is completely dried out now. I will try to add some water and bring it back to a mush and try a pull again and hopefully will see some more fluffy crystals! Thank you for the help!

Hello there,

First post from me here and I would like to start by saying that this is a really great community. Thank you to everyone involved. I have edited a couple of these questions down as there was too many and I have worked out the answers.

I have been studying the excellent Q21Q21's Vinegar/Lime A/B Extraction Tek, Tek 1, and have a few very basic questions.

Once the vinegar has been separated from the solvent and is stored in a separate jar and you are left with the solvent, is it a case of simply pouring the solvent back on to the bark and lime for pull 2 and then leaving this for 24 hours with the solvent on top of the bark and with the lid on? Am I right in thinking that you do not require to add any water or lime to the bark for a second or third pull before putting the solvent back on?

Or is it the case, you put the solvent back on after leaving the bark and lime for 24 hours for pull 2?


I appreciate these questions are all quite basic but would be appreciated if anyone can consider them and let me know their thoughts. I'd imagine this will be obvious to anyone who has done the tek.

I am not familiar with this specific tek but in principle if you are using vinegar than your 1st solvent can be reused for subsequent pulls. You basically repeat the same step multiple times by putting the solvent back with the bark/soup, roll it around ( don't let the solvent just sit on on top doing nothing. You want it to get all the goodies from the soup) , let it separate, suck it out, mix with vinegar, pull vinegar and repeat.


Hope it helps

My friend extracted some ruby-red mimosa goo and given it is very sticky and hard to handle she is planning to dissolve it in some ethanol (weigh the ethanol before and after in order to calculate how much goo there is) and then store it in the freezer in a dropper bottle for future use. I.e Impregnate leaf, pharma, or vaping.

Any reason why storing in ethanol is not a good idea ( shelf life ) ?

Thank you all and have a blessed day

Can one have a solution that's too alkaline in an A/B tek?

I'm currently trying to clean up a very gooey extraction using a mini A/B. I acidified down to 3.0 with acetic acid, extracted the impurities with naptha (Waschbenzin a.k.a hex/heptane), then basified back with NaOH. I was aiming for a pH of 13, but I kept pouring in NaOH and because my pH meter was continually registering 11, and pretty soon I ended up with a saturated solution of NaOH, with a big lump of undissolved NaOH sitting in the bottom of my mixing jar. I also realized that my pH meter maybe needs to be recalibrated.

I've now got a very cloudy aqueous layer and a naptha layer which is very yellow, which concerns me because the naptha was clear to start with and, as far as I understand, the impurities tend to cause the naptha to go yellow. I've attached a photo which shows the yellow solution and the big lump of undissolved NaOH at the bottom.

Should I siphon off the naptha layer and freeze precipitate as normal? Or should I try recalibrating my pH meter and maybe adding water to my solution to get the pH down to 13, or something else entirely?

Thanks for your response.

DMT will not get destroyed in very alkaline environment, so you are still safe.

Actually one does not even need so much NaOH for full basification, so next time no need to throw in excessive amounts

Still if you mixed quite well you should still have all your goodies in the top yellow layer.

And dont worry if its still quite yellow: Even traces of impurities may cause a coloration, so just proceed as normal and check afterwards if you still have goo or if it turns out crystaline now.
What I would recommend:

Actually it may a good backup plan to also buy some pH paper. It is super safe to verify by that if you are at pH 11+ already and if you are below pH 4. Maybe it is not as cool as a pH-Meter, but in case you are not sure about the correct pH, this will always be a safe backup plan, as it never needs calibration obviously. And 1 roll of paper may be enough forever.

Thanks for the reply, Brennendes Wasser!

pH strips are on my shopping list

A forum member was doing a test on the stability of ethanolic DMT solution a while back. To my recollection, no result was posted but it should be easy enough to dig out the thread and check. The mimosa goo will contain impurities that may go either way in terms of affecting shelf life.

The other thing to be aware of is that the ethanol inevitably evaporates to some degree so the last drops will likely be stronger than the first ones, although storing it in the freezer and only measuring it out when cold will largely minimise both this and the likelihood of oxidation.

Thanks downwardsfromzero
Couldn't find the mentioned thread but sounds like the plan should work...

After reading a bunch of threads and articles about harmala extraction I'm still a bit confused and like to ask: what is most important in reducing harmala related nausea? I've previously done water and acid water extraction with Syrian rue, which I believe is better compared to eating the raw seeds. However it still upsets my stomach. Is converting the harmalas to salt worth the trouble if the aim is just to reduce nausea or should I just filter the liquid through finer cloth to get rid of the tannins?

Edit: After reading a lot more, I came to conclusion that the nausea is in the harmala alkaloids themselves and no amount of refining will get rid of it for good. I came across a tip on lemon oil, that it contains an 5-HT3 antagonist and will supress nausea. I haven't tested it yet, but trying it might be more useful than increasing the purity of the harmala extract.

hi,

I have a question regarding CYB's hybrid 'salt' tek

total amount of liquid is 700ml but hard to get those 700ml bottles like are in the picture-they all made of plastic ,only Calypso juice ones but they are 500ml.
(have some 700ml flasks but the Calypso bottles have metal lid not plastic or rubber there hence calypso)

is there a way to reduce from 700 to 500ml without loosing much yield or effect the extraction?

In my experience, harmaline is more nauseating than harmine. You can separate them and see if taking only harmine makes things better.

Hello Nexians,

I am in need of some advice please.
A full spectrum mimosa extract ( BLAB with limonene and vinegar ) yielded an amount of red acetate goo which does not make any theoretical sense ( 6% yield ?? ). My friend suspects that the reason for that is the vinegar actually pulled also plant fats and whatnot from the limonene.

Is it possible to defat the goo with naphtha ? The procedure my friend had in mind is dissolving the goo in some water till liquid, and then do few naphtha pulls to remove excess plant oils.

Is the theory suggested sound ?

Thanks

Dear Nexians,

I need some advice with the eco-friendly tek posted by Endlessness.

I used about 96g of very finely ground ACRB (used a coffee mill) and did an acid cook with citric acid before basing and then pulling with acetone. I was left with a plate that was covered in this dried flaky black reddish resin, that I am now trying to redissolve in citric acid.

Redissolution appears to be very slow though. The solution I use is about 10 % citric acid. The ph is lower than 4.5. Unfortunately the acid strips I use don't go lower than that, so I can't tell exactly.

Do I need to use a stronger acid here? Or should I just wait/use more of it?

all the best,
bfp