Any questions or problems you may run into during an extraction can be asked to get other members input in this thread.

Has anyone seen this happen before: After I had my naphtha jars in the freezer overnight, there was alot of spice collected at the bottom, so I went ahead and filtered it early. I ended up with about half a gram. I washed it with ammonium hydroxide and put it in a vial. About half a minute later, the powder melted into a thick oil that I could not get out of the vial. I redissolved it with naphtha in a hot water bath, but when I put it back in the freezer no crystals fell out of the solution. It blew my mind when I looked at my vial to see my crystals had turned into mush.

Hmm... Was the ammonia non sudsy? Did you allow it to dry completely before putting the spice in the jar? How much naptha did you redissolve in? I'm thinking that you'll need to evaporate the naptha and if you get total goo, do a mini A/B on that.

It may have been a bit damp when I put it in the jar. It didn't smell like ammonia though. I used Ace brand janitorial strength ammonia.

I'm doing my second extraction using Marsofolds tek, and was wondering if it is necessary to wait 4 hours for the naptha to seperate? It clearly looks like it is seperated after a few minutes. Also, the the freezing process doesn't seem to take 2 full days, looks good after sitting in there over night. Thanks for the help

You do not need to wait the full 4 hours if it has already seperated.I usually put mine in a heat bath and it seperates in about 10 minutes.So draw off your naptha as soon as you see it fully seperated.As far as the freezing process goes I only leave in freezer for a couple days myself and always get a good yield.Hope this helps you out.

Saved me lots of time, thanks!

Is it beneficial to do a cold ammonia before recrystalizing or is not necessary? Thanks again!

I would do one before recrystalizing to make sure there is no residual lye hanging around.I wouldn't worry about it after recrystalization though.

Will do, thanks!

hello all! I'm just about to finish my first QT Tek extraktion. but the evaporation of the naphta makes some trouble... after some days, all the naphta had evaporated, but a thin, wet film was left. this film stayed for several days. now after some more days (finally! i already got worried something was wrong...) this film has slowly changed to some very wet crystals. when you scrape them together its a yellow goo. Now i wonder why it takes so long to evaporate, since its nearly no naphta left. is there anything you can do to speed up evaporation process? or is it normal that the last rest of the naphta takes quite a while to evaporate? best regards, Spice-Elf

Hello spice-elf, Did you use Mimosa for extraction? And how much naphta did you use? Did you use a ventilator to quicken up the evaporation? To me it seems that your residue is too rich in oil or someting. It should have been evaporated already. I can remember a same type of post on another forum but can't remember which.

yes I used Mimosa. I followed the instructions in QTs Tek. I used 40g mimosa root bark (not very much - but enough for a first try. it was the last mimosa the local vendor had in stock). I pulled 3 extractions with about 150ml lighter fuel each. I had some of the fuel evaporated on a plate, before pulling the extractions, and it left no residue. I defatted the mimosa 3 times before adding the NaOH. and no, i did not use a fan. (I have to search it... its somewhere in a big pile of junk in my cellar )

You said "lighter fuel," do you mean zippo fluid? If you are using something like that instead of pure naphtha, that *might* explain the problem. Go get Ace brand VM&P naphtha. The fuel preparations are not very useful as solvents, especially if evaporating. You can redissolve your goo in the pure naphtha, then when a small puddle of oily stuff forms in the bottom of the jar, suck it out with a buret and discard it. Then try freeze precipitation or evaporate the solution again, and you should be left with nice clean DMT.

QT's tek is prone to oily goo, I think, because it calls for too much acid at first. There is no reason to take the pH lower than 4. She also calls for three different pH's when you basify, all of them too low. If you still have your solution left, add a couple spoons of lye and you'll probably get more. I'd take the goo and add just enough naptha to dissolve it, then freeze precipitate it. You might have to do this a couple of times to get it clean.

okay... I still got some honey like goo here :-/ since I've still got my solution, i'll try adding more NaOH and see if i'll get more goo out of it As for the cleaning - is there a minimal amount of spice you should have, or is it also possible with my small honeydrop from 40g mimosa? I'm afraid that i will loose some of the spice when trying to clean it Could I also use some acetone instead of naphta? Still got a bottle of nice, clean acetone in my basement.

[quote:a3604c7f62="spice-elf"]Could I also use some acetone instead of naphta? Still got a bottle of nice, clean acetone in my basement.[/quote:a3604c7f62] For my last (and first ) extraction I didn't use naphta but something that we call 'wasbenzine' in dutch. The closest thing to it is Coleman fuel I guess but wasbenzine is much cheaper. You can buy a one liter bottle in any supermarket for about 2 euro's. It worked like a charm for me.

here in germany we also got "waschbenzin". i think you can get in in a pharmacy. I think I will get some the next days.

After you've bought it, first try to evaporate a small amount on a plate to check if it leaves no residue.

yes i will. allready did that with all solvents I used so far. first i had some cheap lighter fluid wich left some oily residues. the lighter fluid i bought afterwards and used so far left no residues when evaporated on a dish. i think i will try to get some more spice out of my solution and then try cleaning it all together. hope it will all work out. thanks for the help so far. any other hints still welcome