I'd like your opinion on the few variables involved in an acid soak.

How many soaks?
What temperature?
What pH?
What acid?
What water-to-MHRB ratio per soak, and how much stew are you left with?


Going on current opinion, the answers I would give here would be:
4-5
130 F (or 55 C)
pH 4-5, but can be lower (more impurities are pulled, though)
Vinegar, white
1liter-per-120grams or 1gallon-per-1pound

really? that many soaks? SWIM only did it once...would it depend also on the type/thickness of the bark?

I have heard that up to 5 soaks can continue to pull spice, even though after the first 3 it may be minimal.

I have also heard at pH of ~5 that 3 soaks at boiling temperature will pull 99% of the spice.

Because of these various claims, I'd like to get some personal opinions on the matter.

The rules state that at pH 6.68 99% of the DMT is ionized, and at ph 7.68 90% is ionized. Freebase DMT is slightly soluble in water so it's likely that at pH 6.68, the remaining 1% of freebase DMT will also get extracted into the water, if enough water is used.

According to the chemical science we're dealing with, you should be able to extract more than 99% by just boiling it enough times in pure water because the plant's pH is about 5-6 anyway. At pH 5.68 99.9% of the DMT is ionized. This is why when they extract DMT in the jungle, they use just pure water and simply boil it. Really, you don’t need to add any acids. Plain water will extract it just fine because it’s already in salt form in most plants.

It's not the acidic pH of the water that's so critical here. It’s more the duration, temperature, and volume of water that’s critical. Boiling water extracts the DMT much faster than cold water. The more water extractions the better, if small amounts of water are used. With larger volumes of water and longer boiling times, you need fewer extractions.

Most people recommend 3 water extractions boiling for at least 15-30 minutes each.

SWIM recommends running a Soxhlet for 12 hours with 91% isopropanol as the solvent. That will get all the DMT without any question. It’s also a lot less work because it’s all automatic.

Thanks for your comments 69ron. Yes, the plant is acidic already, so no acid is needed. However, wouldn't a lower pH help along the process and time involved?

Also, I have read that the boiling point of DMT hcl is 60-80*C... would boiling the water not exceed these temperatures and degrade the DMT?

And do you have any idea of a ratio of water to MHRB that one should not fall short of in an extraction?

I have indeed heard that a Soxhlet is proficient in these matters.

..so what ph is best

The point is it barely matters. DMT is freely soluble in weakly acidic solutions. Strong acidic solutions so is a lot of other stuff.

Now adding a small amount of acid may help in the amount of time needed to extract because it can help break up the bark. Makes sense SWIM never did a direct comparison but 69ron is certainly right that the traditional method of preparing the brew from mimosa involves no acid. Neither do methods used in preparation of ayahuasca as far as I know.

Any opinions on the length, bark-to-water ratio, or temperature that is ideal or should not fall under or over?

And about the boiling point, I'm getting a huge variety of answers from google. Certainly DMT salts can withstand boiling if the natives indeed could extract it in this manner, so why can't we have a solid BP figured out? Does anyone have any solid guesses, by the way?

some theoretical ideas:

cover the bark in like double or triple the volume of water. Length of time depends 2 hours per pull works fine. temperature should be about no more then 70 degrees C. Basically below hardcore boiling.

as far as how many soaks. think about it this way. the 1st soak gets most of your stuff. the second gets more then most of it. and the third squeezes out a bit more. 4 and 5 seems like overkill.

The literature is confusing about boiling points of the salts meaning people who reported it didn't have pure compounds, or screwed up in some other manner. anyway dont worry about it just dont boil hardcore keep it below boiling. accoring to THIKAL:

"As to melting points, some in the literature are of plant isolates and other are of synthetic samples. A brief and incomplete survey has revealed the following numbers, all in °C: 44, 44.6-46.8, 46, 47, 48-49, 49-50, 56-57, 57-59, 58-60, 64-67, 67 and 67-68. The 58-60 and 64-67 values are from the Aldrich Chemical Company, for samples bearing the purity claims of "puriss" and 99+% "Gold Label" resp. The Merck Index gives the very early, very low values of 46 °C and 44.6-46.8 °C and claimes that the bp is 60-80 °C with atmospheric pressure being implied. It is clearly in error on both matters. No evidence has been published suggesting polymorphism. The published mp values for the trimethyl quaternary iodide span the range from 188 °C to 233 °C, including in-between values of 197 °C and 216-217 °C. This physical property is of limited value."

In order to bump this thread without guilt, I have provided a quick survey of the popular A/B teks' acid soak recommendations.


(approximate values given)

Marsofold tek:
420ml water per 50g bark
2 hours; 3 soaks total; crockpot on "high"; do not drain completely between soaks (only after last one); 3-to-1 water to vinegar ratio

Loki's tek:
400ml per 50g bark
30 minutes; 1 soak total; boiling; 5g calcium ascorbate per 50g bark; pH ~4

Vovin's tek:
300-600ml per 50g bark
45 minutes; 3 soaks total; pre-boiled water, in a heat bath; drops of hydrochloric acid in order to reach pH 4

QT's tek:
250ml per 50g bark
15-30 minutes heated & 24 hours total, shaking periodically; keep below 122*F/50*C; when using acids "weaker" than hydrochloric, simmer overnight; pH 2


I still find it curious that some claim that an acid is not necessary at all, and others insist that a "strong" acid is required. Also, n,n DMT acidic salts seem very impervious to heat! In fact, it struck me that I've never heard of anyone claiming that they "boiled away" their spice..

I am a cook not a scientist so I consider time and effort versus yield. Three soaks. One part vinegar to three parts water. Three or four volumes of water to your volume of powder. 24 hours for the first, 48 for the second and third. Warm to hot without boilling. EASY.

Why not take 150g of bark, divide it into three, and do five separate soaks at pH 2, five at pH 4, and five with plain water?
It'll take awhile and you'll be doing fifteen extractions but when you're done you'll know what works for you and not just be taking someone's word for it.
For the record, my friend does four soaks, the first two in 1:2 - vinegar/water and the second two in plain water, all using 3 liters of liquid per 200g bark, all cooked on low overnight in a crock-pot, the last soak being the only one thoroughly squeezed out. He puts everything in the refrigerator to settle and pours the clear liquid off the top of the sludge. (he's tried basifying the sludge and extracting it and gotten fuck all) He then reduces the liquid down until it just starts to visibly thicken and extracts that.

That's a good test, but you'll need to perform it probably a dozen times to get somewhat accurate results, because alkaloid contents vary quite a lot even for two pieces of the exact same plant! SWIM knows, he’s tried these sort of tests and keeps getting inconstant results from batch to batch

Here’s a bit of discouraging information. In one batch SWIM extracted 0.57% DMT, in another 0.031%!, in another 1.09%, in another 0.19%, and that’s all from the same plant with the same exact extraction procedure!!!!! Talk about inconsistence results! Man!!!!!!



The norm for alkaloid extraction in water is pH 3-4. This is what most scientists will use for a general purpose extraction. The reason is that some alkaloids, like harmine (pKa 7.7), have very low pKa values and therefore they need such a low pH for extraction because they need to be ionized to be water soluble. An alkaloid with a pKa of 7.7 is 99.9% ionized at pH 4.7. DMT has a pKa of 8.68 and only needs a pH of 5.68 to be 99.9% ionized, but is still 90% ionized at pH 7.68! So for it, pure water works just fine because most of the plants are acidic anyway and will bring the water to about pH 5-6 on their own. At pH 6.68 99% of DMT is ionised. A solution with a pH of 6.68 is considered a dilute acid solution. That’s all that’s needed for good DMT extraction. However, there's often more than just DMT present and if you want everything in the plant, you should use pH 3-4.

Once advantage, which was brought up many times by other people, is that at pH 3-4 the acids help to eat away the plant matter, and therefore plant extraction is usually improved a little bit. But it’s not much in some cases. Boiling will also break apart the plant matter and improve extraction. If you’re not boiling, adding extra acid can really help break apart the plant matter. Another obvious way to improve extraction is to break apart the plant matter by grinding it to a powder. This is generally much more effective than adding extra acid, but this makes filtering really hard. Extremely high pH values like pH 11-14 also have this effect of breaking apart the plant matter. This is why high pH values are used in DMT oriented STB techs. But in some cases hi pH values are death to an extraction, because they destroy some alkaloids and can cause soaps to form, especially in fatty plant matter, like some leaf materials.

Don't use a pH value below 3. Some alkaloids are sensitive to very low pH values. Also, some alkaloids are soluble in dilute acid only, and insoluble in concentrated acid. For example, there is harmine HCl, an alkaloid which is only soluble in dilute HCl, and insoluble in concentrations of as little as 10% HCl! So overdoing the acid is not always a good thing.

Remember that DMT is soluble in DILUTE ACID aqueous solutions and non-polar solvents. In no reference does it ever say that DMT is soluble in concentrated acid. It probably gets destroyed in concentrated acid.

Extraction is not all black and white. A tech that works for one plant for a specific alkaloid may not be the best for another plant even with the same target alkaloid. Case in point: Psychotria viridis and Mimosa hostilis. For Mimosa, you are plagued with emulsions, so techs have evolved using pH 13 for that plant to help stop those frustrating Mimosa emulsions that hinder extraction of DMT. These emulsions are caused by slightly insoluble material that forms at certain pH ranges. The same techs work better for Psychotria Viridis if the pH is lowered to 9.5-10.5, because higher pH values cause soups to form from the fats present in Psychotria, and this will causes super bad emulsions when extracting from that plant. This is one case where one pH works great for one plant, but messes things up for another plant.

Which is why one would powder all of the bark and mix it first.

That'll sure work if you have a coffee grinder than can handle it or you can buy the herb in powder form already.

SWIM doesn’t grind his own herbs anymore after he broke his really nice grinder trying to powderize some really tough Mimosa bark. So he's not about to do try that again with his new grinder.

My friend in Antarctica burned through grinders until he bought a Kitchenaid blender.
That thing will hack up re-bar.
Anyway, one can buy coffee grinders for twenty bucks, get a couple kilos out of them, and toss.
No need to fuck up your good kitchen stuff.

SWIM needs a tough grinder made for tough herbs, one that can grind a whole kilo at a time.

Where can SWIM get a good herb grinder that can grind tough bark to a course grind instead of a powder? Powder is so hard to filter.

Maybe a grain mill?
http://www.homebrewheaven.com/

WOA! Thanks for that link. They have all sorts of cool stuff there!!! They even have copper mesh packing!

Thanks a million Noman!