I just wanted to get some people's experience related advice about extracting San Pedro. I have done SP as a tea a few times, realized I couldn't stand drinking snotty tea, so I have developed my resin process. It works well, but is a bit of work in itself.

Then (the biggie) there's the variation in potency. Twice did I have the perfect amount. It was a double batch, so that's how I got lucky twice. Most of the time it's underwhelming, but the last time was an incredibly strong trip. As cool as that was, I wasted about 6 hours of trip (about a week, space time) trying to get comfortable with how high I was.

So, I was thinking it would be nice to have the exact amount of mescaline and know what I'm in for. How does the nature of the trip of extracted mescaline compare to a resin/tea trip? Is it work the work? Is it much more work than making a resin?

The big thing I wonder about is the lack of depth, as Pedro has a lot of other psychoactive compounds than just mescaline.

Extracted mescaline is deep and visionary just as resin/tea is.

Having done lots of research, I think it comes down to which technique will be most effective. Tea/resin works better with fresh cactus than it does with chips/powder. In the case of dried chips, definitely extract.

I've heard otherwise from many people, but having no experience with extracted mesc, I have no comparison to draw.

I've heard from many that the other alkaloids have a synergistic effect. Could all be a bunch of superstitious hooey too though...

I also forgot to ask about bodyload/nausea. I don't mind a good purge, but at the same time 5+ hours of feeling sick as hell kind of taints the experience. Plus, puking up slime cactus goo es no bien. I would assume that taking a cap or two of crystals would be little to no nausea. The resin is not so easy on this psychonaut's stomach.

If you were sick for 5+ hours, I would wonder if your brew was contaminated by bacteria or something. Doesn't sound very normal to me.

tea or resin made from tea gives me gut wrenching pain (sometimes)

ive found the natural product (ie tea, green flesh powder, resins) to be a more wholesome medicine vs extracted mescaline which feels more like a magical drug. ive gone really far with extracted mesc (ate over 1.1 g hcl) but nothing has ever compared to the naturally prepared experiences in terms of depth and personal healing

dont get me wrong mescaline is the best drug you could ever acquire imo however this cat prefers the whole package, the cacti


as far as effort time to prepare your medicine, it just adds to the intention of the experience and shouldnt be rushed or avoided lest one dosent have intention. if thats the case one might be best off reconsidering their use of entheogens



just my 2 cents

it does to me.
some people have weak tummies and feel somewhat to considerably sick from cacti tea
one of the last times i drank tea i spent 1/2hr throwing up and 3-4hrs on the toilet w/the runs

i prefer extract:
simple and accurate dosing
never had more than a quick purge from extracted white/clear crystals
doesn't take much longer than making clarified tea or resin
and stores much easier than tea as well

imo the visionary/depth issue is all in your head. your expectations and desires play a key role in subjective experiences.

I wonder if more people get sick like this when they don't fast before taking it.

fasting for me makes me way sicker. It seems like there is as split in reguards to fasting vs non fasting. Some swear by it and others hate it. Personally I wont do that anymore after trying it numerous times.

Ive had really bad stomche cramps for a few hours solid with cacti before. If I fast its the same but even worse and I verge on blacking out and I cant enjoy any aspect of the experience becasue I feel like Im running on nothing and I get nothing out of it. Mushroom, Cacti and ayahuasca are all like this. I fasted a couple months ago before ayahuasca and my arms and hands began to tingle like pins and needles as it came on and I could not feel the usual dreamy like medatation that I get as the vine begins to hit..I just felt disoriented and weak and I got the strong message from ayahuasca that fasting before entheogens is a bad BAD idea..for my body anyway. I ate a bowl of grapes and within 10 minute felt great and tripped like normal from there on. I just wake up and eat a light breakfast of fruit and then dose an hour later and have some fresh juice and water on hand. I have never taken cacti at night so I cant comment on that.

In terms of tea vs resin..I think for me tea is ideal. Resin is like a big glob of, well..resin. Tea is suspended in a liquid..more surface area to be extracted by the stomach..it just makes sense to me. If you want to store it, resin is probly ideal or you can freeze the tea. I would think resin would sit in the gut for a good long while slowly digesting though due to it being like a tar..compared to tea.

I agree as far as tea vs resin. I had a rough time with tea when I was first starting, so I switched to resin for a bit. I found that it is actually much more difficult for my stomach to take it in. Now I just man up and hold my nose and take a bite of ginger after each shot of tea (yes, I like to use shotglasses- it's the perfect volume for a difficult to drink liquid)

In my experience I have always enjoyed extracted mesc more than tea/resin.

I cant stand the vile taste of cactus tea, and even though I have a strong stomache it usually makes me nauseous. The trip always seems to be more cloudy and dreamy than an extract too. Mesc extract is the only method I choose anymore. For one, it is very easy to ingest and I dont get any stomache problems with it. Also, you have a good idea on how much mesc you are ingesting. Lastly, the trip itself feels wayyy cleaner and clearer and still very psychedelic IMHO.

Well said,
I think I have noticed this as well. My problem with tea is of course the taste, but also the gag reflex. I usually hit a max amount of stuff I can get in me. The more I drink, the more my body goes, "That's not going in here, buddy!!" So I fight keeping it down long enough for it to work its magic. So, I have been on the resin route so I can make sure I get enough, but like you said it's rough on the stomach. That's why my gut was unhappy for so long.

Why does all of this stuff taste so bad? Mushrooms, ayahuasca, rue, cactus, on and on and on....It's like nature asks you, "How badly do you want to do this?" I guess really bad, because I've drank the tea!

And in regards to ease of preparation, I don't mean it in a "Looking for an easy high" sense, but more of a "complication of the process" sense. I don't usually have a ton of time to devote to my entheogens, being a full time student. So, it seems to me that extracting would mean I'd have to sit and do the whole process in one go, whereas making tea I crank up my crock pot, jam out to tunes and do homework. The biggest problem I have making resin is drying it, as my house is cold and the air is damp here in the Pacific Northwest.

Does everyone get the snot? I have only brewed once (enough for a test the waters dose and a good dose another day) and I didn't get the snot consistency in my tea. I used the Erowid method someone else linked to, so I was expecting snot, but I made one modification and wonder if it was the difference? I think thick-light said in the ACRB thread that he hard freezes his materials in the water he's going to use in the boil and I decided to apply that here. It stayed liquid all the way through reduction, except that there was relish-looking stuff if I scraped the bottom of the pot before straining it.

The first dose I drank slowly enough that it stuck around long enough to do it's job, but I did throw up the last sip immediately (note to self, pull hair back 1st ) I reduced the second dose so that is was twice as much cactus in half as much water, and I decided to give pouring it into the back of my throat with a medicine dropper and chasing it a try, with much better results in drinking.

get a 33 dollar nesco food dehydrator online/department store
take one of the lattice filled tiers and remove the lattice, leaving just the ring
place one regular ring on the bottom of the dehydrator, then the empty ring on top, then the other 2 rings on top of that one
put your pie dish with your liquid to evaporate on the bottom ring so that the empty ring provides the extra vertical space required for the dehydrator to close
turn on and ignore

it evaporates roughly 50 ml of water per hour at 155 degrees

Puma,

Nice! I've been meaning to do something of the sort. My fan method works well, but only in the summer time and takes for ever in the winter, as I learned the hard way.

As for the snotty tea,
The best tea I've had was made using grapefruit juice added to the cactus brew. It really counteracted the bitterness, and seems to get rid of the snot factor. The biggest drawback with the tea for me, is the balance. The get it down to an amount I can conceivably ingest in a timely manner means that it will be thick and syrupy (sometimes snotty).

In a nutshell:
Less bitter, thinner consistency means more volume to consume. Less volume means more bitter, thicker and nastier tea.

There doesn't seem to be a very good spot for me on this spectrum, so that's why I don't favor tea very much.

Tea is not an easy way, but it is the best way I've found so far for me. Everyone is different though. This is an entheogen that seems to take some persistence to work with. One must prove their intentions.

Does the resin never dries up completely when evaped long enough? In other words, is it impossible to turn the resin into powder again?
Thanks for the posts.

It can dry to pretty rock hard. I'm sure you could grind it and cap it. I've considered doing that before.

I dry the resin down to air dry, which is still gooey, and then put it into a closed container with desiccant(I do my shroomies the same way). This gets it down to a rock hard flaky stuff. It'll readily absorb water from the air or your hands, and return to a sticky state.

Rock hard ain't a problem for a firm mortar and pestle, they love it that way.