Using Cyb's maxION Tek with 50g of ACRB. My question revolves around a layer of what appears to be bark powder floating at the top of vessel. It has been there since the beginning, and is still there five hours into the heating of the acidified solution. Is this OK? Is it something that should be filtered out? Will it go away, or dissolve into the process at any point? Any thoughts or suggestion on this would be greatly appreciated. Hopefully the picture explains things better than my words probably have. Thank you.

Its probably really fine acrb floating there. If you're still at the acid step it shouldn't matter. Once you basify and pull with nap you can leave those behind. Or they'll filter out if you do that. They aren't harmful.

Will the naptha layer, when defatting, float above that layer? Just curious, as the defatting phase comes before the base phase.

If it is floating and won't mix then scoop it out and discard it.
It will have served its purpose by now and any goodies will have been leeched out and will be in the acidic solution.
Tiny bits remaining is fine but if you leave it like it is now, I imagine that the solvent will have a difficult time rising and pulling will be problematic.
Scoop and chuck.


edit: Are you sure it is legit ACRB? I don't think anyone has reported this before.

Yeah, i would also say its some fine bark or not well mixed with the Acid yet..
usually it would just sink to the bottom..
But this may sound strange for you.., i couldnt believe either, but i guess it has something to do with the Form of the Bottle with the "little bump" being exactly same height as Liquid level…

SWIM saw this few times before when Harmalas extracted, and he was using his "old" extraction bottles, which looked similar.. very often the harmala chrystals where floating on top, over the "bump" and just didn't want to sink down…
SWIM then used a different Flask, which is straight glas, and the problem of "non-sinking" harmala chrystals disappeared.. they ALL went to bottom easily..
I know it may sound strange.., but give it a try using a different Flask without bumbs…
There's nothing you can loose by trying…
i would say it helps..

cheers

Great info. Thanks for the suggestions, next extraction will take this into consideration. For now, a 24hr freeze just ended, end results for the batch soon to come.

thanks for introducing me to the MAX ION tek! I'll try that next time.. looks promising. going back to your issue, may i know what acid did you use?

are there other particles of ACRB at the bottom which look like different?

A person I knew encountered something similar with Mimosa. But only after adding salt. Which was added after Acid but before Base in an A/B extraction.

This lead too a couple of questions about the Max Ion Tek that shouldn't need a new thread to be answered.

Why is the defat step done before adding salt if the salt reportedly pushes out oils and other plant matter from the tea(assuming you're filtering).

In this persons dream he split his extraction into two batches. One he added salt after the Acid soak + filtering. The salt pushed out a bottom and top layer of sediment from his filtered tea. There was allot of worry that this "sediment" contained product. But none was saved for testing. He then re-filtered the tea. And then defatted. This eventually yielded a pure white product.

In the second batch salt was added after the defat as per the Tek's instructions. The product produced from this batch was very oily and yellow and is still being re-Crystallized.

No comparison on yield could be made between the two batches.

Is this a coincidence? Is there risk of losing product by defatting after the salt is added but before the lye? Anyone else with similar experiences?

Oh, and btw, the base phase definitely got rid of the floaties. The defatting naptha could be separated and removed regardless of the floaties. And on a side note, when the tea was observed closely during pulls, very fine sparkles could be seen floating back to the top after the vessel was shaken several times. Any thoughts on the very tiny sparkles in the basified tea?

So finished the freeze after the pulls. Out of the 50g ACRB got a few diffinitive crystals on a thin haze layer of goo which brings up some questions. Will try to attach picture, but might have to wait till morning when I get home. If picture attached, is this the infamous goo that so many have talked about and thus worth keeping? Should it go back in the freezer to try to solidfy the goo for easier handling? Tried scraping with a blade and not even a millimeter scrape and I was worried about it all sticky ng to the blade. Is this this the point to consider re-xing it, or is this it and on to the next extraction attempt? Any info would be greatly appreciated. Thanks much!

I'm not too familiar with acrb but that looks to me like it might not have been basified enough for you pulled your solvent. Also you asked what that tiny sparkles are, those are naptha(solvent) bubbles rising.

Is it possible to add more lye, reHeat and pull again? Or best to start from scratch? Still have my tea stored away, so if so I can just do that before starting the next extract.

Well, I think I figured out one of my problems with a pleasant surprise this morning. So when decantering the excess solvent after the freeze I poored it into another glass cooking tray and through it in the freezer just for the hell of it. Got home today not expecting anything and pulled it out of the freezer without care... and the following picture is what I found. I think I failed to evap the original pulls down enough before freezing. So too much naptha in the dish on first pull. Not thinking, I pldecantered the rest of the naptha from second freeze into a jar and boy is it milky white! Back in another glass dish and back to the freezer! Too small a dish and not enough evap might of been a problem!!!