Greetings travelers,

My friend got some pre-powdered MHRB from an online vendor. I used the Noman tek (although my friend admittedly did not use the 1.5-2x water for pre-powedered that he reccomends). Well my friend is having issues because each time he lets the naptha evap he is left with this layer of slime with the spice crystals visible but mixed throughout. My friend tells me that it is sticky too the touch, and when he tries to scrape it up it forms this very waxy type product. My friend has tried recrystalization by warming naptha, adding it to the spice, cooling, and siphoning off the top layer into a colletion pan already. The resulting color was much better (tan rather than YELLOW), but it still does not look like the crystals which I am after.

I am sure there must be a simple explanation for this but would really appreciate any advice.

Thanks what

The problem is that your friend evaporates the naphtha, that ain't very smart if one wants a crystal pure product. Evaporation will dump ALL the substances caught up in the naphtha. This is often not what you want but instead just this one substance called N,N-DMT, so to speak.

Instead of evaporation, try to freeze precipitate. Simply take your naphtha and put it in the freezer for as long time as it takes for crystals to form at the sides (6-12hours recommended). Then pour of the naphtha into another container quickly, and scrape up the crystals when dry. The naphtha you poured off will still contain some DMT so reuse it, pull with it again and freeze precipitate.

Yea my friend told me just now that he did a freeze precip but was really unhappy with the loss from the coffee filter he used. He wanted me to ask you gurus if there is some sort of alternative to using a coffee filter that might produce a better yield. He used a simple paper cone one if that has any bearing.

I will have my friend try a freeze precip next time and see how that goes. Also, my friend wants to know what the consistency of the whole MHRB/Lye/Water solution should be. His is very thick and gooey, is this a problem or will it just require more naphtha pulls? Thanks!

There is, be more exact & anal about how you go through the steps & don't substitute anything!!
I always wonder how people are able to screw this process up, it really can't be much easier!!

Could be that you didn't use enough lye for the basification & the DMT did not get totally converted from it's natural acid from to the freebase form.?.?.? Just an idea...

If you are using a STB tek, you'll need to be extremely careful not to pull off anything but the solvent layer!!
Get yourself an eyedropper for picking up the last of it more precisely.

In an A/B tek, all the extra steps are there to remove the plant matter, other solids & the various oils & fats during the process.
So they seem to have a lot more steps & be more difficult, but those extra steps are there so the yield can come out much more pure in the first place, without the need for re-crystallization.

How long did you leave it to evap? Could be that it just didn't evaporate completely.

Next time use freeze precipitation!!
Once again, reading about it, makes it sound more difficult than it actually is!!

Freeze precip too, is really very, very simple, as long as you have a nice, cold freezer!!
Even if you don't, it will just take a bit more time for all the alkaloids to precipitate out of the solvent. You just have to leave it alone & have some patience.
Plus freeze precipitation is soooooo much cleaner than evaporation!!
It's supposed to leave behind any residual impurities in the solvent, rather than evaporating the solvent & adding those impurities to the yield!!

Most problems people have with their first extraction or two, usually has something to do with one of those issues, or a combination of a couple of them.

Hope something there helps.

WS

It's all about the freeze precip--> then re-xtalyze. But if you want to take the evap route my advice is to make it as slow as possible. Don't use heat and don't use a fan. Using a fan is like putting your product in a bowl with oxygen and stirring it around for the duration of the evap = gooey gooey goo!

I like to freeze precip. then evap any solvent I'm left with after the bark is exhausted.

Thanks for all of the help guys. My friend told me that he is trying the freeze precip tonight. He tells me that he has the solvent inside of a glass baking pan inside of a deep freeze. He tells me that the pan is uncovered, do you think this will be a problem for him?

Also, with his previous freeze precips he has had very bad luck with coffee filters stealing his crystals! Is there a better alternative to paper filters, or could his methodology just be flawed?

Thanks!

OK, there's your problem!!

You need to seal the jar/dish used for freeze precipitation!!!
You can use 2 layers of plastic wrap & rubber bands for this, if your using a glass dish.

If it's not sealed air tight, oxygen condenses into water on the inside of the precipitation vessel as the temp changes.
This means your getting water contamination in your precipitation!!
Which results in a gooey mess that doesn't crystallize well!!

This also means that you've probably got ice in you DMT/solvent too.
So when you try to filter out the crystals, the solvent passes right through the filter...like it should...but the ice doesn't. It slowly melts & turns to water, which doesn't let you crystals dry out fast enough & that is why your loosing so much spice to the filter!!!
Normally the loss should be extremely minimal, maybe .001mg, if that!

Freebase DMT is not very soluble in water at all, but the water will make it gooey which will get stuck in your filter!

I don't know how to fix what you got there, I'm sure someone could help you get the DMT out of your goo...
If you've got a open dish of solvent in your freezer, Get It Out Of There!!
Let it cool down to room temp, swirl it around a little & let it sit at an angle, so the water will pool together in a corner.
The water will sink to the bottom.
Then you can use an eye dropper to carefully suck it up & remove it.
Then move your solvent to a clean, uncontaminated precipitation vessel.
Make sure there is no water left in there before sealing & putting it back in the freezer!!

WS

Go to the supermarket and get some 1/2 pint straight canning jars. A case is $10. Place your pulls into one of them. If you get any plant matter in there, then it will immediately sink to the bottom and then just pour off to another jar. Then seal and freeze, wake up in the morning, dump out the naptha carefully and then let sit for 2 days to dry out. Patience is key in this process is what I am learning. Once dry scrape out to another container, seal it and use that as your holding jar. You can then use the one you scraped again for another freeze.

One little tip for getting freeze precipitated crystals out of a narrow jar is to simply heat some naphtha - or even better, n-heptane. Then add this to your jar with crystals (after you've poured off the freezer solvent) and swirl it around (and add some more if needed) until everything has dissolved.

Try to get by with as little solvent as possible, then pour it off onto a nice open dish or something (try to watch out for water since it oxidizes spice). Lastly, simply evaporate your solution and nice, white and pure crystals should be forming on a more accessible area.

This is because the solvent you evaporate here will only contain the substance you dissolved into it from the freeze precipitate jar (after pouring of solvent), so it will be clean. It's totally okay, you should never evaporate a direct pull since it contains other stuff than DMT. Stuff that freeze precipitations gets rid off.

But, be careful. Things like flowing air (no fans), heat and water contamination during evaporation (even these small amounts) greatly increases the speed of oxidation. Be extra careful with the water, it is a true spicekiller combined with oxygen (similar to how rust forms).

2 days to dry out?!?! (are you using Xylene?)
Takes less than 2 hours over here!

Although I also put the jar in the fridge overnight, then into the freezer for at least 24 hours, sometimes up to a week.
The longer the better.
The crystals should be solid before taking them out of the solvent & after filtering, they shouldn't take more than an hour or two to fully dry out.
If you leave them out in the open for that long, they will oxidize due to the extended oxygen exposure & turn an off white color.

Also DMT-N Oxide is not the same effect as freebase DMT. I forget the differences, but I'm pretty sure it is less potent when vaporized!

So leave 'em out just long enough to evaporate the solvent, stir 'em around with a paper clip every ten minutes or so, to expose all of the crystals to the air.
Move 'em around on the filter paper too, so it dries out as well.
Then seal them in a vile or something & store in the fridge or freezer.

WS

I have to keep them in my "work room" in the basement. It is quite moist down there. I need to get a dehumidifyer for that room. I noticed I scraped more off the sides on day 2 than day 1. They are also kept in a plastic draw type thing so they are not out in the open. I did notice that when using a fan, all it took was an hour, but stopped doing that because of the oxidization. Wish the wife was more understanding when it came to this stuff, prob why the demons were laughing at me.

Plus I can't have that beautiful thing in my picture accidentally stumble upon my experiments, so the only time I get to really do some "work" is when they are both sleeping or both away. Thankfully the original set up to get going only takes about 20 minutes, and I have gotten the pulls down to a quick 5 minute... I am going to check my email.

My other advantage is that there are spiders in that back work room which keeps the wife at bay.

Using Naptha- I have 1 more 200 ml pull left then doing xylene over the weekend to get the jungle.

BTW- a regular large mason jar is perfect for 500-600 g MHRB. Once done I still have another one to do. I really want to play with some cactus but can't set up the proper lab and don't have the time. Hopefully when the kids are older the wife will have more of an understanding as we have already talked about that and she seemed open to that and the mushroom kit I have.

Yea, your probably right on there...

This stuff tends to want to help you quite down those "demons" in the only permanent way...dealing with 'em in the open, for real!!

If your hiding this from the people you love most & live in the same house with you, that more than likely isn't going to go away.
Laughing at you is just the tip...of the tip of the iceberg!! That's still friendly!


WS

Understood, we have talked about it, I told her I wanted to get the ingredients for Aya and prepare the tea one weekend, but she asked her mom about it (who is all into the shaman stuff, ex hippy and all that) but the mom told her the ones she new that took it felt like they were going to hell for 6 hours and that if I really wanted to I should do it with a real shamen.

Which hopefully someday we will make it down to S. America for a retreat, but I caught the bug last year and finally got around to making my own, and its something I need to do for myself. At this point it needs to remain hidden, certainly not forever though, that was never my intention.

Its just something I feel the need I have to explore for myself at this point. She did tell me I have been more compassionate in the last week.