Hey guys, I am very new to this, but I have read A LOT about it and I think by now I know a lot, but there is a lot to learn,
including: what is like to actually get a yield.

Reason being: I was trying at ALL costs to do a lye-free extraction.
That simply can`t be done with Naptha, AFAIK

Also DCM pulls WAY WAY WAY too much stuff, I took 1.5x the volume of the brew worth of goop out before I ran out of DCM, lol

Anyway, I just ordered some lye and I thought I`d share my story for all those in a similar boat.

Here are my attemps

Attempt 1:
Boiled 28g ground MHRB in lots H20 1 time for 20 min
Filtered through shirt
Basified with sodium carbonate to +11
Tried to pull with LOTS of naptha, got massive emulsion, but I used so much I had some clear stuff on the top
tried to freezer precipitate it, waited only 1 hour, accidentally dumped product
(although there wasn`t any spice in it anyway)

What is did wrong:
Only one boil
Didn`t acidify, which from ayahuasca brew testing I approximate gives a 10-15% yield of the spice
Shirt is a bad fliter, loss of liquid
PH of 8.5-12 with naptha (with mimosa) produces NASTY emulsions
Freezer precipitation takes a while and needs a saturated solution.

Attempt 2:
Boiled 28g ground MHRB in about 750ml + 2 tbsp citric acid
Filtered through course strainer then fine strainer
Basified to 11.5 with sodium carbonate
attempted to pull with naptha, got harsh emulsion again

What I did wrong: Again only one boil
Used too much acid, only about half tsp needed
The PH was wrong, got emulsion

Attempt 3:
Boiled about 20g MHRB with half tsp citric acid. 3 pulls of 250ml
Filtered through strainer then layers of cheesecloth
Seperated into 3 cups
1: baking soda PH 8.4
2: sodium carbonate PH 9-10
3: sodium carbonate PH 11.5
Added naptha
Got same - nasty - emulsion WITH ALL 3

What I did wrong: PH is too low, but I had to test it, I was determined not to use lye

Attempt 4`:
Boiled about 20g MHRB with half tsp citric acid. 3 pulls of 250ml
Filtered through strainer then layers of cheesecloth
Seperated into 2 cups

1: Basified to 11.5 with sodium carbonate
Added about 50ml DCM
Got nasty white gunk, filtered it out
Decanted DCM
Evaporated at about 50C, there was exiting yellowish waxy substance at the bottom.
Tried to dissolve the substance in naptha, no dice.
Scaped some and tried to heat it, didn`t vaporize, gave off mimosa smelling smoke after burning

2: Basified to 11.5 with sodium carbonate
Added about 100ml DCM, Filtered off gunk
Added another 100ml DCM, filtered off gunk
Added rest of DCM, still completely gunky
Gave up and ordered some Lye

So I am just going to go with Noman;s tek

Any comments on something I missed, any success stories pulling with DCM. I`d love to hear them!

Cheers

You should have done nomans tech to begin with. Its theasiest tech out there.Rootbark to smokeable spice in 6 hours. Lye isnt that bad its just obtaining it can be a hassle.

DCM a/b should work with Sodium Carbonate but you need a defat step before you basify and extract. Also I'm not sure what you mean by the 'filtered off gunk' stage; do you mean you filtered the DCM you recovered from the bottom layer of the extraction?