Hello all. Had my account for a while and sometimes post in chat. Here’s a quick run down of my experience with chemistry so far. I started smoking weed a long time ago, mainly sativas when I started and now. I had truffles for the first time around 4 years ago l, 15g if I remember correctly , had “ego death”, it was the perfect introduction into psychedelics and life I can think off. I did truffles for a while but my stomach reacts VERY badly to them and stomach kept getting worse. Weeks of extreme acid and unable to eat and pains. Then friend got some LSD. Shared lsd with my partner. I do not believe in bad trips but my partner had a really odd trip when we did a couple tabs together. More recently had the opportunity/location to make DMT.

I want to make quite a lot as I live with my parents and can’t foresee being in a position to make it again. I started out with a few 50g max ion tek extractions. Started getting a hang of the steps but getting very low yields ~0.1-0.3%. I have narrowed this down to not using enough heat for acid bath (skipped once or twice) and again at the basifying stage. Also when shaking in a separating funnel I learnt a lot of pressure builds up! Enough to throw the liquid out the top!

My set up is
2L beakers (3 broke today!!!!, this really annoyed me and prompted me to post this)
Hot plate stirred with external heat probe. It doesn’t have great control, you can select a temp using external heat probe. Ie 70, then the plays heats up as high as it can (520) intil temp reaches 70, then the plate switched off, being at 520, it still keeps heating the liquid.
Separating funnel
T shirt
Heptane
Naoh
White vinegar
Freezer
Mhrb from eda
Safety equipment, lab cost, gloves
I thought given I was getting a hang of the 50g extractions, and my limited time to utilise the space available I’ll up to 300g pulls. I also tried to keep it within the 2l beakers. This is where the learning curve became apparent, firstly as I was using a lower water bark ratio the bark vinegar mix is a lot thicker. So a layer of bark burns to the bottom of the beaker and caused it to crack. This happened 3 times today even after I initially lowered the temperature: it was only then I realised it was due to the bark burning to the bottom. This thick liquid also makes filtering a lot more difficult!! The liquid just sits in the t shirt i had to squeeze it through. I lost a lot of bark when the beakers broke. Then lost more liquid when filtering the gloop through the t shirt. I will be back at it tomorrow. Lessons learned over the last couple of weeks. Given I’ve only got 3 days left I’ve been rushing and trying shortcuts without fully understanding consequences ie from the thicker liquids.

Things I have been doing to save time: acid bath: instead of 8hr warm bath I’ve been trying 1hr hot baths at around 70/80.

Many suggest you should always use indirect heat (e.g. warm water bath) for heating up the acid mix. I usually heat mine in a stainless steel pot on low heat, but certainly many Teks compel you to warm water in a pot, then place your acid mix container into the bath. Glass generally doesn't like instant/local heat being applied.

Regarding the thickness of the liquid, you should definitely let the liquid sediment first. Just leave it untouched for some time (usually 30-60 mins works for me), then the bark should've settled at the bottom. Pour off the liquid and go about. You can then take all the bark and squeeze it through your shirt to get every last drop. You can also put everything into the fridge overnight and even more bark will sediment at the bottom, which you can then again filter out with a shirt again.

Please remove sourcing reference!

Attitude



Looks like you've learnt the hard way about overambitious scaling-up. People do degrees in chemical engineering to learn about this kind of stuff. At the very least you'd do well to invest in a better hotplate if you intend to continue with this path.

i thought this thread was about financial independance...
Until? They come back from vacay?
Gonna have to say that if you are still living with the 'rents, that maybe you would want to reconsider. Sounds like you already made quite the mess. Seems like it could potentially create more problems than it may solve... Only my little 00.02 cents worth.