Ok, so I thought I'd start a little thread here on what kind of extraction technique you are using, and what yields you are getting. The intent would be to zero in on the sweet spot between the most efficient method and the easiest....

So I'll start. I have been using Noman's tek, but modified slightly to use 1.1x the amount of lye per gram of MHRB. I am also heating my naphtha to 70c before using it for a pull.

I am using ready powdered MHRB and am getting around 0.8/0.9% extraction efficiency, but I am only doing extractions of 50g MHRB at a time and I think there is some loss because of the small volumes.

Benefits are that it is dead simple, it works and the spice is great!

Downside is that you need to be very careful with the Lye, and I would like to see a slightly higher efficiency of at least 1%

A/B methods can also give you 1 % or more. I think the highest I discovered was 1,4 % and it was pretty light coloured - but it may be as low as 0,8 from time to time - no wonder why lol, guess that adds a bit of mystery and surprise

. With STB / Noman you would normally end up with maybe just 85 % purity (just a guess), so the total yield is maybe even lower. So your 0,8 % is after purification or before?

Also I would advise to heat the complete mixture to 70°C instead of just the Naphtha. The hydro carbons have a super low heat capacity and therefore a Hot Naphtha with a cool water mixture will end up also nearly as cool as the water starting temperature.

But this is when considering A/B extractions, there if you heat your complete mixture to 60 °C you will still get a nearly white product, when using a STB method like Nomads then this will maybe already decrease purity (which would not matter if you purify it later on).

Let's say you do it like this:

1 Vol water + 3x extract with 0,33 Vol Naphtha heated at 60 °C all the time and mixed vigorously will get all your actives out. No need for a 4th or 5th pull - even the third will just be for super safety.

So this is what I would vote for.


PS: Also you really mean



=D That would be indeed super low. More like 50g I guess hehe.

I just do Cyb's salt tek, with warm naphtha (the jar stays in the heat bath between pulls). I can pull something like 1.5 (or more) grams of stuff from 50g of bark. Not perfectly white spice by any means, but I like it. The experience is a little oozier and less angular than white-as-snow DMT.

Ive only ever used q21q21 t2 tek, done around a dozen runs overall achieving just shy ~1.5%.

My problem now is I have used all my Calcium Hydroxide, discovered I still have half a Kg of Lye from before I found the above tek and from Harmala extraction In reality I should just buy more Calcium Hydroxide, but I dont like to waste.

So interested to see what this thread puts on the table.

Really tempted to give DavidBarlows tek ago, very interested in the low ratio (1:4) of Sodium Hydroxide compared to other teks (~1:1.)

So I just finished a slow and unhurried Noman's Tek extraction of 50g bark.

I got 482mg of light yellow crystals - so I make that 0.96%, although that is "raw" and not recrystallised.

For the next run I will try heating everything, all the time to see what difference that makes. I happen to have a commercial Bain Marie in my garage, so that should make it really simple.

I might try Cyb's SaltTek - but I think for the purposes of science, I should keep everything else equal and do another Noman run with the only change being the heating.....

I'm also going to go and read up about the other Teks mentioned so far - thanks!

You can use some of your lye to make lime by mixing it with calcium chloride, if you prefer using a limetek.

Another route - the old skool way - is burning limestone. An oxy-propane torch provides fun, but make sure you wear welding glasses - it gets very bright! Hydrating calcium oxide its also highly entertaining (for a simple-minded nerd like me, at least). Again, eye protection is a must.


As far as extracting goes, I'd say you're best off just getting to grips with the fundamental principles of it so you'll have the flexibility to adapt your methods to the resources available.

Thanks for your advice Downwardsfromzero, some interesting routes for Calcium Hydroxide. I will look into first method mentioned in future. Not sure about burning Limestone though

Im not really set on any teks and I do like abit of trail and error. Although, I appreciate the results i've had with the dry teks.

I've got a handful of chems to try various teks. But was thinking about going hybrid STB first, so I can compare the difference from dry.

Was thinking along the lines of freeze and thaw the bark soup half dozen times, acidifying, then working the soup with NaOH slowly pushing the ph to 12.5, with a re-x to follow. Although recently been reading about emulsion control & cell lysing, and how it can become a problem if the concentration of the NaOH is not high enough, so need to look a little further into that, as most STB teks are 1:1 NaOH:Bark.

Although, DavidBarlows tek seems to advise differently at 1:4 NaOH:Bark?

Answered

Hound 0.96% is very respectable return, great stuff

Well, first off, sorry for the long delay in updating this thread however things have been weird.

Anyway.....I did an extraction last night, and in the interests of science I used Noman's Tek again but this time with 100g MHRB. 1.5L of water and 110g lye.

This time though, I heated everything to 60C and kept it there throughout. I did this by using a commercial Bain Marie water bath. I put the collection dish in the freezer overnight and this afternoon I had loads of clumps of white and yellow crystals.

After scraping it all out (not massively thoroughly) I ended up with just over 1.1g on my scale (accurate to 0.001g). So somewhere north of a 1.1% extraction rate. I am quite pleased with that and it appears that keeping everything hot helps.

I ended up dissolving the spice into 11mg of propylene glycol for a 1:10 ratio and will experiment with vaping it over the coming days.....

Next time, I will try Cyb's Salt Tek....

pH papers are incredibly cheap, I recommend using them in addition to any pH calculations you perform. Any plant matter in the solution can act as a buffer, so pH is sometimes not where you expect it to be.

With mimosa, the color of the solution is a helpful indicator as well - it goes from dark red, to blue-gray, to oily black as pH increases from below 7 to above 13.