Hello Nexians,
I'm new to extraction, already learned extraction teks and DMT Handbook and need calrifycation if vinegar is good for acidyfying stage. in all teks it's vinegar to use but in Handbook it's said that vinegar is not strong enough for dmt to keep...
please advise....

Welcome--
Vinegar is a highly effective, safe acidifier used to lower PH in liquids-- it's used commonly, but I'm not sure I understand what you mean when you say

Hi,
by saying "Vinegar is not strong enough to keep DMT" I meant that vinegar is not forming strong bond with DMT ...as it's said in DMT Handbook:
"Many acids will work, however it is strongly recommended that Phosphoric, Hydrochloric, or
Sulphuric acid be used. Previously, Vinegar (Acetic acid) was used, but the yields were substandard
compared to those achieved with Phosphoric acid. This may be due to the Acetic
acid forming a weak bond with the DMT which may easily be broken down during some steps
of this process."

That is news to me, I've always used white vinegar with acceptable results. I always use ACRB to extract and the acid step is crucial. Plus there is nothing suspicious nor difficult about buying vinegar.

Vinegar= IMHO

Hi Acidkans,

In a dilute solution under acidic pH, the DMT is protonated to form the N,N-dimethyltryptaminium(+) cation. The acetate does not interact with the DMT.

All that matters is the pH of the solution being much lower than the pKa of DMT, which is 8.68. Acetic acid at 5% concentration (1M) has a pH around 2.4, which is sufficiently low to protonate 99.9999% of the DMT freebase, as long as you use an excess of vinegar.

Hi ,
thanks very much. for helping me. My concers were just comming from what is written in DMT Handbook and contradicts with teks....
but if you confirm vinegar effectiveness it's fine for me...
once again thanks

How effective is lemon juice in comparison to vinegar ?

It's acidic. It will protonate DMT. Actual lemon juice is a mixture of things so it's not suitable for a clean-up A/B. MHRB tea is also a mixture of numerous things so adding lemon juice to it is not making much of a difference with respect to purity.

It would be informative to do a direct comparison of various acidification options added to separate portions of the same batch of MHRB tea, including adding no acid as the bark is somewhat acidic already.

In your country you can get "pure" food grade citric acid (the acid in lemon juice) from any regular drug store.

It is an even slightly stronger acid than acetic acid, so you wont need more material for the same results. Just buy a pack of 100 g or whatever for like 2 € or whatever and throw a little in your soup until the pH is lower than 3.

Doing this will even have a benefit: your kitchen will not stink like vinegar while doing this whole process, it would also not do it when using (concentratec) hydrochloric acid - but pure citric acid is a much safer, home-friendly alternative. You can even just use an online calculator to roughly measure the dosage of citric acid (pure citric acid is a solid grain) and put it in your soup to roughly get the correct pH if you do not have any pH-meter.
Also using pure citric acid will save money longterm compared to vinegar and even more compared to lemon juice, as it is ultimately cheap.

I have seen this statement about vinegar before but disagree. I have done side by side with dilute acetic, citric and hcl all measured to pH3. there was no difference. The limiting factor is the percentage of alkaloid in the plant material. You can only pull what the material contains.

This is not what OP is exactly about but a strong acid can help in lysing the cells.

Some acids evaporate by boiling or reducing liquid volume, e.g. vinegar. Others do not evaporate and by reducing volume (of several washes) you can end up with a strong concentrated acidic pot!!
If one evaporates HCL then beware the vapors are corrosive!

I have a 50g MHRB tea that was boiled in 750ml of de-ionised water. I allowed it to sit in the fridge, filtered the sludge, repeated, and then proceeded to reduce to 150ml. It’s currently about 135ml, so I reduced further than I had intended. Currently PH reading is 4.15, which may be subject to change as I am waiting for new buffering solutions to recalibrate my device. I am interested in the natural acidity of the bark. For this batch I’m looking to precipitate in the water it was boiled in as an experiment.

I’ll do another 50g test run and take measurements at each stage 🙂