I typically prepare my powdered bridgesii with aprox 60/40 ethanol/water ratio and decant several times over 2-3 weeks. When the final extracts have all been combined and evaporated to a manageable dose, I usually store them in the refrigerator. Being short on time and lazy, I didn't evaporate and just put all the combined pulls as is in the refrigerator.
After a day or so a white-ish blob like thing appeared floating at the top, seperate from the extract liquid. This white-ish blob appears and feels very waxy. When stored in the freezer an even larger waxy like blob appears. If I return the whole thing undisturbed to room temperature the waxy white-ish blob disappears (returns to the extract?).

Could this be plant fats and/or waxes? Could there be anything active in the blob?
I can't seem to find any information about this on the nexus.

I tried removing the waxy blob in the combined pulls after having sat in refrigeration. I then evaporated the 'cleaned' extract without heat until it had reduced down to 300ml. It appeared clearer then normal when held to light (still very dark), tasted slightly less bitter, maybe caused less nausea and was as pyscoactive as normal. I can't rule out placebo for the less nausea as I dont consume cactus more then a few times a year.

Any ideas what is going on? My main fear is something active is being lost. I haven't tried using the freezer brew yet but there seems to be a lot more stuff seperating whatever it is then in the refrigerated one.

It is cactus mucilage, inactive component of cactus body. It is not wax or fat, chemically it is a heteropolysacharide.

Mucilage is soluble in water, almost insoluble in ethanol, and partially soluble in ethanol/water mixture. Solubility is also decreased in cold.

There are very minimal or even no at all losses of alkaloids with your approach.
But if you want to be very carefull, dissolve this white stuff in small amount of water, and add 2x volume of ethanol and cool it. White stuff again separates from liquid, which contains possible actives.

Thank you doubledog for the reply. I had to Google cactus mucilage, haha. I'm still a little confused but on the right path.

In your opinion is there any reason to remove it? Could it contribute to nausea/digestive issues with cactus? I would be willing to lose some potency if so. I have to say it looks awfully nasty.....

With the knowledge doubledog provided, I searched the nexus for mucilage and found this:

https://www.dmt-nexus.me...&m=554659#post554659

Although that is much more advanced extract then anything here.

Lol. Cactus to tea to being high as hell is super easy. I keep scratching my head at all these alternate approaches. Seems like it is about something other than getting high. If you start out with high quality cuttings and make the tea then you will be all set. Whats the point of a science experiment if the outcome is shit? Tea is easy. Extraction methods seem like bullshit, usually starting from powder. Plant people have the cuttings. Cuttings to tea is super easy and strong. Scientists are lost when it comes to cactus. So funny! Good luck with that mystery powder! No wonder it always fails.

Grey Fox I hear you about keeping it simple. Tea can be made from fresh cactus in an hour. Growing your own cactus and simply taking a cutting when you want to trip is a good plan. Still I had to try my hand at extracting and I like the results. It can be stored in capsules and the dosage is predictable.

waitfornever I saw that same Pectinase thread recently, tried it and it did work to cut the mucilage. Still didn't prevent the dreaded emulsion from happening but I have some ideas for next extraction.

Thanks for the post!

I agree with you as to what is the point as long as the outcome is the same. The problem is the nausea and later digestive issues the cause problems with someone like me who already has digestive issues and becomes easily nauseated.

I'm sorry I didn't provide more details. The powder I am using is from a fresh cactus, sliced, dried and then ground to powder. It is active and visual.

If one can remove an irritant or unwanted part of the cactus with simple refrigetation/freezing sounds good to me.

That question is, what effect does cactus mucilage have on the human body? Is it worth removing?

Thanks for sharing, I look forward to hearing them.

Mucilage is the main substance responsible for snotiness of cactus tea.
It is extremely water retaining, but after long boils, it is hydrolysed and became less viscous.
It is the main reason why you need to use long boils and lot of water when preparing cactus tea.
Mescaline itself is very well soluble in water.

IMO there is no need to ingest the mucilage, it is basically pectin-like or soluble fiber substance with prebiotic effects, but poorly digestible in the stomach (it is a substrate for microbiome in the intestines) and thus slowing the process of absorption and contributes to digestive issues.

Personally, I do not want anything like that in my stomach while processing mescaline.
But dont be mistaken, nausea is mostly direct effect of mescaline.

By use of pectinase, you just decompose it, but products of decomposition are still there.
It's much better to separate it, or even better, not to extract it.

If you want to extract crystals via NPS, absence of dissolved mucilage is also very convenient, as liquid have little viscosity and emulsions are no longer strong issue (also much lower volumes of liquid are needed, including NPS)

If you want to use it for something, just dry it after separation.

Grey Fox:
Outcome of these science experiments are not shitty. They are just different than plain tea.

Maybe Grey Fox likes his cactus mucilage........To each his own.

I will continue to play with the ethanol/water ratio and temperatures to see how much mucilage can be removed. It has been impressive how much mucilage there is

doubledog - Do you have any suggestions or comments on a good ratio and temperature to start?

I agree with you 100%, it is best not to extract the mucilage in the first place. However the more advanced extracts are still a little confusing to a novice like me. Not to mention I haven't found all the chemicals needed.

Even if nausea remains the same, the reduced stress on the lower digestive tract would be welcomed!

I often do this:

Evaporate combined pulls to Crude resin.(This could be done also with water only based pulls).
Dissolve it again in very small amount of hot water just to achieve liquid consistency.
Add warm ethanol 4 times volume of water, mix it.
Freeze it for 24 hours.
Decant liquid, wash the sediment and evaporate to cleaned resin.
Eat 1g of the resin to check its strenght.

I think it's better to use second cleansing step after initial extraction, but that maybe just my personal preference.

Thanks doubledog for your "recipe", I'll give it a whirl. I like the idea of a second cleansing. No rush on my part.

2 questions:
Why evaporate to resin and not stop at thick liquid?
Wash the sediment with what? (Water? Ethanol?)

Thanks again, you're the only one who took the time to answer patiently!

Reason for first drying is that it changes properties after drying, and after rehydration, is better separated from solution with alcohol.

I do not know the exact reason, can think about change in secondary or tertiary structure.
This is quite common behaviour of similar plant resins.

Reason for second drying is of course to get rid of ethanol.

Wash sediment with 80% ethanol. Washing with water would cause its dissolution.

Very generous, thank you!