Hi all,
So a month ago or so I used Gordotek with 100g of MHRB. The first pull weighed in at about 125mg and the second, which I did last night, only came to 55mg or so. I'll explain where I think I might have gone wrong and any tips or advice would be really appreciated.

Thanks to lock-down my living situation isn't ideal, and due to who I'm living with the pulls have to be done late at night, and outside for ventilation. This might mean the bark mixture isn't being thoroughly heated as the temperature outside is below 10°C, therefore leading to less extraction? On top of that I fell a little short on Naptha, as I only had 70grams instead of the recommended 100g for the 2nd pull.

Aside from using the proper amount of solvent for the next pull does anyone have any recommendations for how I might increase my yield?

Thanks.

There have been cases when neighbors called the police after smelling naphtha. Consider taking a pause for a few months, or even years, until you can perform extractions more discreetly - no hallucinogen is worth ruining the rest of your life. In fact, the more you have experienced, learned, questioned, the more profound your lessons will be.

...but since you are unlikely to follow my advice anyway, here are some general tips:

1. Keep your bark and naphtha hot.
2. Do 2 pulls each time.
3. Make sure you reduce your solvent before freeze-precipitating until it turns milky.
4. After you decant the solvent off your DMT crystals, save and reuse it in the next pull.
5. Freeze-precipitate for at least 24 hours, 48 cannot hurt.
6. Buy a lab freezer that go low (at least -30°C).
7. Try different bark.
8. Wet teks (liquid-liquid extractions) are more difficult to master but they yield more and stink less.

Thank you for warning, but the neighbors aren't too close and are definitely asleep at the times I've been doing the pulls, so I'm confident it's safe. That said I'll double-check that the smell isn't obvious next time.



How hot does the bark need to be in your opinion? The naptha has always been hot but the bark is usually only warm to the touch.



Do you have any photo examples? I've reduced it to the recommended 1 - 2 tablespoons of solvent each time and it always looks clear. Is there a certain reduction method used to achieve this?


Thank you for all the advice.

If you heat the soup and then throw the Naphtha in, it should always have the same temperature. The higher the temperature the faster the DMT will migrate over, thus you will need less pulls. When you heat it towards 60 °C you have a very fast uptake.



You can calculate like this:

100 ml Naphtha will still hold ~ 130 mg DMT at - 20 °C. So if you have your pulls combined and you have 500 ml Naphtha, then upon freeze-precipitation it may still hold up to 680 mg of DMT. If you reduce it to 100 ml, then you will get an additional 530 mg out of it.

Nevertheless it may even be a good idea to not reduce it and accept the 530 mg loss. Because then you KEEP the Naphtha and reuse it for the next time. This way you have practically infinite Naphtha, just from time to time you may clean it with a Sodiumbicarbonate-wash, and during the 2nd time that you use it, you will NOT loose out any DMT at -20 °C, because the Naphtha is already saturated from the last time at this temperature. This way you will even get more Spice in the longrun and preserve your extraction solvent.

There's no soup too be heated, I'm using Gordotek, which isn't a liquid-liquid extraction, the powdered bark is in a sort of "mud pie" consistency. I'm going to try a different tek next time.



That's incredibly useful, do you have a source for the numbers?



I love that idea, if I ever find myself making multiple batches I'll try it.

Thanks.

Here is a fun experiment you can easily perform. It will give you intuition on how freebase DMT behaves, so I recommend it even if you choose to reuse your solvent.

Take a hairdryer and begin reducing your pull by carefully blowing cold or warm (not hot) air onto it. After you reduce it enough, whenever you push the remaining solvent apart with the air stream, a few seconds later a thin semi-transparent film/frost of DMT will quickly spread out of the center of the drying spot. You need good lighting conditions to observe it. If you then point the hairdryer away, the solvent will flow back in and redissolve the film. This trick lets you see how much DMT you have in your pull by how readily that film forms (vs. how dry the spot needs to get before crystallization begins).

Assuming you see DMT in your pull, continue to evaporate your solvent - either naturally, or with a fan or hairdryer. After a while the entire remaining solvent will instantly turn milky. It means you have reached the solubility limit of DMT, and some of it has crashed out of the solvent in the form of microscopic white crystals. What you can then do is to add a bit of solvent back (or heat it up a little) to make it clear, and let it slowly evaporate until the magic happens again. You can repeat it as many times as you want.

The more saturated your solution is before freeze-precipitation, the less DMT will remain in the solvent after you decant it in the end.

...On reusing your solvent: while it is a good idea overall, be aware that dissolved DMT is reported to degrade rather quickly due to the large total surface open to (photo)chemical reactions, so if this is your last pull for a while, you might as well get the most out of it. Also, storing DMT-containing liquids increases your legal risk - in some countries you can be convicted on the entire weight of the solution regardless of its actual DMT concentration.

...On health and stench: consider using heptane instead of naphtha. It evaporates faster, smells less, may be less toxic. Most importantly - with a pure chemical you know exactly what the boiling point is, and what residual vapors you may inhale with your DMT. The drawback is that DMT is less soluble in heptane, so you need more of it and/or higher pull temperatures.

Very interesting, thank you. I'll try this on my next pull.



That's good to know, I wasn't aware of the legal implications. I won't be doing another pull after the next two so I won't be reusing the solvent.



I don't think I'll be able to get my hands on any, but I'll keep it mind if that changes.
Thank you for all the information, the community here is fantastic.