Hello dear Nexians,

After a first encounter with Alchemy and the Spice last spring, Swim got back home with a headfull of knowledge* and the experience he made for himself.
*(coming mainly from here and for this he thanks you all wholeheartedly)

Now Swim randomly met another Swim, and together, they set up a plan, gatheted the ingredrients and started studying once more, here's the extent of their exploration so far...

To put it into context, Swim's first experience got him to understand one thing, simplicity is the Key! Whenever the steps are too tedious or require some specific tools that are not there, it can quickly become a mess, leading to loss of products and mayhem in the kitchen! So this Time around, Swim chose his tools, within the accessible range of everyday life, and his ingredients, with the intention of keeping it simple and straight forward, no messing around! Here we go...

Swim's noob tek 101!

Respect to Endlessness, Q21Q21, and everyone else that went through similar process experiencing success and failure, equally helping to achieve a better understanding!

Swim gathered :

Mimosa,
Lime,
Vinegar,
IPA,
and the usual kitchen tools : pirex dishes, glass bottles/jars, seringe, funnels, cotton balls, razor blades, a fan and a coffee press.

First test, Simple STB :

- 50g of Mimosa, 50g of Lime, and some spring water to make a paste.
- This dried in a pirex dish over a day under the fan, and got powdered again on the way, getting most of the moisture out.
- Then he transfered it to a bottle and covered with IPA enough to get a nice liquid layer above the powder.
- For more than 24h, Swim just shook and spun the bottle around everytime it settled, observing a nice yellow colored IPA.
- He transfered it into the coffee press, let it settle again, pressed it gently, and poored it into a funnel with a cotton balls, keeping the finest particules that passed through the filter of the press out of the funnel as much as possible over a pyrex dish, leaving a nice and clear yellow liquide.
- As it dried under the fan, some clouds started appearing and after almost a day, he was left with yellow looking particules and oils in the dish!
- All of that got scraped into some golden honey looking wax, which stayed in this form no matter the scrapping and drying. Weight on the blade was 0.56g, smell of the wax and it's fumes being very satisfying so far!
- Swim refilled the coffee press with IPA and poored it back into the bottle. Same routine of shaking, rolling and loving again, but this time, the layer of IPA turned milky, and here swim would love to hear the more experienced Alchemists if they know the reason behind it...
- That second pull was dried a good 2 days after, still milky even after filtration, same type of clouds appearing, but only 0.14g out this time, and same looking honey once scraped!
- Refilled once more and now a third pull is in the bottled waiting for some more days, no hurry now...
- The first 2 pulls were then put into a small glass and diluted in some IPA again, clear colored, but with a fair bit of non dissolving particules in there, not sure about the IPA being too little or if this was just some pollution pulled on the way with the IPA, this will then be dried on some weighed Mullein...

Overall, Swim's first batch of Spice seemed promising, so on the way, he got motivated and kept busy!

Swim decided to try something out, in his Search for Simplicity he also wants to be efficient, so he decided to do a test.

Second Run, STB vs A/B :

- Repeat the same process with a 100g ratio this time. Same yellow first pull drying under the fan, then milky 2nd pull after the first shake, still in the bottle...

In parallel,

- He did a long acid cook of the same 100g, for maybe 4/5h, and reducing it to a mud, cooled down, and made into a paste following the same process again. Now this got the same aspect until the 2nd pull, which is this time, as yellow as the first without any milkyness to it, nice and clear! On this Swim wonders the ins and outs of why does it happen... Experienced Alchemists, you're welcome once again!

So now these 2 first pulls are drying under the fan and depending on what comes up, swim will decide on which is the most straight forward, see if the acid cook really make a difference enough to justify doing it or not...
Also Swim might try doing a mini A/B on his yields to see how much purer it becomes...

And finally, Swim considers doing another A/B, with 3 boils, and rough filtering of the mimosa, and reduce to make a smaller Lime paste, therefore working on smaller quantities, but Swim doesn't like much the idea of cooking too much and he's kinda scared of burning to goods away while reducing...
And he also doesn't want too much mess happening in the kitchen!

Swim took a couple of pictures, he'll try to be a better reporter next Time!
-There's the clouds forming when IPA dries,
-Both pulls of the first batch redissolved in the small glass with the leftovers powder,
-The 2 first pulls of the STB vs A/B drying in their respective dishes, looking very similar, the A/B one looking slightly less oily,
-And my bottles showing the difference between the 2nd pulls being milky for the STB and clear for the A/B.

Thank you for your time !

In what do you Swim?