Hello, thanks for letting me join this wonderful forum. I've already learned a huge amount and I know this is only the beginning. I love the new members questionnaire. I don't need an excuse to spend hours geeking out over drug science but now I've got one I'm happy as a pig in sh*t.

By way of an introduction I will say that I've been using psychedelics for nearly 20 years but am yet to try spice. Back in the early 2000s when fresh mushrooms were still legal in the UK I had lots of fun picking liberty caps or using cubensis grow kits. I certainly miss being able to walk into a head shop and buy a punnet of shrooms.

When I moved away from good picking grounds and couldn't buy them anymore I didn't take shrooms for years. Ketamine was always a strangely beguiling experience which scratched the psychedelic itch for a few years but it is a very different drug to psilocybin. After having kids I took a fairly long hiatus from psychedelics but more recently I've started getting interested again both on a personal level and because I've realised what amazing potential they have for transforming human consciousness and benefitting society. I've started growing shrooms and have enjoyed exploring them in a much more intentional way than how I used them when I was younger. I think spice is the next step in the journey for me.

I've been reading and studying as much as possible. Luckily I have excellent access to the scientific literature through my job so have been reading a lot. I enjoy joining the dots between the science and the personal practice and experience.

Saying all that I had my first go at extraction using MHRB last night and I have a couple of questions. I used Norman's STB method and so far so good. I did two naphtha pulls before I had to turn in for the night and this morning I could see crystals forming in my crystallisation dish, so something has gone right.

A couple of questions have occurred during the process which I would love to hear views on. Firstly, I was using a 1L borosilicate reagent bottle for the extraction but found that with the basified water not up to the neck of the bottle the layer of naphtha was very thin and trickier than I had anticipated to separate. Would it hurt to add an extra couple of hundred ml of water so the naphtha was sat right at the top of the bottle in the narrow neck, making separation easier?

Secondly, when I was looking at the layer of naphtha on top of the mixture and it appeared that there was a very thin later of dark liquid on top of the naphtha. I couldn't tell if it was a genuine layer and might be a very small amount of fat from the bark or if this was just an optical illustration caused by light refracting on the surface of the naphtha. It didn't appear to carry through to the crystallisation dish but I wanted to check if this is a real phenomenon or an illusion.

Finally, and most pressingly, I'm going to pour off the naphtha to harvest the crystals. I've read varying suggestions that you should point a fan at the dish, have a fan blowing over it indirectly or avoid fanning all together. Is there any consensus on this now? I'm inclined to use a fan as I am doing all this in the evenings after the kids are in bed so I don't want it to take for ever.

I appreciate these questions would probably be better asked in an extraction forum so happy to wait until I can post there if that would be more appropriate.

Thanks!

Hello and welcome!

This should be absolutely fine.

It sounds like that was an optical illusion. Basic soup contaminants wouldn't float on the surface of the naphtha. Regardless, here's what to do if you're concerned about transferring traces of basic soup with your naphtha. Pour the naphtha pulls into a pyrex jug before transferring them into the freeze precipitation container. Allow a little settling time to be absolutely sure and perhaps place the jug on a white surface to help visualisation of contaminants.

Incidentally, pyrex oven dishes are a bit cumbersome for freeze precip and you'll obtain just as good results using a straight-sided jam jar: https://www.dmt-nexus.me...aspx?g=posts&t=96143


I'm not a... fan... of evaporation. Avoid it by using the minimum volume of naphtha necessary for your anticipated yield. You can always do another pull if by some stroke of luck the naphtha seems saturated. And don't worry about DMT remaining stuck in the naphtha. For one thing, the solubility of DMT in naphtha at the lowest freezer temperature is pretty negligible. Furthermore, the naphtha can be reused for subsequent after the freeze precip. In effect it's pre-loaded so the full amount of the subsequent pulls will precipitate.
Yep, definitely no need to evap.

You're right, these are largely FAQ's but I'm in a good mood today and regurgitating this stuff occurs pretty automagically (thanks to a little harmala dosage ).

Thanks for indulging a noob! I promise I did check the FAQs and Wiki but didn't find what I was looking for.

I actually picked up a proper crystalising dish prior to starting this. I'm now wishing that I had grabbed two or three to make it simpler to manage multiple pulls at the same time.

I transferred from the extraction bottle to a small jam jar and then on to the crystalisaing dish for freeze precipitation. When I swirled it around prior to putting it in the freezer there was a very small smear of dark liquid that consolodated in the centre of the dish so I think a tiny amount of lye water carried over. I know I can always clean it up if necessary.

Re the fan, I wasn't thinking about evaporating off the bulk of the naptha, just considering for when I was drying out the crystals in the dish after pouring of the liquid.

Thanks again for your help!

Ah, ofc that's what you mean about fans. Apologies for the cognitive flatulence outbreak and my ensuing lack of ability even to read properly! The other problem with fans is that they will blow dust into your product so you'll want ideally to cover your dish with a clean piece of lint-free muslin or similar.

Nice dish - I hope you picked up some parafilm to go with it

Unless you're particularly nerding out on yields per pull (or perhaps in a hurry to test out the goodies), you can simply leave the crystals that adhere to the dish after draining off the naphtha. Then they will act as nucleation points if/when you pour in the next pull - except there's that little bit of basic soup contamination.

You'll need to recrystallise your product to get it away from that smear of basic soup which snuck through to the dish. Mini A/B is another way of cleaning this up.

Just collected the first spice from the combination of my first two pulls. 300mg from 50g of MHRB feels like a good result and I haven't scrapped the dish clean . Another pull is ongoing at the moment. Fun stuff and so far, nothing too complicated.

Now to find the time/headspace to try it.

Congratulations on getting your first product, hope the testing goes well for you too!

Thanks! I still feel pretty nervous about trying it. I would have preferred to try it with someone who was experienced in using it but it's not something my friends are into. I'm sure I'll find the right moment soon and my wife has said she will sit for me.

Great stuff, glad it worked out for you (it's easier than baking a cake, isn't it?)

No more difficult but with slightly more PPE. There's no sodium hydroxide in my cakes!

I hope you enjoy the experience! I am sure you will find it mind boggling. I say go all the way with it, but I understand dipping the toes in as well, I've always been a cannon-baller, so take that with a grain of salt. Have fun and safe travels!