SWIM is using A/B Tek (2Infinity&Beyond)..this is what SWIM did:
Boiled 100g shredded bark for 15 minutes. Stirring the whole time. 10 minute cool down while stirring. Small pot. Covered in distilled water + 50ml vinegar.
Poured carefully into larger 2L glass Pyrex deal with a handle
Did this 3 times to lyse as much as possible
Had a little sludge. Got that out. It’s a dry gummy ball.
SWIM had a nice deep red solution. Smelled like DMT + vinegar.
Reduced about 1L to .4L.
Cooled.
Put on a magnetic stir plate.
Added 100g of real-deal NaOH.
Turned from dark red to black almost immediately.
Let the magnetic stirrer do it’s work for about 30 minutes.
SWIM definitely recognized the sweet smell.
Let the heat from NaOH reaction dissipate until about 110°.
Added 400ml VM&P Naptha.

Stuck here. No matter how much SWIM mixes, it’s a black sludge.
Tried another 25g of NaOH to no avail.
SWIM thinks that they’re not getting enough agitation.
2L erlenmeyer coming tomorrow.

SWIM wants to know why it won’t separate layers

It's not going to separate if you keep stirring (or is it? - see below) - be patient!

There are a number of methods for breaking emulsions that have been explained on the forum multiple times.

If you go to the Search page and search the posts for "break emulsion" you'll get a load of suggestions to wade through.

So...the NPS (Naptha) did separate. SWIM pulled. Waited. Pulled. Waited. Reduced a little over heat (not positive on if that is good for the DMT). Poured in a beaker and put in the freezer overnight. Low and behold, SWIM got some goodies. Not much.

SWIM just put NPS back in and mixed the bejeezus out of it with some stainless hose clamps secured to a stainless bolt in the chuck of a drill. Hot plate temp set to 50°C just to keep things mildly toasty.

So the emulsion is less of a concern than the sludge. The NPS is separating, just slowly. SWIM's uneducated guess is that the DMT is not saturating the NPS, which would mean that the aqueous sludge is not basic enough. Litmus strips will be here in a couple days. Another guess is that room temperature is not ideal for NPS to carry away the good stuff. Perhaps, additionally, the sludge will be less sludgy with a little heat.

youre stirring to much, too hard. try to imagine that you want the nps to stay together, like it is when seperation has occured. now you want to turn over your vessel and gently turn twist and roll trying to get your bubble of nps to touch every part of your solution.

this isnt how it actually works, but i think it was an adequate way to express what i was trying to say.

Got it. Quite clear actually. So it gets a chance to pick up all the goodies.

Why is the basified aqueous solution so thick?

P.S. Here’s the tek
https://www.reddit.com/r...h/ab_dmt_extraction_tek/

IME, shredded bark needs more time than 15 mins in the acid phase. Unless you were using a pressure cooker. Did you keep your bark material? Might be worth doing another run on it if you did.

Also, for future reference, placing your extraction vessel in the fridge overnight before adding lye allows particles to settle and generally reduces the chance for emulsions and long separation times. You just need to decant the liquid from the bottom sludge before basing.

Thanks for response! Material was not kept. Although it was only 100g. SWIM did not presoak and freeze, as pieces are pretty finely shredded. Bark was boiled 3x for 15 minutes, stirring with glass rod the whole time, 10 minute cool down while stirring. Fresh distilled and vinegar each time. Sounds like an overnight settling would be the move. SWIM though a lot of the sludge came out, but obviously it didn’t.

Also..is cheesecloth or coffee filter ok to use to strain off acidic solution? Will SWIM lose a lot of the DMT acetate or is it pretty strongly bonded to the solution? Sounds like cooling it down is key....