Cheelin, I agree the process seems to work a wide range of paste consistency. Does not look seem like that variation is a likely issue. I think my cactus powder is essentially dry, but I'll verify. What does 1/4 cup of your dry powder weigh?


So in practice I deviated from this. Instead of a hot water bath, I simply poured boiling water (270ml) into the cactus/lime powder and mixed well. I let that cool and it set into a gelatenous paste (surprising), which I loosened up with another 30ml of boiling water water, ending back at 69ron's ratio.

Shroombee, this paste weight in at 60g per 1/4 cup (same density as water 😲

Good news so far: Pulls where a light yellow color, very easy to see through (looks like pee). Huge difference vs. the standard paste. Hope the rest of the extraction goes well, because this is a minimal amount of extra work. Theory is that chlorophyll was saponified in the hot alkaline environment (in agreement with the algae patent in the previous post).

I put the filtered EA extract in the fridge to settle, and to my surprise it clouded a bit when cold. Sticky white precipitate is crashing. Plan to decant that off and set aside.

Will report back after I try to xtalize this.

Bummer HLP


Congrats on the new world record!

Loveall, 32.6g net wt for 1/4 cup (59mL) powder.

Thank you! mine was 34g, so pretty close - within measurement error I would say, especially since leveling 1/4 cup is not very exact. I think your paste is more dense because our cactus powder has plant differences (maybe different amount of more core, wax, etc). However, we both get xtals and decent yields, so the exact consistency doesnt doesn't seem to matter, which is good to know. Eventually we think too much or too little water is bad, but the standard ratio seems good.

Making the paste with boiling water continues to be interesting. After settling in the fridge overnight the extract cleared up nicely decanted clear. It is a much lighter color vs. the previous run with the min water paste (first image). I dropped 800mg of citric (less than usual, and about 1.3mg/g). Clouds are forming now (second pic).

I think the lighter colored extract could be easier to reuse, it seems to saturate at this color and not get darker. If the yields are not worse, using boiling water may be an improvement. Hoping for less xtal wall stickiness since it looks so clean/light. We will see. If it turns out good, using boiling water is not really any more work - actually my arm was less tired after mixing 🙂

Could be powder composition, I’d bet mc%, though. lol

How does yield and solvent color compare vs your previous microwave treatment(s)?

Also, what are details of your pull cycle; 1 min stir & filter, some amount rest before filter?

Would be nice if by adding boiling water, yield would improve to standard levels along with lighter colored solvent.

Color is similar to microwave, but it's a lot less work. Standard pull cycles, stir 1 minute, rest for two, filter.

Xtals are large and beautiful so far (see image). They are still growing.

Very nice! Looks like a white xmas!

Edit photo links no longer available.
Nice work Loveall.


HLP, sounds like you got trichocereus cuzco or (a cuzco hybrid). That would be pretty much spot on with my pulls from cuzcos. They look very similar to peruvianus.

I hope this doesn't start a debate but this has helped me.

Here look at these two and see which one ya think the peruvianus is:



Both a nice blue, both long spined, both have those honey spines on top and then the spines get whiter towards the bottom, spine count is similar, rib number can vary so that doesn't mean much so which is which?

And what has helped me identify cuzco's with my limited knowledge, which I picked up off the shaman-australis forum (and so far with my extractions have proved correct), is the cross. If ya look at the top shot you can see the cross, the plus sign in the cuzco. The peruvianus doesn't really have that, you can kind of see that 3 way cross but it's not that clear 4 way cross. (Also cuzco i believe usually have more spines).
Just looking for that has helped me and so far proven right (extraction wise).

Someone with more knowledge might correct me or add more to that.

The peruvian torch I purchased looked more similar to the one on the left of your first picture, and more similar to the one on the bottom of your second picture. I say that because it appears that the one on the left/bottom has spines more closely packed together than the one on the right/top. You are saying the left and bottom is cuzco right?

I have already powderized them all up, so I'm not able to confirm the cross on the top now.

Thanks for the info. I'm going to do another 50g batch tonight to double confirm.

Yes, sorry left and bottom is a cuzco.

Loveall, Shroombee, Cheelin, my low yielding cuzco (mislabeled as peruvian torch) had the following 1/4 cup measurements:

1/4 cup dry: 31.08g
1/4 cup 69ron paste: 48.03g


It is unfortunate, the vendor labeled these as Peruvian Torch. And they are really beautiful. I would like to have them planted around my garden. But I already cut them up into powder.

EA is a bit inconvenient for me to get because I have to order it online. I would rather save it than waste 1.3L on my remaining 150g of powder because of the low yield from this cuzco.

Would it be sensible to first do an IPA extraction/evaporation, followed by CIELO on the resulting goo? The idea behind this is that I can reduce the 150g of cactus powder to a much smaller amount of IPA goo and thus use a much smaller amount of EA.

Cheelin, I followed your advice with the goo I got from my first Bridgsii extraction and had some success. It is now light brown powder that is not too sticky and is relatively convenient to work with.

It was quite difficult but I managed to cut up the goo with a razor blade pretty decently. I was able to "shave" most of the goo into a powder. This "shaving" alone provided a lot of benefit, before even using the EA. However, some of the goo was pretty hard and could not be shaved. I didn't have a pestle/mortar which would have made crushing this hard goo easier. At first I tried to crush the pieces in a glass dish but they flew around everywhere, so instead I put the cut up pieces in my french press and then broke them apart with a spoon; the pieces flew up but were saved by the tall french press. This was very tedious, a mortar/pestle would have been better.

Regardless, I made some progress crushing it (I gave up and didn't pulverize everything), and afterwards I washed with EA which took some away some color, but not all of it (probably because I didn't crush it completely). I then dumped through a filter and caught most of it, and evaporated the rest. I went from 1.2g to 0.9g from this EA wash. The resulting powder is kind of light brownish but is much less sticky and much easier to work with.

So in summary if anyone gets this crappy goo, you can subject it to a mortar and pester and wash it with EA and it will become usable. Even if you don't have a mortar and pester you can go at it with a razor blade and spoon and still be better off.

Interestingly, this Bridgsii extraction was very high yielding. From 39g of powder I netted 0.9g of light brown powder, about 2.3% yield. But perhaps it is not pure given the light brown color.

HLP, you probably could do a modifed IPA, but EA should be reusable with a quick wash and loss fairly minimal. I too have to buy it online but its usually fairly cheap.

Next time you buy a cutting keep the top 6 inches to replant.

HLP, any thoughts/comments on why you got goo at first, but are now getting xtals? You may have mentioned some reasons before, but wondering what your latest thoughts are now that you have more experience. Thank you.

Also, we have people reporting crystals for paste with densities anywhere from 48 to 60g per 1/4 cup, so my theory on paste consistency being a factor seems bunk.

HLP, glad the grind and fresh EA re-wash helped somewhat. I have several early batches that need some major cleanup. My test batch has been ground & washed several times, and while color and stickiness have improved, it is still is amber and won’t dry hard.

Chemists, what is the simplest method to cleanly recrystallize this brown sticky crap?

Any ideas on how to re-extract with pickling lime, EA, citric acid?

Think of this as Plan B, for people going up the learning curve with this tek.

I would try to dissolve the goo in a small amount of water, add lime until it has a paste like consistency, extract with EA and crash with citric. Alternatively add the goo to cactus powder and do standard CIELO.

Do we know how many times EA can be reused? I'm sure at some point it becomes too saturated and cannot pull as much mescaline as before right?



I've now had 5 extractions under my belt, but cannot think of any particular reason why the first extraction with Bridgsii resulted in goo. It is possible I messed up on some instruction with the Bridgsii since it was my first extraction ever, although I cannot think of anything in particular. My personal theory is that Bridgsii has some components inside of this, although __Trip__ has had successful Brdgsii extractions which refutes my theory. I would like to retry on Bridgsii in the future.



Would you suggest using the 69ron ratios here? For example I have 1.9g of light brown powder now. Would I use 5.7g water, 0.475g of lime, or simply add lime until it arrives at a paste consistency?

Has anyone tried doing a recrystalization with various solvents?

Update on the standard TEK with the boiling water change.

Pros:

- Arm was less tired after stirring, paste has less resistance to hot water.
- Used EA has a much lighter green color. Seems like it should be easier to reuse (not tested yet).
- Yield roughly matches standard TEK for me at ~1.3%
- Large crystals growth with the slow diffusion method. Minimal/insignificant sticking to walls (virtually all the xtals come loose after a swirling). Only used 800mg of citric acid since I know the yield of this cactus and wanted to only add a little extra. Xtalized fine. Added more citric after filtering, no new clouds observed.
- Xatals pop off in "sheets" right after the filter washes. They are easy to handle. With stickier Xtals I rub the filter between my hands to loosen the last few mg, that is not needed here. Xtals are large and near white after rinsing/drying with EA.

Cons:

- Have to boil water which takes some time. I did this first and by the time the cactus power and lime where measured and mixed I still had to wait some time for the water to boil
- Waiting for the paste to cool adds a few hours
- I did a second small addition with 25ml of boiling water since the paste had congealed a bit while cooling. Not sure this is needed, but wanted to get back the "standard" feel of the paste
- Extract needs to rest in the fridge overnight. A new white reside precipitates, but it is easy to decant/filter
- The xtals are so pretty growing in the jar that it is easy to stare at them for too long and loose track of time 😉
- 60 minute speed run may be off the table with this process

In theory what happens with hot water and lime is that chlorophyll (soluble in EA since it is mildly polar) breaks down (is saponified) into chlorophyllin (very polar and not soluble in EA) and pythol (long non-polar organic chain, not soluble in EA either per attached paper). Therefore, the saponified chlorophyll is kept out of the extraction. I think this is similar to the microwave method, but less harsh (and a lot less work).

Overall, I see this as an improvement to the standard TEK. I wonder if it could be simplified further by pulling right after mixing the paste and while it is hot. Maybe not, as some time may be needed to complete the chlorophyll saponification (?). IDK if that is worth testing for me, I'm happy with how this update has turned out.

Below are pictures of the good yielding white xtaline product after it finished growing on the jar walls and after rinsing/drying on the filter 😍

I would dissolve the 1.9g of powder in a small amount of water. Maybe add 2ml, then 1ml at a time until it dissolved. Them add lime slowly until it becomes a paste. I would not use 69ron's ratios since this is a different situation. They may still work, IDK, but I would go by feel.

If updated the Tek and replaced the microwave option with the boiling water option, based on ongoing results.

If anyone disagrees I'm interested in feedback.

PS: I recommend using boiling water to make the paste and think this is an worthwhile improvement with minimal added work.