Again I was hoping one of the gracious CIELO contributors could comment on temperature for the crystallization step.
Does colder temperatures crystallize the mescaline faster/slower or shaped differently in ethyl acetate? I tried to find a clear answer in the EA approach thread but wasn't sure.
I've still been trying out small batch CIELO with PC and didn't get much passive crystallization at room temp after 12hrs.
I always thought crystallization was sped up by lower temps and I knew the EA wouldn't freeze so I put it in the freezer for a day, nothing new, then left it in the refrigerator for well over 72hrs and came back to some chunky kinda granules.

I haven’t run it cold, haven’t seen the need for it. My guess is that it slows crystal growth.

What size batches are you running, and how much citric?

Is that yellow color what your pulls look like? If so, something’s not right.
Your powder yellow?

Relatively fresh powder is green, and pulls look brilliant emerald green.

I've been doing whole skins powder, 20g. I used 3-4g citric acid, I figured go kinda higher since I know my powder has a bunch of wax, areoles and spines in it.
The color has been pretty consistent with all the PC powder I made this way; more yellow than green and the only difference has been since I've fixed the water in the paste, it's just darker.
This was a pic right after adding citric acid and a quick stir.

I should mention the powder is not fresh at all, been sitting a year with a desiccant packet. I'm not expecting miracles with PC powder by the way; I just wanna get the tek down before trying with a bridgesii powder or others.

I’ll leave it to others to comment on the powder (see mine below), but those pulls sure look way light to me. My pull color is at least as dark as the green on a US dollar bill. Compare yours to leftmost jar in pic below.

How much EA you using? For 20g run should be 0.2 x 946mL = 189mL; 25% or 47mL on 1st pull, 28mL for each pull 2 thru 6. Stir the shit out of it for 1st minute of each pull, 70-90 revs; then rest for 2 min before filtering each pull into pull collection jar.

Your citric is way too high for a 20g cactus powder run. All the extra crap doesn’t add diddleysquat of mescaline, so it shouldn’t require any extra citric. Assume 5g citric for a 100g cactus powder run; you’re running 20g (ie 20%), so use 1g citric, give it a quick stir, if it doesn’t turn cloudy your cactus is shooting blanks. Do it right until you nail it, 48-72 hours of passive crystallization at room temp. For my 1.1% powder, i see 3/8” crystals forming on walls & bottom 3-6hrs after salting., most of the yield is crystallized by 36-48hrs.

Maybe I overbaked my powder LOL. When dried all my PC skins always turned kinda yellowed/brown even though I never exceeded ~160F.
For pulls this was ~52mL, then ~28mL each after, final total was ~150mL (just going off the mason jar's lines). Sadly I had converted everything to grams to scale out the liquids for lack of measuring tools (which I should no longer have to do) and my scale isn't the greatest...
For the amount of citric I guess I mixed up my notes going from doing fast crystallization and maybe was going off outdated info; I thought the tek had said something like if whole plant powder or other than just green flesh then using higher citric acid could help.


I'm gonna take that at face value and just focus on improving my handiwork, adhering to the tek and your great success method
I really appreciate your feedback, thanks.

Edit: Oh I have been sifting that powder through fine mesh first by the way.

So, your EA was close enuff. And your problem looks to me like before salting (but on salting, for future, start at scaled amount, you can always bump it later). I think the citric has been all over the place; early work had it up to 20g for a 100g run…i like scaling from 5g, i think loveall now uses 2.5g for a 100g run.

I’d focus on getting your cactus dry, while looking green. That would be my first step in getting to needles.

Hang in there, all your work so far is good practice getting up the learning curve. Took me 6 times. You’ll nail it!

Are you able to view the pics on the Great Success post? If not, I can upload here, lemme know.

No need, newbies like me can still see the pics on the full EA approach thread, thanks though!

👍🏻


btw, how did you dry the skins? In an oven? Or, dehydrator?

If you have a Trichocereus garden, and don’t have a dehydrator, you might think about getting one.

I have a pricey excalibur that I bought for drying shrooms, seems to work great for cacti…cracker dry, but still green in 12-24hrs depending on size of cuts and total amount per run. There are other less pricey options that could do the job, too. If you will be harvesting a lot, probably would be worth looking into.

I’ve got a garden, but haven’t used my own plants yet for cielo, there’s probably a drying & powdering learning curve. As soon as I get my 1g sample process worked out, i’m going to take a swing at some logs i’ve got hibernating. First work will be verifying cielo 1g batch yield vs larger batches; later quantifying yield differences based on log aging, also in different tissues & different age plants, finally as a tool for breeding, harvesting, culling.

I have a freeze dryer too, for drying ice-water hash, can’t wait to start prepping cielo material in that; see what, if any, difference that makes. Should make powdering process faster/easier, expecting cactus to dry to funyum-/cheetos-like consistency.

I've only baked oven so far, and not even fan oven :/
I would love a dehydrator but I can't make it fit in my brain with my home space and singular usage for cactus. I could only do VERY small batches in my air fryer otherwise.
I've used multiple thermometers to make sure my oven isn't going >160F; I even got additional racks for my oven to do more trays but packing them all in creates much different temps on top and bottom since I don't have a fan in there. I keep it around 140-150 for 12hrs from frozen, even though that's higher than low/normal modes on dehydrators AFAIK. I always thought it couldn't hurt to go up higher temps as long as it's nowhere near the mescaline boiling point.
It would be really amazing to see differences in aging in large sample sizes; like does mescaline content start going down after 12+ months in dark? I've got a lot of powder samples at different dark ages but it's all PC baked this sloppy way, so who knows if I can get any cool data out of em.
I'm going to try blending fresh bridgesii and baking soon instead of skin strips since I heard that can cut down the time in a normal oven. I'll lower temp too I guess just to be safe, I think I can reliably go down to a min ~130F with my basic oven.

Like the cactus says: “you work with what you have”. ( https://youtu.be/SqORce1Ivvg )

So, what’s the problem?

My answer would be: the yellowing/browning?

How can that be reduced?

One way would be to turn down the heat.

But maybe that would slow the overall drying.

How could you try to offset that?

Maybe by increasing airflow. With a fan?


I’d drop the temp to 120F, get a fan blowing that moist air off the cactus, and live with any increase in time, to get green, crisp cactus. Adjust temp and airflow to optimize.

I've read into adding fans with basic gas ovens and it always seemed like a recipe for disaster haha. I tried my oven dial waaay lower than it's supposed to go and it can reliably stay ~115-125F while empty; I'll have to see how it goes with some cactus tonight!

Lol

That temp will work.

Now, about the airflow; the goal is to move the humid air off the cactus, not to blow out your pilot.

Start by cracking the oven door and pointing the fan away from the oven…use your common sense from there.

Crack a low window, as an insurance policy.

Good luck!

Added problem is that gas ovens will be constantly producing moisture. Better off hanging the cactus pieces somewhere warm and airy rather than wasting the gas.

Lol, my kingdom for a dehydrator…

Starbob, how bout a ceramic ir bulb and a fan.

If you’re handy, build a vented box, with wire screen shelves, a computer fan ($10-$20), a ceramic ir bulb (50-159w, $10), and an temp controller (inkbird itc-308, heat only $35; inkbird itc-608t temp & humidity [plug bulb into temp outlet, and fan into humidity outlet; control your destiny!], $70).

Hell, go full hillbilly redneck and use a sturdy cardboard box, cut some vent slots, stick a small fan, ceramic ir bulb, temp controller and a couple levels of wire screen in there.

Going to rig up a redneck version, post a pic later.

Country Steve’s Great Success Dehydrator

Equipment Needed:
Single-Edge Razor Blade
Ceramic IR bulb & Fixture
Inkbird ITC-608T Temp & Humidity Controller
Small Fan
Wire Screen Shelves & Frame

Supplies:
Cardboard Box
Tape

Testing underway,

Hiya Five!

HAH! hiya five I may have to try that because my oven at this low of a temp is likely going to take well over 24hrs to dry without some kind of forced ventilation. It doesn't seem to flare on often and waste alot of gas to keep this low temp. I can't imagine it'll be more than another 8hrs at their current state.

This is the way to go, Only question is what wattage bulb?

I had a 60w ir bulb going for 5 hours, got temp up to mid-90s F (approx 25F above ambient); dropped RH to mid-20%s (almost 30 point drop); clearly dehydrating & shrinking those carrots and potatoes.

Just swapped in a 150w ir bulb, temp is increasing past 103F as I hunt & peck; RH is dropping below 22%. I’ll post when they stabilize.

Here’s an upgrade: https://youtu.be/UWCkc3fmqZU

I’d put a fan in/on it for sure. We’ll see how hot my150w bulb gets, may not need a controller.