Isn't there a thread somewhere about defatting?
How do you people defat your extractions?

I do A/B using MHRB and I don't even defat any more. I recrystalize to clean the spice and anyway, with the use of a separating funnel it all comes out very clean. I did an MHRB & Chaliponga extraction a few days ago and that required about 8 defats, boy, that was like a full on lipo operation. I won't do that again in a hurry.

If I do defat, with naphtha, in a milk jug before basifying. I shake it like it's never been shaken before then drain it off and discard the solvent.

If the solvent separates and is still clean and there is no fatty emulsion, then it's clean.

I never understood why people defat, specially when extracting from MHRB.. its such an incredible waste of solvent which you'll have to throw away.. Just recrystalize your stuff if you're not happy with it, you'll need a tiny ammount of warm solvent and it will clean up sooooooo much more efficiently.

It is my experience and I've read in a chemlab textbook that recrystallisation is inefficient if your original extract is too dirty.

Inefficient in what way?

Yeah thats not exactly correct.

If you study carefully proper recrystalization, it only takes the tiniest amount of solvent and you'll only have to do the procedure once.

Also even with a standard dirty STB with mimosa a lot of the time I get glass shards on the first precip just with 1 sodium carbonate wash and then allowing the solvent to cool down very slowly i.e. by the window for 4 hours, 8 hours in the fridge, then finish in the freezer.

edit: just realised I typed "dirty A/B" which is nonsense

People often go for STB because it sounds convenient and easy (one can have spice within few hours of starting the process) but STBs can become troublesome, often requiring few re-x to get a purer product.

Both STB and A/Bs have worked fine for SWIM. The only drawback of A/B is the lengthy boiling and straining steps, yet this is counterbalanced when compared to having to troubleshoot an STB. Remove extra impurities, or very often the need for incubate for longer time to ensure proper digestion of the bark do increase the length of the STB process significantly.

SWIM always gets yellower products from STB and he believes that the very high pH may be responsible for oxidising some of the dmt to its oxide. Whoever has played with A/B may have observed that pulls are almost clear at lower pH, e.g. 10-11 but get yellower as one increases the pH.

A/B is really not a hassle, SWIM often couples the long boils with some other activity, e.g. cooking or cleaning the house.

The long boils are pretty much set and forget. Swim would take 5 minutes to decant some liquid over messing around with stupid amounts of lye and the necessary recrystallizations required to make sure you don't smoke it any day.