does that ph level before and after salting indicate I did something incorrect?

Hello folks, hope you have a wonderful day.

I'm attempting my first extraction (STB. Based on this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIbPJsJr62Y ) and after reading that I could substitute Sodium Hydroxide (NaOH) with Calcium Hydroxide Ca(OH)2 in this I tried that, since Sodium Hydroxide is kind of hard to get where I live.

However I seemingly can't manage to get the PH high enough for the color change to occur. My sludge stays grey with an ever so slightly green tint, instead of the expected black. Is this epected due to the Calcium? The PH strips I have are not super clear in the extreme PH ranges, but it looks like it's in PH 12+. I'm just not sure if it's above the required 12.5 to break down the plant structure.

Can someone who is more experienced and knowledgable in the teks tell me what's wrong? Is it impossible to do with Ca(OH)2? Did I ruin my batch? Can I salvage it somehow?

Any help would be greatly appreciated and

I've found that 11.7 seems to be the cutoff mark. Color isn't always the for sure indicator that it's been done correctly.

How much Calcium Hydroxide did you use and how much water when adding to your brew? Some more detailed information would help, as well as some pictures. You can use an image hosting site like Imgur or head into the chat to upload a photo there as it strips the meta data making it safer for you to post images. Once uploaded, right click and save, and upload here as an attachment in the "preview mode" or simply edit your post and add attachment.

Lastly, are you in the middle of your extraction right this second? Have you tried pulling with your solvent yet?

Also, depending on your pH strips it can be difficult to gauge your exact pH levels because the bark colorizes the water.

Either way, give us your measurements and some more details and can help from there. I've only worked with NaOH as it's easy to find here. I got mine on Amazon.

Let's hope a more experienced chemical expert steps in here as well as there could be alternatives to your problem.

Edit: If you're currently engaged in this extraction, go ahead and hop in the chat, you'll get help faster.

Yes, it should work. However, I think your bark needs to be ground very fine in STB lime to get max yield since lime won't break up the bark as well as lye.

Check out the TEKs on the site. Several use lime. One has a picture of a gray lime paste in the TEK.

Posting for awareness (and help if possible)

Klean Strip Painter's Solvent not seperating in extraction phase.

NYC Home Depot stopped carrying VM&P Naptha. I found out yesterday when I bought the closest thing they replaced it with: Klean Strip Painter's Solvent (Which says on the front - replacement for VM&P Naptha). I had a bad feeling about this.

24 hours after adding it to my MHRB for a 2nd pull, there's zero seperation. I open the lid and it reeks like solvent. For the smarties out there, can I salvedge it? For everyone (!) - do not use Klean Strip Painter's Solvent in your extraction phase


This is the Product - https://kleanstrip.com/s...inners/painters-solvent/
This is the MSDS - https://www.mtlaney.com/...for-SCAQMD-W.M.-Barr.pdf

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news but I think you just wasted your MHRB. Maybe a chemical expert can speak to it. Maybe once you do get a hold of some naptha or heptane you could transfer it to the non polar solvent but I have no way of knowing.

Painter's Solvent is nothing but Acetone, Methyl Acetate and Petroleum, the latter being the only non polar solvent and judging from the MSDS contributes to only 5 percent of the volume.

Did you not look at the MSDS before buying? Did you even do an evaporation test?

I can't get VM and P Naphtha in my state either, but you can get it off of Amazon. You could always drive to PA and go to an Ace Hardware, they carry it and that's where I went. They also carry MEK Substitute (Ethyl Acetate) for mescaline extraction if you ever give the CIELO tek a try.

Thank you for your response. I did get 1 pull first! And I'll pick up some naptha to try for a 2nd pull after the Klean Strip dissolved in so there's some answers on this.

Still... do an evaporation test. You don't want to be smoking any xtals that have solvent on them, assuming they're even capable of drying completely or resolving at all.

Get some actual naphtha or heptane, or other non polar solvents like xylene or toulene, or better yet something that smells nice like D-Limonene, and start over from scratch.

Hello everyone. So I just did Cybs' Hybrid ATB 'Salt' Tek and followed it to the letter. The glass dishes are in the freezer now. I opened up my fridge this morning and smelled naptha. Does this always happen and is it going to affect the food in my fridge? As in, does the food absorb the smell and taste or will this go away when I pull the dishes out. Thanks!

Update: I have decided to throw all the food away (I live alone so not a disaster). Unplugged the fridge and leaving doors open because the smell was substantial. I read somewhere that pyrex dishes with lids work to isolate the smell. I also read that the freezer not getting cold enough could play a part. For those using the freezer for this step how do you control the smell? Thanks.

Keep following your plan of action.

Yes, it's likely that your freezer wasn't cold enough, and as the solvent evaporated, gaseous volume transitioned to your fridge.

Air it out, then use soap and water (if I'm not mistaken) should clear out the smell and residue.

Ventilate your home well and keep your pets away until complete.

In the future, it may be best to use a Pyrex dish with a lid.

One love

i can't get any crystals to form all i get is some floating and then when i pour of the fuel they turn to goo also i live in a humid area so the minute i pull it out of the freezer condensation forms and it's hard to keep it out of the mix i feel like i'm following the directions to the tee but i can't get anything like the plate full of crystals

You'll need a reverse saturation where the DMT saturates the solvent. Allow more to evaporate then place back in th freezer.

One love

Hello friends, Swim did their first A/B extraction from 250g of Mimosa. Freeze precip the first 4 pulls for 48h and got a gorgeous and unbelievable amount of 5g of white crystals! Amazed, thwy decided to try to puff a tad before recrystallize it, but nothing much happened to them. Could that be because the dose was too small even tho the volume looked right? They didn't weight the dose but it seemed big enough for a trip. It smells and looks like dmt.
They are going to recrystallize it now anyway; do they have to expect a major difference in the volume and the weight of the yield? is the baking soda wash necessary even if the crystals are white and beautiful? thanks

This thread will give you some insight as to why you should always weigh your dose. Density can be different depending on polymer.

One love

Make sense, thank you! WIll a recrystallization produce denser yield?

You lose some material each time you re-x.

Later I'll find some threads that detail how to produce bigger xtals (I'm working)

One love

Even a freezer at -22C will get vapor contamination if the solvent container isn't completely vapor-tight. In my case it was butyl acetate, so everything ended up tasting of bananas. Some solvents, including - as I found out - butyl acetate, will diffuse through plastic lids in significant amounts even at quite low temperatures. Sealed glass containers are the best option if you're not using either a dedicated chemistry freezer or odorless naphtha/heptane.

Hello all,

First time poster long time lurker…
I did my first extraction a couple of weeks ago and while I thought it went well and ended up with some nice white spice nothing happened when I loaded it up in the dab rig.

Background: I went with lex tek, chacruna. The only issue I ran into was at the end. I added too much base on the last extraction. I didn’t realize that I needed to let the sodium hydroxide mix better when taking the readings and I ended up putting too much base.
But the final naptha pull seemed to look as it should and extracted the milky liquid. Let it evaporate and then freeze.
It looked as though it was crystallized at the end. Scraped it all together for right at 3.5gs of white fish scale looking spice.

But after a week or so I loaded 20mgs or in dab rig and surprisingly it did not melt or evaporate. It just stayed in its same white form. Tried again this time with more heat and fresh scoop but same thing. It doesn’t melt away or burn at all. Just ambers a little.

I’m using a typical dab rig with quartz banger

Admittedly I have never successfully smoked spice in my life. Only a few aya experiences. So it’s possible I’m not doing something correct on that end. But seems more likely that I screwed something up on the extraction.

Thanks in advance

If not sodium hydroxide, in the case of chacruna it might possibly be soap, i.e. sodium salts of fatty acids.

Explorer2023 - it would be great if you could make a new thread specifically about your experiment since this appears to
be a novel and relevant observation.