I'm still a DMT novice who's still trying to extract. If it's not too much trouble, I need all the help I can get. I'm trying to write my own recipe, "The Pyramid Method". It's a combination of what I have learned from others. I call it The Pyramid Method because I'm using an Erlenmeyer flask, which looks like a pyramid, to me. The base sits at the bottom, and you siphon off the good stuff from the top of the pyramid.

First Day

1. Weigh out 200g of MHRB, and pour it into the flask for later use.
2. Pour 1L of de-ionized water into the 1L measuring cup. Repeat. (I have 2).
3. Weigh out 100g of lye and pour it into the de-ionized water in measuring cup #1. Repeat with measuring cup #2.
4. Mix the lye-water until all of the lye has dissolved.
5. Pour both lye-waters into the bark in the flask.
6. Mix the black sludge for 10 minutes.
7. Pour Ronsonol until it reaches the neck of the flask.
8. Mix 2 layers for 10 minutes.
9. Let it sit for 24 hours.

Second Day

10. Repeat the 10-minute mixing 9 times, with a half hour space in between each mixing.
11. Siphon off the good stuff into 3 freezer dishes.
12. Give it 24 hours to freeze-precipitate.

Third Day

13. Let it dry for 72 hours.

I bought a very cool upright freezer. It's sitting out on the balcony. I have a fear of upright freezer flammability (probably unfounded?), so I feel safer with it sitting out on the balcony, and there's no room for it in the apartment, anyway. I have a luxury crashpad.

14. I want to try re-crystallization. Re-dissolve the crystals in Ronsonol (I guess I can do this in a glass cereal bowl?) and then...siphon it off into the 3 freezer dishes again? In the interest of purity, I would love to read more about the process of re-crystallization.

100g of lye seems excessive but I've not done it yet.

A good start to a recipe, but you need to try and put yourself in the head of someone who is completely new to this and a look for missing details. Here's a few things I spotted:

You don't mention the size of flask you are using, must be over 2L I guess?

Step 1: what form is your bark in? Powder, shreds, or chunks?

Step 3: it's not good practice to dump lots of lye into water, the heat of the reaction of dissolving can make the water boil and spray lye water out of the neck of the flask (especially if the water is already hot) so add it a bit at a time, while stirring, to allow the heat to dissipate.

step 9 might be pretty pointless? Though it would give the lye a chance to break down the plant material I suppose.

Most other teks will do the "add solvent, shake, pull, freeze" cycle several times with around 50-100ml of solvent each time, rather than adding a lot at once as your recipe does, this should increase yield efficiancy.


Re-crystallization: You re dissolve the product in a small amount of Ronsonol, like about 10ml, then carefully pull off just the liquid and leave behind any solids. The liquid then goes back into the freezer as normal, but you'll only need one small dish. Keep any orange goo that won't dissolve as it might be DMT polymer, it can be recovered by dissolving in vinegar, basing, and pulling with solvent again.

Another purification step is to water wash the Ronsonol as you pull it. To do this, just add the solvent to a little warm water as it comes off the bark soup ( I find a measuring cylinder good for this ). Then transfer just the solvent from this water wash vessel to your normal freezing dish. This makes sure that anything water soluble (like minute particles of lye) gets left in the water. the water must be warmer than your solvent so the DMT won't crash out a little in the water when washing.

... err, that's my info dump! Hope it helps, there is lots more info around on the wiki here.

Cheers,
frac4

There's some evidence to suggest that prolonged contact mith base leads to increased levels of polymeric goo - see Minimum Polymer for a more detailed discussion.

Thank you so much everyone for all that information.

fractals4life, I sincerely appreciate the level of detail in your response. Thank you for taking the time to share all that information with me, and ask me questions. You rock!

To answer a couple of your questions, the Erlenmeyer flask is 2L and the MHRB is powdered.

I have to revise this recipe.

I'm thinking maybe 50g of lye would be better. And of course, I always add it little by little. Nice n' easy.

Happy New Year, everyone!

The Pyramid Method
- revised recipe -
11-step process

1. Weigh out 200g of powdered MHRB, and pour it into the 2L Erlenmeyer flask for later use.
2. Pour 1L of de-ionized water into the 1L measuring cup. Repeat. (I have 2 1L measuring cups).
3. Weigh out 50g of lye and pour it into the de-ionized water in measuring cup #1, little by little, nice n' easy. Repeat with measuring cup #2.
4. Mix the lye-water until all of the lye has dissolved.
5. Pour both lye-waters into the bark in the flask.
6. Mix the black sludge for 10 minutes.
7. Add Ronsonol, shake, pull, freeze 8 times.
8. Give (3 freezer dishes) 24 hours to freeze-precipitate in a separate freezer that contains no food. I love my new upright freezer!
9. Take the 3 freezer dishes out of the freezer and drain off the excess Ronsonol into the kitchen sink. Flip them over, and prop them up with a book with a dishcloth underneath so that any remaining Ronsonol can drain off. I left them like this for 72 hours in my laundry room on top of my washer and dryer, with the fan on.
10. Scrape off the product with a straightedge blade.
11. To test that it is DMT, I'm wondering if it would be best to put a little bit of the product in an oil burner, and burn it off without smoking it, and if you smell that burning plastic smell, you're in luck. I'm going to try this....it may or may not work.

-this is my revised recipe
-still open to any more suggestions
-Life, liberty, and the pursuit of....tryptamines!

Looking much better!

What immediately jumps out at me from your new detail is that it's not best to pour ronsonol (or naphtha or other NPS ) down the sink. It'll possibly attack plastic drainage pipes and generally not be good for your drainage ecology further downstream. Also, that nps has a few mg of dmt in it still, since freezing won't reduce the solubility to actual zero. Modern practice is to drain it from the freezer dish into a jar and then re use the nps for further pulls or later extractions. Eventually, dispose of by evaporation, burning, or at the local waste disposal where they'll have a big tank for sending waste solvents for incineration.

By re-using the NPS you will have a bit more yield next time round as the unrecoverable bit of dmt is already in the nps when the pull starts.

Some say re-use of nps adds to the yellow colour in the final product, others don't, many say the colour doesn't matter, YMMV

Drying time: Personally, I dry mine for around three of four hours... I know you can't get DMT "too dry" but the longer it spends in front of a fan, the more airborne undesirables like dust and fluff get blown at it I give it a sniff test to see if it still smells like solvent.

Cheers,
Frac4

THE PYRAMID METHOD
12-step process with a 2:1 bark to lye ratio

1. Weigh out 200g of powdered MHRB and pour it into the 2L Erlenmeyer flask for later use.
2. Pour 1L of de-ionized water into the 1L measuring cup. Repeat. (I have 2 1L measuring cups).
3. Weigh out 50g of lye and pour it into the de-ionized water in measuring cup #1, little by little, nice n'easy. Repeat with measuring cup #2.
4. Mix the lye solutions with a long stainless steel spoon until all the lye has dissolved.
5. Pour both lye solutions, nice n' hot, into the bark in the flask.
6. Shake the black sludge (this is your base) for 10 minutes.
7. Add Ronsonol (your solvent), mix the 2 layers with a stainless steel spoon for 2 minutes, pull with a turkey baster (careful not to suck up any base), freeze 3 times into 3 freezer dishes.
8. Give the 3 freezer dishes 24 hours to freeze-precipitate (with the lids on) in a separate freezer that contains no food. You can buy an upright freezer and put it out on the balcony, in the garage, in the basement, etc.
9. Take the freezer dishes out of the freezer and drain off the excess Ronsonol into a glass jar. Flip the 3 freezer dishes over, and prop them up with a book with a dishcloth underneath so that any remaining Ronsonol can drain off. I leave them like this for 72 hours in my laundry room on top of my washer and dryer, with the fan on.
10. Give the product a sniff test to see if it still smells like solvent. It shouldn't, after 3 days of drying!
11. Scrape off the product with a straightedge blade.
12. To test that it is DMT, I'm wondering if I put a little bit of the product in an oil burner, and burn it off without smoking it, will the burning plastic smell still be there anyway...you see what I mean? I've never burned off a hit of DMT without smoking it. That burning plastic smell is still there even if you burn off a hit without smoking it, right?

P.S. I understand what you said about the dust particles during the drying process, but I don't remember encountering that problem. I'm extracting on Sunday. I'll be sure to let you know what problems I do encounter. Thanks, Frac4 and df0. I really believe in this medicine.

Fluorescent Leaf

Extracting tomorrow. I'm dying of loneliness. My social life here in Vegas kind of...evaporated. I'm moving to Maine in the spring, when my lease is up. The chemicals and the glassware in the vermiculite, and everything....

Getting a big rental house in Maine. Going to try to grow mugwort in my backyard, and hopefully it'll just take over on it's own. There are alot of cannabis growers out there, but there aren't too many mugwort growers.

I need a career and a soulmate.
For my career, I know I want to become a science librarian.
For my soulmate, I have to find somebody who loves DMT just as much as I do.

Hey Flourescent Leaf,

If you evap your solvent down to as small a volume as possible without crashing the DMT out, you shouldn't need to do so many freezes.. when the solvent is saturated it will readily crash the alkaloids out.

An issue to keep in mind of course if you are reducing the solvent first, is that the alkaloids will start crashing out of the solvent as the volume gets smaller and it cools down... this is pronounced if fanning it. I used to sit the dish of naptha in a another larger dish of hot water so that the solvent stays warm and clear while it is evaporating - then when it reduces to say a fifth of its original volume (or as much as you can reduce it before it crashes out) you can start the cooling process.. cooling it incrementally will produce larger/clearer crystals I've found. Starting in the fridge and then eventually into the freezer. Or even if you have the patience just leave in the fridge. It will still precipitate out of the solvent in the fridge.. just at a much slower rate.. producing a nicer crystal.. at least in my experience using naptha.. (has been a while)

When completely saturated the first freeze precipitation will get the majority out.. then you can do a second for good measure or just evap the solvent.

Sometimes doing this way in a hot water bath dew can form around the sides of the dish from the hot water it is sitting in.. this can just be carefully wiped off with a paper towel.

I'm sorry to hear you are struggling with loneliness.. I hope you cross paths with some wholesome people soon

I just got done extracting. It took me a total of 2 and a half hours, which is a lot less than it took me in the past. From setting up the laboratory in a spotless, bare kitchen, garbing up, the process...now those 3 freezer dishes are sitting in the upright freezer.

At the beginning, I made such a mess of the powdered MHRB. It got everywhere. I tried to pour it into the flask with a funnel, but it got stuck in the funnel, and I had to manually force it through with a stainless steel spoon, and then it got stuck again. What a mess.

Later on in the process, with the 2 layers, I wasn't sure how long to mix it for. I decided to shake it 3 times for 3 pulls, 2 minutes each time. But obviously, shaking the flask wasn't the right thing to do to the 2 layers, because with the 2nd shake, the layers blended together, and there was no more separation. So, I added more Ronsonol, and went back to mixing the 2 layers with the stainless steel spoon. I have to get a bigger, longer stainless steel spoon, because I got frustrated that it doesn't reach the bottom of the pyramid (the 2L Erlenmeyer flask), and mixing, mixing, mixing, with that skinny spoon is tedious, and my right hand got tired. Maybe I should buy a 1L Erlenmeyer flask, instead, if I can't find a bigger spoon. It might be more manageable. Then I can just do 100g of bark and 50g of lye.

I changed my recipe, so that you shake the flask only when the black sludge needs to be mixed, before you ever add solvent. But once you add solvent, I learned that you shouldn't shake the 2 layers together, because look what happened. So, I went back to mixing, but the obvious problem is this spoon is too short/skinny for a big 2L Erlenmeyer flask.

At the end of the process, my back hurts from concentrating in the laboratory for 2.5 hours, and I still don't think I will get crystals this time. But, I'll have to open the freezer this same time tomorrow, and check.

Thanks for the information about solvent evaporation.

Here is my freezer of psychedelic love...out on the balcony. Let's hope.

Done! I purchased a 1L Erlenmeyer flask. That'll be a much more manageable pyramid. The 2L one is too big.

How long am I supposed to mix the 2 layers for?

You could have always added in more water or even salt water so the solvent layer would go up to the neck.

True that...but...why salt? This is the first time I've heard of salt water to help facilitate an extraction procedure. What type of salt are we talkin'?

Now you're makin' me curious...

I'm excited to check the freezer at exactly 9PM, but I don't want to get my hopes up.

I'm struggling to get places.

I yielded a few crystals, but they're supposed to be all over the bottom of the freezer dish. They're supposed to be all over the bottom of all 3 freezer dishes, and they're not. Apparently my recipe is bad. I think the Ronsonol never dissolved the DMT because it was never heated. I just read in the Wiki that, "Naphtha needs to be heated to dissolve or else it won't dissolve anything". This makes logical sense to me. Is there a way of salvaging this recipe...in other words...how do I heat the Naphtha (the Ronsonol)? I haven't taken Chemistry lab since 2007.

It makes sense that a solvent has to be heated in order to dissolve the solute.

But how to heat it?

I have to do more homework.

To heat the solvent, you can put your flask in a hot water bath and place your flask in there. That will heat the water which will in turn hear the solvent. In general you don't want to allow the water to cool, I think keeping it warm reduces oligomer formation.

Never do this with an active flame. If you are heating the water with a flame keep it separate from the solvent while heating up.

Heating the solvent will also help remove the emulsion.

~10% salt does several things I believe. 1) It pushes the DMT out of the water into the solvent per Cyb, 2) It disrupts oligomer formation keeping DMT solubility in solvent high and making it witer, and 3) may help with emulsions.

Also, adding more lye after the salt can help break up emulsions if they are still present. Dont go over 20% lye or so.

The ideal solvent volume is at the solvent saturation point for each pull. This makes the highest concentration combined extract. If the solvent clouds inmedietly after the pull you can increase the pull volume, if it never clouds as it cools decrease the volume. With practice you can get a feel for solvent volume. There is also a color you can look for (saturared solvent looks like dark pee, add more). The first pull will be larger volume than the rest under ideal saturated conditions. A good starting point is 100ml for 100g of bark on the first pull and 50ml for the rest. The actual volume to stay near saturarion depends on how much DMT is in the bark, so a universal optimal volume recipe is impossible.

Keep your last pull separate and make sure not a lot of product is being pulled. If it is, keep on pulling.

Do not evaporate the solvent. It is reusable. Only ~ 0.7mg/ml of DMT will stay in solution at freezer temp. So you "invest" ~250mg of DMT per 100g of bark the first time you use the solvent, but after that, a conditioned solvent gives it all back.

What you can do next is:

- Dissolve 10% NaCl
- Make warm water bath in a large pot (get the water to boil)
- With all flames off, add 200ml of solvent
- Shake well and put back in water bath. Release pressure regularly as the solvent warms.
- Layers should separate quickly (whitin 30m)
- Separare off solvent into a jar
- Repeat pulls with 100ml of solvent 4x times. Combine the firt 3 with the firsr pull and keep last pull separate.
- Let the solvent rest for about an hour. A small amount of water of debrees may appear at the bottom. Decant into shallow containers.
- Freeze precipitate
- Collect xtals. 5th pull shoulf be <10% of the total. If not, do 3 more pulls. If yve last pull is <2% of totals you can do one less pulls next time and measure the last pull again.
- If you are a beginner, keep the alkaline bark solution. Wait a week and do another 100ml warm pull. If it has a significant amount of DMT (>10%) your bark was not gground fine enough and the lye had to break it down. Repeat pulls until you get the <10% of total one.

I like your idea of trying to simplify. But first, get a good yield and pure product with an established TEK. Then try to simplify.

Here is what I do. It is a simplfied version of max ion TEK.

- Mix 1 part DMT fine ground bark, 6 parts water, and 0.6 parts NaCl (or KCl).
- Dissolve 0.3 parts NaOH slowly without stirring aggressively (add over the course of 10 minutes) Solution will heat up.
- While solution is hot from lye, shake in 1 parts naphtha (use your solvent from a previous extraction if available). Allow layers to separate. If they don't separate well after 30 minutes add 0.1 parts lye up to ~1.2 additional parts (1.5 parts total). Add lye skowly and do not overboil.
- Repeat pulls with 0.5 parts naphtha four times. Combine first 4 pulls in a jar, and keep the last (5th) pull in a separate jar. If this takes long and the bark begind to cool, warm it up again (tip: 0.1 parts lye warms us the extract).
- Rest jars for an hour to allow any debrees/water to settle. Decant both jars into separate shallow dishes, seal, and freeze precipitate for 24h.
- Collect xtals. Smaller crop of xtals from second jar needs to be <3% of total (if not, do more pulls). If small crop is miniscule, pulls are efficient and the last pull can be ommited next time (check again if you change anything bark source, procrss temperatures, etc).

Final note: K+ ions could disrupt oligomer formation even better than Na+ ions. Using KCl and KOH may give witer DMT. I tried KCl once and got a great result.

Loveall - You rock! I want to try your recipe, down at the bottom. Thank you so much.

I'm all by myself these days. DMT Nexus is my only social life, at this point in time (but it's not going to be that way forever, because I'll have a big rental house in Maine in approximately 100 days). Thank you so much for taking the time to type all that out. I sincerely appreciate it.

But, I want to make sure I understood your recipe. If I were to write it over in my own words, here's how it would look. I added questions in brackets. I did the calculations you gave me, based off of 100g of bark.

1. {In a 1L Erlenmeyer flask?} mix (with a stainless steel spoon) 50g powdered MHRB, 300ml of de-ionized H20, and 5g of potassium chloride (instead of sodium chloride). {Mix for how long?}

2. Slowly and gradually add in 2.5g of potassium hydroxide (lye) over the course of 10 minutes without stirring aggressively. The solution will heat up.

3. While the solution is hot, shake in 10ml of Ronsonol. {This quantity, 10ml, looks incorrect, but then again, I'm a novice at this. I calculated the proportions you gave me...they all seem right except for the 10ml of solvent. Hmmm...}.

4. Allow 30 minutes for the 2 layers to separate.

5. Pull with a turkey baster into glass jars. I kind of lost you, man, when you were talking about the 4 pulls in 1 jar, and the 5th pull in a separate jar. {I'm not sure what you mean, but 10ml of Ronsonol is incorrect, right?..more like 100ml, right?}

6. Rest jars for an hour to allow any debris/water to settle. Slowly pour both jars into 3 freezer dishes.

7. Freeze-precipitate for 24 hours. Of course. Freezer magic.

If there's any chance you could provide photos of the different steps, I would love that, and I would sincerely appreciate that. Writing somebody else's recipe in my own words helps me understand it better. Your recipe looks really good. But, I want to make sure I thoroughly understand it and I want to make sure I get it right (after all those unsuccessful extraction attempts! Jesus!).

Thanks! You'll kindly let me know what I did wrong with my interpretation of your recipe? You can private message me too, if you want.


Once again, thank you so, so much.
You're totally radical!

So, here's a list of the numbers I came up with:

50g bark
300ml de-ionized H20
5g potassium chloride (the salt)
2.5g potassium hydroxide (the lye)

I was using excessive quantities of all the starting materials, which ended up being a total waste. These numbers look more manageable. Let me know what you think.

I'm so sorry, I transposed bark and water in the recipe I posted when talking about salt and water. I updated it. My apologies. It should be,

50g bark
300ml de H20
30g potassium chloride (the salt)
15g potassium hydroxide (the lye)

Plain water is OK

Yes, solvent ammount is wrong I swaped the water and bark. Fixed it the original post. It should be 50ml or solvent. 100ml is also OK, but I wouldn't go much more above that (it won't be near saturation for average bark).

For step 5 in would be:

- First pull of 50ml goes into jar1
- Second pull of 25ml goes into jar1 (1st repeat)
- Third pull of 25ml goes into jar1
- Fourth pull of 25ml goes into jar1
- Fith pull of 25ml goes into jar2 (4th repeat)

After settling, decant jar1 (125ml) into shallow-dish1 and jar2 (25ml) into shallow dish2 (25ml).

When scraping product < 3% of the total DMT should be in shallow-dish2. (I had 10% originally but updated it after thinking about it more). For example, if you get:

- Shallow-dish 1: 990mg
- Shallow-dish 2: 10mg

Then 1% of the DMT is in shallow-dish2 and you are done pulling. Total yield is 2% (1g of DMT total). If using new solvent about 105mg is still in the naphtha (assuming frozen naphtha holds ~0.7mg/ml of DMT), so make sure you reuse it to get that back in the next extraction (yields will go up with reused naphtha some, firs 4 pulls up to 1077mg and 5th pull up to to 27mg (=2.5% of total, still <3%).