there should be 2 distinct layers...distinct. Base to at least 13, some say 13.4 is where emulsions stop forming. Also, if u divided the extraction by 8 since ur only doin 2 oz maybe increase the amount of water. Especially with pre powdred bark u need more water.

well there were 2 distinct layers. One blackish and the other was a fatty/oily brown layer on top. and then a very very thin layer of naptha on top. i don't know what i did wrong, i followed every step exactly as it was written. is the fatty layer I have not supposed to be there?

The fatty layer is an emulsion. What you should have is black liquid on the bottom and clear(ish) naptha on top but the naptha is trapped. Add another 50% of however much lye you used originally and agitate the jar gently. That should break it. If not, a couple of hours in a warm water bath should do it.

I added more lye and the fatty layer is 90% gone. Should I add more lye until it goes away completely?

No, it'll gradually go away during the later naptha pulls.

Thank you. After about 30 minutes in hot water it was gone. the naptha is perfectly clear though. Hopefully that just means I won't have yellow crystals

Well, I'm fairly certain no one gets clear crystals straight off the pull, and that recrystallization is the only way to do that. Nothing wrong with yellow spice though, so unless you're looking to put in some overtime, I'd start shedding some of those expectations. If it doesn't appear very yellow, it's probably pretty fluffy, and if it's rocky (which is so much easier to work with), it will probably be yellow.

hello peoples,

I was wondering, if you do the acid cook with a fair bit of bark (Lex's Tek) and you end up with a lot of liquid that you would like to reduce down in the pot to something more manageable...is it acceptable to BOIL it down or is it better to do it at a lower temp? at what temp does DMT boil? - wouldn't want to loose too much spice.

if needed, whats a good temp range to do an acid cook at?

good question... ^

Well I think i must have messed it up somewhere

A friend is attempting Noman's Tek and has a couple quick questions.

1. I believe I saw a post where someone evaporated their extraction before freezer precip. Is this recommended? I searched for the thread and now I can't find it. What percentage of Naptha should be evaporated? (If I remember correctly it was quite a lot)

2. Why are the 4 extractions put in separate jars? Is it to prevent/reduce contamination? It just seems easier if they all went into one jar. Could the 4 jars be combined for freezer precip? My friend is going to follow the Tek and put them into separate jars just to be safe.

SWIM has blended about 5kg of acacia bark, and its now sitting in a sealed bucket of acidic water, waiting to be cooked, (in about 4 days). Can anyone say that this is alright to do?

It ought to be fine to boil it down for a while, but you have to be careful once it gets to a lesser amount and probably ought to just simmer it down. As long as it is mostly water in this boiling concoction, then liquid should remain at close to boiling temperature, however burning can happen once there is a lot less water.







1. I usually evap it down till it starts to turn slightly cloudy, a clear sign that the DMT will readily precipitate. You should be good evaporating it to about a third of the volume.

2. The four jars could be combined if you want to, though I think that it's kinda cool seeing the different crystal qualities that can come out of one extraction from the different pulls.





That should be fine to do, make sure that you shake the bucket up all through out the days. YOu might even want to halve the amount of time it is soaking and do two acid washes or more.

thanks mate ur a legend,
SWIM ended up doing 2 separate cooks, because of the amount of bark and (what we call juice) he had to split it up. its in the process hope it goes ok.

ps.
whats the ideal amount of "juice" to have before doing the extraction? 1-3 litres?

Haven't worked with acacia, but one has found that cooking down MHRB juice until it starts to thicken makes for a much easier extraction.

I am trying the Straight-to-Base tek and I'm having a problem. I followed the direction step by step but it is not separating into layers. I used plenty of base

And What kind of non-polar solvent are you using? Cuz Swim just did his first extraction yesterday and everything went smooth. i used STB too...normans tek. It should've been at least partly separated by now, seeing how you posted a couple of hours ago.

In swims case the naptha went to the top pretty much instantly, then for a couple hours or so he would turn the jar end over end periodically. He got his first small blanket of crystals just within a few hours of starting the process.

there are no layers at all, just all black still after 10+ hours. I used VM&P Naptha

SWIM is a little inexperienced, but tbh in swiy's case swim would try adding another 1/2 mil of VM&P per gram of mimosa. There HAS to be some sort of seperation because the black basified mix is polar whereas the naptha is non-polar...they dont mix. Other than that SWIY may have a really serious case of emulsion... thats all swim can think of anyway. So hopefully that helps.