OK I got this reduced down quite a bit. I was expecting something more, does it look promising?

Please to report that the above liquid turned into the "unwashed stuff" below

This weighed in at 951mg. (edited to correct weight!)

washed like once - thatl be awesome mesk.

Is the wash really necessary once it's pure enough to be able to get 300-400mg in one capsule? Meaning, is the experience notably improved?

always good to wash it - how does it smell ?

I got into DMT extractions by first looking up mesc teks. I found them a bit hard to follow at the time (a few years ago now), but as i have extracted dmt many times, i have recently been looking into extracting mescaline again. This tek seems exactly what i've been looking for. Looks very simple. Thanks Phlux for sparking my interest again.

I have a couple questions: Does it matter how much xylene you use? If so, how much would you recommend? Also, how many grams of fresh cactus did you use? If i have missed something please let me know. Thanks again for a great write up!

I use around 200ml limonene.

I don't think using too much is an issue when you are going to salt it out anyways, so maybe it would be more efficent to use a little more?

I'm planning to do the extraction soon too (thanks Phlux & co!). I have some questions:

-10 grams of lye per 150 ml of water to make a strong batch? would this be strong?
-should the acetone be dried for washing? or can i just use the store bought?
-after washing with acetone, i just pour the whole through a coffee filter so that the mesc stays on the filter?

thanks for the advise...

much appreciated, soulfood

Would soda ash be good enough to boost the ph up as to avoid using sodium hydroxide?
-edit-> Also. Hell yeah you should do a pictoral, i saw the pictoral you had for the re-x and those crystals where beautiful! good stuff.

Just wondering if a specific pH is suggested for basification or at least what quantity of NaOH is used per volume of tea filtrate to give good results. SWIM just doesn't want to overdo it so any advice would be appreciated before he begins this extraction in the next couple days.

I just have to say this is my favourite tek for cactus.

Ron's tek is great, but it's just a little bit messy for my liking, Ekstaza's tek is alright, but I always end up with some annoying cactus particles floating about where I don't want them. This tek gives me the best and cleanest results by far. Also the smell of simmering cactus fills me with joy!

Thanks for writing it up Phlux

Agreed...i just finishing up this tek and I must say that it has given very clean results. I'm quite pleased with this tek and will likely be sticking with it, so this write up is very much appreciated. So far from approx. 200 g dried pedro was yielded 1.3 g of clean product after washing.

out of curiosity, how many rounds of pulls do you all usually do? roughly 75% of the my product was collected in the first 2 pulls yet since then a few hundred more milligrams have been collected over several additional rounds of pulls. I'm starting to wonder if this material will ever be completely exhausted.

nice nice - :Þ these responses fill me with joy.

idk how many pulls it takes to fully exhaust it - i found if u remove the water - u get a dirtier product - but u require less pulls - with some water u get a sparkling product but the only disadvantage is that it seems you can pull for quite some time.
i pull till i get bored of pulling then i stash the bottle - to cleanup later with the other bottles of cactus.
i must admit - iv tried a lot of teks on cactus and this just is the most streightforeward way to a perfect product imo.

Just curious here and didn't see the need to start another thread, as I this is more a query to a possible amendment to this tek.

Phlux, it's obvious you have done a fair bit of experimenting when it comes down to cactus extraction and I know you read at the nook for various bits of info on the matter. So I was wondering if you ever came across white rasta's thread on using KOH instead of NaOH?

http://www.thenook.org/f...showtopic=43067&st=0

It seems he's using an STB tek in the example, so obviously a lot of those issues don't apply here, but he does report getting cleaner results with KOH all the same.

Is this something you have experimented with?

i havent tried that but if the correct amount of naoh is used - emulsions are never a problem.
interesting tho - gona get me some koh.

Phlux- are you saying that reducing the original volume before basification might require less pulls or what do you mean by removing the water? With this tek a decent amount of water will always be present, no?

Reducing the volume of the cactus tea before basification should require fewer pulls in theory, since the more concentrated the tea, the greater the concentration gradient will be when you mix in limonene.

yea this makes sense...perhaps I'll reduce the volume significantly more next time, and even if the product isn't quite as clean initially I'd like to think that any impurities could easily washed away with acetone/ipa.

well - on reduction

reducing more - less pulls but u have to clean the mesc more - more chance or snot - so do an acetone bomb to remove some cellulose.
reducing less - no chance of snot - very clean mesc (often white right away) - more pulls.

find the balance son