SWIM never has the bark shipped to his house and always uses a credit card gift card, can't be too safe. So SWIM just wants to get the easy stuff out of the way because he lives with other people who wouldn't appreciate him extracting DMT. But you're right, it can be done just as easily when the bark arrives. SWIM was just wondering if one could more than anything.

When it doesn't smell like naphtha + 5 hrs or so.

Speed things up drying here

Hey...

Got a couple of questions if that’s ok; used Lex’s A/B tek a while back and it yielded about 5.5g which was great for a first time and had another go but made a couple of mistakes and I just want to understand the consequences more than anything else…

After cooking and reducing the liquid to about 3 litres to work with it was basified with everything hot for the initial pulls. For the defat PH4 HCL acidified water was used and added to the shellite and at that point my turkey baster died and had to leave it there for a couple of weeks as swim was away thinking it would be ok to leave. On returning there were almost half inch crystals that had grown on the glass in the shellite portion. So it was heated to dissolve it back into the shellite and swim continued with pulling the water.

The solution was basified again and too much naoh was added taking the PH to 15.5 so swims guessing some of the potential yield was destroyed?

Now, on the last shellite extraction which was clear and after reducing it by half it was freeze precipitated giving a nice crystal garden but also this tan coloured oil mixed in with it – what could that have been? It was re-heated and separated from the oil, freezed, but this time much less spice so was the oil worth keeping?

And finally, is that tek still a good one or should another be considered like the crockpot tek? But Lex’s certainly worked well the first time… cheers…

What plant material is your friend working with?
Weird that oil would have freeze precipitated out, maybe all that lye did something.
Lex's is the best I've seen for acacia and fatty plants, but if one is using MHRB a straight up Marsofold style A/B is much simpler.

Yeah it was powdered MHRB and I think Lex's was one of the first teks my mate found so he went with that although with all of the washes, it did take a while to get through all the steps... will recommend a Marsofold tek...

One more point, from that lex tek; the basified plant material wasn't thrown away to see if any darker spice could be pulled with Xylene/Heptane and the stuff bought says Xylene thinner (side of tin says contains xylene and other isomers) - is it still ok to use? cheers...

yep it is ok to use.

how much bark made 5.5g?

for the 5.5g it was 2kg of MHRB, but it was a first time a/b tek attempt and by the sound of it me mate didnt choose a simple one to follow either... so not sure if thats low or about right but then there are so many dependencies?

I love Noman's answer!!!

Too bad it disappeared along with the post that it was in response to.

Is a pH of 15.5 possible with NaOH? The normal pH range is 0-14, but numbers outside of that are achievable.
And how much NaOH did you add? Most teks call for pH 13; pH 15 is 100 times more lye/water!

pH 15 is basically dissolving 400g NaOH per litre of distilled water, it indeed sounds pretty insane!

Hello. SWIM has a bit of a problem. They were trying to follow Marsofold's tek, only instead of using VM&P naphtha they substituted odorless mineral spirits (because it's easier to get for them, less toxic, etc.) They didn't think this would be a problem, since from what they understand OMS is supposed to be a more refined version of naphtha anyway. This is the brand they used: http://gamblincolors.com/solvents/index.html There's an MSDS available at that page.

Anyway, so SWIM boiled 500g of MHRB, let it sit overnight, decanted it, then basified it until it turned black. Then they added 250mg of OMS, mixed it for five minutes, and waited for the emulsion to separate (it took about 20 minutes). They siphoned it out, then mixed in another 250mg of OMS and did the same. SWIM put the two OMS pulls in the same glass baking pan, and put it in front of a window with a fan blowing over it to evaporate it down....only it wouldn't evaporate at all. SWIM left it for over four hours, yet it was at the same level in the pan as when they started. So then SWIM tried to make a hot water bath by pouring the solvent into a mason jar and then putting the jar in a crock pot with some water. Left it for over an hour, still didn't evaporate. SWIM doesn't understand why this stuff isn't evaporating at all...maybe because it was too humid that day? (it was raining off and on all day long)

Anyway, SWIM then said "fuck it" and put all of the solvent back in the baking pan and put that in the freezer, hoping at least some DMT would precipitate out anyway. A couple days later, the OMS turned cloudy, and SWIM could see very small crystals in little spots on the bottom of the pan. But nowhere near the amount of crystals as they were expecting. There's also two long strings of some kind of yellow waxy material on the bottom of the pan too (maybe some plant oils that got extracted along with the DMT?)

So SWIM is wondering what to do now. SWIM thinks a little bit of the spice is precipitating out, but most of it is still in the OMS. Should they just leave it in the freezer for several more days, to see if any more precipitates out? Or should they try to evap the solvent down again? And do you all have any tips on how to do that? Should SWIM just be more patient and leave the pan out for several days to evap, instead of just a few hours?

heat up the OMS before putting it into the mix. maybe it will help slightly; but next pull make it small like 75mL.

the evaporation problem is the same with naphtha, it takes so long. swim left his out for 12 hours in a pan and it didn't go down at all. but after freezing a few days a nice amount of spice was collected.

Right, if you are saying 400g NaOH to take it above PH14 to 15 then me mate definately didn't do that, as he only added about 30g NaOH to the solution with an approximate total of 60g in total for the right mix so the the meter will be checked then... now 400g would be a little insane unless the whole lot just fell in there...

Short Breif: A/B extraction, calcium hydroxide=base, vinegar=acid, naptha=solvent. Pre-powdered mhrb is the source plant, about 200gms.

Swim recently did it's 1st extraction and it was a horrible disaster, 1st off when swim was done with the first acid bath, and tried to pour the liquid out, alot of goo came with it (swim is using pre powdered mhrb) at this point swim decided to try to run it through a t-shirt to get out the liquid and while that worked it took forever and swim was not able to get much of the mhrb out of the shirt. Secondly when the soup was basified to 13, tested with paper, it only turned a light grey, like the color of the old school nintendo's. Thirdly a huge emulsion formed and swim could not get at most of the naptha.

So..... my questions are

1.) How do you filter the mhrb from the liquid during the acid bath, without pouring off a bunch of the mhrb or rendering unusable?

2.) Should swim be concerned with the perceived light color of the solution after basification?

3.) What is the best way to break an emulsion?

Put your jug of acid solution in the fridge overnight and pour the clear juice off the sludge. That'll get it clean enough.
That color change means that you didn't get to pH 13, you're at around 11.
That's where the emulsion comes in.
IMO, you have to get the pH up to 13 to have any hope of agitating without forming an emulsion.

So can swim do one long acid cook with 100% of the acid solution instead of 50% then 50% for two shorter soaks?
if so how long would you recomend?
What color should swim be looking for to indicate a 13 ph?

My friend cooks in two 1/2 vinegar water solutions followed by two plain water cooks, all overnight.
He then decants off of the sludge, reduces the solution by half (at least) and basifies.
The grey milkshake look comes first and as he adds base, streaks of clear purple black start to appear and coalesce and then it all goes this color.
Then he adds 50% more base solution and does the NP extraction.

Question about reducing the volume of naptha.

When reducing the volume of naptha in a beaker in a crockpot; using a fan; is it possible to have significant yeild loss as a result of vaporizing the freebase DMT?

If the naptha is boiling only a little (little little bubbles) and the water bath is not boiling is that still too hot?


a method of not boiling or reducing naptha (too much)

Is the proper technique;
1. collect and wash all combined NP pulls
(potential naptha reducing phase)

2. a freeze precip with all combined NP pulls
3. recrystallized with enough solvent and optional wash.
4. slow evap at room temp covered w/ cheese cloth to form delicious shards of glass.

?

So when swim attempts to pour most of the liquid out of the crockpot the 1st and 2nd times should swim be concerned that alot of the mhrb is suspended in the solution?