Hey everyone first time post but I've been lurking the site for a while, anyways I'll get down to business.

Last night did my first extraction, using Q21Q21 white tek. First of all I followed all of the measurements exactly in the acidification stage. This resulted in me getting a red liquid, which didn't match the consistency of the picture. I let it sit for an hour and then decided that I needed to add more MHRB. I added it till it became a very thick paste. I let it sit again for another 40 min stirring thoroughly throughout the time. Next I did the basification stage and after adding the lime that I should add according to the tek I realized that this wasn't enough and continued adding more until it looked right. Let that sit for ten minutes and stirred thoroughly.

When it came time to do the washes I poured some boiling water for a heat bath and added about 100ml of naptha. I let it sit for maybe 5 minutes mixing thoroughly until warm. Then I decanted the Naptha into my precipitation container. After doing three pulls I put all the containers into the freezer. About four hours later when I checked the containers there were virtually no crystals.

From what I can see I did alot of things wrong. Mainly poor addition of ingredients (I think the mixture during the acidification stage was too thick), insufficient time to let the naptha heat during the pulls, and from what I've heard it can take up to 12 hours to precip properly in the freezer (so I have them sitting in there now).

I was hoping that you'd all be able to give me some pointers on how to do this better as well as point out anything else that I may have been doing wrong. Also I still have the mixture so Can I salvage any of the crystals still in there?

Much thanks!

Sounds like you did a lot of improvisation. I would recommend following the tek by the numbers with a small amount of MHRB until you have the process down. When you acidify you shouldn't end up with a paste, as you mentioned, so messing up this first step messed up the rest of the extraction.

Maybe this tek just doesn't work for Canadians hey? Swim is having issues too.... Welcome.

Yeah I went and reread the tek and realized that its approx 1ml of vinegar 1ml of boiling water to 1g of bark. For some reason I had the number 3 and I intially added 3 ml of each liquid to the bark which of course resulted in a liquid.

At that point I just decided that since I already messed up I would just "loosely" follow the teks measurements. The next one I do will be more precise.

As for the pulls, how long do you typically leave the naptha solution in the heat bath (I think that was another big problem)? Also approx. how long do you let the it sit in the freezer for (what time frame can I expect for some crystals)? I checked my freezer again and there were definitely some more crystals forming an its been about 2 and a half hours since i put it back in, I'm thinking it should be done precipitating by tomorrow morning?

Leave the naptha over the double boiler until it is WARM. Eventually, you'll notice that the naptha isn't getting warmer, and that's pretty much when it's ready. I would leave it in the freezer overnight, patience is a virtue eh?

Allright sounds good, I tested how warm the naptha was with my finger and it was warm (although it could've gotten a little warmer too I figure). As for the time thing, yeah I was a little impatient with it, plus im trying to do this somewhat covertly since I'm still living at home.

So in your opinion it was most likely the acidification stage the was most detrimental? Just wondering could you give me a substance that would be comparable to the acidified solution? Like oatmeal or something just to compare to?

zeekborg: Do the tek by the numbers on your first time until you get used to it! 1ml vinegar + 1ml boiling water / 1g MHRB = the density you're looking for. Let it sit for an hour, just to be on the safe side, even more if you want. Rushing through the process, as you have witnessed, does not yield. Maybe wait until you have the house for yourself for a weekend?

good call spira, thanks so much for the help. I'll try being less impatient. Once again thanks so much for all the help, i look forward to trying this again with more patience and more exact measurements.

I wish you luck in all your future endeavors and journeys!

Oh hey guys

If the bark was wet+red+vinegary it should be fine, doesn't have to be super wet.
The only reason for getting it liquidy is that it makes for either no addtion of water post-lime or just a small amount cause the most "tricky" part of the tek is getting the lime-bark-water consistency right.

Naptha doesn't need to be HOT. Literally just pour some boiling water in a bowl and sit the bottom of your bark-container in it for warmth and in 2-3 minutes the naptha will be hot enough to pull it just fine.

If the naptha doesn't cloud in the freezer within about 1-2 hours then you're going to have pretty much 0 crystals, whether it has 5mg or 150mg a shot glass of SWIM's naptha always clouds within an hour.


If there is no yield then just mix it a couple times over the next 36 hours then try another pull.

If it doesn't pull then your lime or MHRB or naptha is bunk. Lime + water + MHRB will freebase DMT within 2 days even without the vinegar as long as the materials are good.



Hope it all works out in the end!

SWIM also makes sure to warm the bark mixture as well with 2 double glass bowls, one with hot water in it form warming the naptha.
Just maybe body temp or a slight over is what SWIM goes for.
Using this tek SWIM will get over the 1% average. Usually more like 1.75-1.25g per 100g bark.

I tried another batch and put my first pull into the freezer about 2 hours ago I followed the teks measurements more closely this time. In addition I also heated the vinegar water MHRB mix in a heat bath.

Looking at the previous batches pulls, Im starting to get some crystal formation on the bottom of the container, It's definitely cloudy so there more spice in there waiting to crash out.

In the tek it's recommended if there are crystals floating in the solvent that you use a cotton ball and funnel, out of curiosity could I just pour the solvent through a coffee filter?

I'll post back here tomorrow with what i get from both the first and second batch. Wish me luck and thanks for all the help.

Yea from what I understand if your naptha is cloudy then it means there is DMT waiting to precipitate out.

Threw out some cloudy naptha i presume?

So I checked my batches. The first batch looked like it had formed a fair amount of crystals after 14+ hours in the freezer so i took it out and quickly poured the solvent into a coffee filter in order to catch the majority of small crystals floating around in the solvent.

There was what appeared to be one larger crystal that had formed and so i scraped it off and put it into a separate container, however, when I checked back it had melted. This leads me to think that it's water? If it is not sure how it got there because i was careful to dry the bowl after the heatbath when I did the pulls, also there was a lid on it in the freezer. I checked the coffee filter and there were no crystals in that either despite what I saw floating around in the solvent. Surely those couldn't have been ice as well?

I took a look at the solvent that I poured into a measuring cup (was just conveniently there to pour it through the filters) and it was very cloudy. So does this mean that there is spice in there but it just hasn't precipitated yet? I poured out the solvent to a different container and put it back into the freezer.

There's a lot of solvent in there like 300 ml which I think may be over kill. I've read that when there is too much solvent the crystals wont precipitate out and that you need to evaporate some of the solvent. If I've read this correctly could this be what I may need to do? If so do i just leave the solvent out at room temp with airflow till say a quarter or a half or so has evaporated?

Interestingly when I looked at the measuring cup there were very very small crystals that had formed on the bottom of it from the short period that the naptha was in it. So I'm quite sure there's spice in there.

I have the second batch in the freezer which I'll check tomorrow morning. It looked cloudy but no noticeable crystal formations when I checked as I pulled out the first batch... If the second batch doesn't turn out I'm beginning to question my materials. I think the lime should be okay, it's gardeners lime bought at a hardware store, so I guess that leaves the MHRB which I bought from here http://www.juremaincense.com/ can anyone verify it's quality?

Sorry for how long this is just thought I should be as detailed as I could. Please leave some comments that could help me out. Thanks in advance.

Same supplies as SWIM. horticultural lime did not sufficiently raise ph, had to switch to a wet tek with lye.
Starting to see results, but swim is making the jimjam (tek 1).
Also did a small heptane pull to see if swim would get freeze precipitation, and is successful.

Juremaincense is great, swim got a great haul from a marsofold tek with it last year, and is using it for current extraction.

The reason your crystals melt is because of the freezer not getting cold enough to give you enough time to recover the crystals.
(solvent warming up and redissolving the crystals)
If you cannot make it colder, try quickly pouring all the solvent through a coffee filter (recovering the solvent obviously), then put
your dish upside down again in the freezer with a lid or plate to catch the excess solvent.

Do all this very fast, so the solvent cannot warm up.

I think the crystals may actually just be ice, because in my first batch there were crystals but i picked out out of the solvent right away and just held it in my hand and watched it melt. The second batch has nothing and its been sitting in the freezer for over 18 hours. This leads me to believe that it was not prepared properly.

Thanks for confirming the MHRB I've got, bought a lot all at once, which in retrospect was a bad idea, but its a great relief to know that it should work. In addition I rechecked all the ingredients. They should all work Ronsonal lighter fluid, and 5% white vinegar.

Dream method you say that gardening lime wont work? If so do you know if I can use lye in this tek? If yes in what amounts. Also where can I buy lye in Canada (preferably not online).

Thanks

Swim obtained his lye from a soap making shop. Soap and more is where it was found. They are C-town based, but they do ship. Otherwise, swim could not find any in hardware stores.
Swim thinks it needs to be pickling lime. He couldn't find that too easy so far, so he is sticking to lye for now.

If you still have some bark not mixed with lime, use that first with a traditional wet tek, and try to recover the lime/bark mixture over a longer time, fully letting everything settle.


For converting to lye, this is what swim did:
- Add water to the bark/lime mixture and mix thoroughly, it will need to be a fair bit.
- One can either let it settle and decant or add lye to the full mixture. Add lye to a separate glass of water first, and let it cool.
***(required warning of adding lye to water, not water to lye! )***
Having the exothermic reaction in the bark water will make it very thick, whereas adding cool lye water seems to thin the mixture.
Swim added lye first, because he wanted to ensure all alkaloids were in suspension in the water by ensuring freebasing, plus there is alot of water contained in the bark/lime slurry, and swim wanted to get as much as possible. I don't know if it will make a difference, maybe others have input.

The only issue is whether you want to try straining off the bark/lime mixture...Very time consuming, and clogs filters fast. Swim tried cheesecloth, but gave up and just left it in the vessel.
WARNING: straining a high ph fluid (this mixture after lye is added) is hazardous. That is why swim just chose to leave it in there.

The solids will settle over a day or two.
- Add solvent (swim tried toluene first, just to check against his xylene)
- Stir with stick, wood spoon etc. (avoid metal if possible) gently! Avoid rapid motions and making bubbles, as with all the solids emulsions can form easily!
- remove solvent once the layers have separated
- do your thing

Swim found this worked with the one pull of toluene. He salted it with vinegar and evaporated to find red goo!

An alternative to the ronsonal is heptane sold as Bestine, though it is even more selective (assuming you are looking for crystals)
It is a rubber cement thinner, swim found it at Micheals. It must be warm though and isn't as efficient as naptha. Good for recrystalizing though.
Swim is more interested in making jimjam tincture, so xylene or toluene is what is used.


Hope this helps. Also, being reasonably new too, Swim obviously invites more experienced members to add suggestions here. Maybe it will help swim too.

If you have the time, decant even after adding the lye. It will help a lot.