I've read that really basifying will make it so you hardly get an emulsion when pulling, so i was wondering, am i risking any spice if i basify to 14? cause i want to be able to shake the jar vigorously, i don't like the idea of "kind of" shaking it, or swirling. shaking HAS to be better.

"Put it up to eleven." "Eleven. Exactly. One louder."

Push the base up all the way and it will be fine.

are those quotes from teks? what is "one louder"?

It's a Spinal Tap reference (an amp that goes up to eleven so they can turn it up louder than 10)

Bottom line: there's really no such thing as too much lye

Aye, that's the way I do my extractions and it works very well

Shaking really isn't that much more efficient. Rolling and allowing more time is far better.
Push the pH up you want....shaking will encourage emulsions. Even if a clean separation is achieved with shaking, high agitation will suspend minuscule particles of MHRB in your solvent.

The benefit of multiple pulls is that the next pull will always get what the prior left behind. Even if shaking is that much better, multiple pulls make any higher efficiency superfluous.

Hmmm, this is contrary to my experience. Since my first extraction I have completely overbasified and shaken the hell out of my mhrb/nps and I have never encountered suspended particles in my solvent. I spend 5 minutes shaking continuously and within another 5-10 its completely separate layers with no particulates whatsoever in the nps.

The likelyhood of emulsions depends mainly on the consistency of the solution.

Gotta agree with snozzle... I always have ph 13 +, shake the hell outta my jars, never had anykind of emulsion, it separates very quicky and efficiently =) and always got major yields ( after the third dough nothing special will come out). Easy and quick

Interesting....all my original extractions were shook and even if the nps looked clean, a sludge would form at the bottom if left in a jar for a couple of days. Limo and naphtha both.
Granted, I hadn't yet started measuring pH in those days, so what I thought was over-basifying could have not been. Not sure how much pH would effect solvent suspensions though.

I only know that since moving exclusively to rolling, absolutely no sludge appears and my yield has not been effected at all.

A test I did recently with 50g rootbark.

1st pull: swirling, rolling. Yield: 200mg.
2nd pull: shaking vigorously multiple times, separating the emulsion by swirling and heat. Yield: 250mg (and yeah, it was the 2nd pull).

Hmm...looks like I might need to amend my practices. As well as securing a larger supply of lye.

edit:

Was your test done with naphtha?
If you didn't heat the first pull but did heat the second, that would account for the solubility difference.

Whether shaking or rolling, the nps from first pull should be close to saturated. This is why the second pull is done. It's not as if shaking increases dmt's solubility in the solvent. Shaking may saturate the solvent quicker, but it won't saturate it more.

I have been putting the pH up to 12.8 or so. I do several pulls with gentle rolling and sloshing for a few minutes per pull. It takes a lot of NaOH to get the pH up there and above, but separations are easy. After combining all pulls and syringing any aqueous remains at the beaker's bottom, I then concentrate my crystal clear solvent (pet ether) with a distillation reducing it to 1/5 volume.

Sniff....ahhhh.... the smell of the candy cane fairies almost puts me in hyperspace by itself... Still the solvent is crystal clear. The subsequent freeze precipitation in a cold cold freezer yields pure white spice without any MHRB particles, oils, or coloration.