Ok, I'm starting to see questions about washing spice.

I took a look through my old posts and found my method for washing spice.

There are other methods, but most people who have been extracting for a while say don't wash the actual crystals.

1) get a glass and put a teaspoon of baking soda (or 1/4 teaspoon of sodium carbonate) in it. Fill with about 100-150ml luke warm/room temperature water. Stir, stir, stir. It will not all dissolved, but we are making a saturated solution so that is fine. Let all soilds settle.

2) Dissolve freeze preciptated spice in enough warm naphtha that is does not cloud upon cooling. Less is better, but use enough to prevent precipitation. I use 1/2 pint canning jars for this. For 1 gram of spice I would use 200ml of warm naphtha or bestine.

3: take a baster/syring/nasal aspirator and suck up some of the saturated baking soda water...do not get any solid baking soda in the baster.

4: add until the volume of baking soda (or sodium carbonate) solution is about 1/4 the volume of naphtha.

5: Swirl around for about a minute, do not heat. You can shake.

6: After swirling I usually take my nasal aspirator (I like it better than a syringe or a turkey baster) and suck up some of the naphtha layer and squirt it into the baking soda layer...not sure if it helps or not, but it is what I always do. It just mixes it up a little better and it separates pretty quickly.

7: remove naphtha layer (top layer!) save and recrystalize normally (freeze or room temp, your choice )

8: Trash baking soda layer (bottom layer!), or add more naphtha and attempt to recover any lost yield (I've tried without success, just not enough spice in there).

I imagine that this would work with naphtha just pulled from the basified mimosa juice (uncrystalized)...however, I like to freeze precipitate first. It seems to get a much cleaner product.

With the method I have outline above I have taken yellow oily freeze precipitated spice that badly burns the tongue and turned it into clear spice that no longer burns (just a little bitter). My best batches of spice were made using this technique.

The taste and vaporization also seems to be improved.

Total yield loss after washing AND recrystalization from a gram is about 80mgs. I've read some threads about how yellow spice is better/smoother than clear spice. I am not in that group of people. I think that crystal clear/white spice gives the best experience.

Also after final recrystalization I will put my mason jar containg my spice (no solvent, just spice) into a hot water bath and melt it down. I then put it into the freezer for about 10 minutes. The spice that comes out is denser, easier to vaporize, and for some reason more potent. I highly suggest trying the spice meltdown method....you will be suprised at the results!

meltdown you say
seems coo

thanks for the cosies and clear post

Awsome thanks.
I read somewhere that baking soda will result in lower yields over Sodium Carbonate. Is this true? Has anyone compared the two?

Yes I have. There is very little difference between Sodium Carbonate and Sodium Bicarbonate if the washes are done quickly. I only keep my wash water in contact with the non-polar solvent for a minute or two max...I imagine if longer washes were done more spice might be lost with the bicarbonate. Most recommend using Sodium Carbonate if you can get it.

hey acolon.. can SWIM cap and shake the jar containing both the DMT saturated naphtha and saturated sodium carbonate solution? or will it form an emulsion. SWIM tried this cleaning tek with his last yield.. he swirled it and then used the eyedropper to squirt the naphtha into the sodium carbonate solution. he saw yellow bits falling out of the naphtha solution - this seems to be the unwanted crap.

however after meltdown the DMT came out with a slightly yellow tint. does this mean that SWIM has not cleaned long enough? SWIM thought about shaking it the next time he does it because the thinks that with the eyedropper method not all of the naphtha will come in contact with the sodium solution.

would this work as well? or do you have any other tricks for making sure that all naphtha has been cleaned.

also SWIM always saves the naphtha for use in the next batch. the used naphtha is always slightly yellow and a bit clouded. the cloudiness disappears after repulling with it. will this somehow affect how much DMT will be soulable in the next batch? or doesn't it matter?

peace.

Shaking won't cause an emulsion.

True.

SWIMs white spice turns yellow after meltdown.. is this normal? SWIM does his meltdown in a petri dish over a toaster (just enough heat to let it melt and merge) -he lets it all merge in one corner and then lets it cool in that corner. with just a little force applied he removes the solid piece of spice from the corner after it has cooled. SWIM figured that a solid piece would be less vulnerable to oxygen. SWIM also lets his jungle spice dry out as solid pieces.

does anybody else do this?

looks like a job for captain sep.funnel!
nice tek, TY!

This may be a stupid question but figured I'd ask anyway.I got about 3 grams I was planning on washing with baking soda.My question is whether old baking soda would play a role in this or not.I got a box that has been the fridge for a few years probably.Would this still work or do I need to just go buy another box.It really isn't a big deal but I was just trying to save a trip to the store.Thanks yall