I usually lurk around Nexus 'cause there is so much great information here I merely used it as a resource, I have learned SO much in the short time I've been here though. Ok I won't bore you so here it is, I've searched around a lot on the Cacti forum and haven't been able to find much information/experience regarding a simple, yet very effective way I came up with for creating a very drinkable alkaloid elixir. Since I only just found out this is the only place I can post I hope this is suitable for this forum!

Not only that, I believe the elixir can be used to further extract a very clean alkaloid product.

Materials (primarily through only the elixir creation not A/B):
- dried cactus powder
- ~1-2 L empty container*
- several L of alcohol**
- cheese cloth / strainer
- funnel
- glass pyrex dish / bowl for evap
- fan
- distilled h2o
- citric acid***
- mason jar / empty pickle jar / HDPE container

Notes on materials:
* I preferred to use empty smirnoff vodka bottles basically ya just need somethin' that can tolerate alcohol and that can be capped and shaken. Also, the size of the bottle should depend on the mass of plant material used.
** I'd say preferably 91% or 99% IPA; ~99% methanol; 95% ethanol because I have used those with success and they are relatively cheap & easy to obtain.
*** I suggest citric acid because it seems to be widely available, food-safe and cheap. I'm sure acetic acid from vinegar would work too but citric tastes better... Of course you could use any acid you want but unless you're doin a full A/B (or are confident you aren't using too much) stick with food-grade acids.

OK so on to the process! Essentially this is only an alternate way of de-fatting the solution [that you get from step 6.)] without using xylene or another non-polar solvent. I always found the use of NP solvents and cacti so messy and time consuming so I came up with this:

Procedure
1.) add cactus powder to your container, cover the powder with alcohol so the mixture can be shaken properly & cap the container. Shake the mixture often over the course of 3-6h.

2.) filter solution through cheese cloth / t-shirt / whatever works best for you.

3.) add the filtered alcohol solution to your glass evaporating dish and put a fan over it

4.) # place cactus powder back in container and soak + filter two more times. add the 2nd and 3rd washes to glass evaporating dish

5.) once all the alcohol has evaporated you'll have a blackish-greenish tar-like substance stuck to the dish, it doesn't matter if there is still un-evaporated h2o but let it sit for a bit longer to be sure.

6.) ## add around than 500ml preferably warm distilled h2o [optional: add citric acid to make mescaline more h2o soluble] to the tar on the dish while scraping and stirring with spoon or knife until all the tar is dissolved or at least suspended in the h2o solution.

7.) put this dh2o-tar solution in jar or container and leave it in the fridge for around 3-7 days; until you see an obviously fatty green layer sitting at the bottom of the jar while the rest is a yellow-ish solution.

8.) ### gently pour the resulting yellow solution [so as to not disturb the fatty green layer at the bottom] into:
a.) a dish to evaporate the h2o leaving behind a tar-like substance that you can swallow with little-to-no nausea
b.) a shot glass or 2 and drink it down over the course of 10-20mins with little-to-no nausea

Notes on procedure:
# With liquor / wine bottles because of the narrow openings it can be frustrating scooping back in damp cactus powder (shoulda squeezed all the liquid out leaving it damp & clumpy) and the funnel does help slightly. I thought of an idea though, why not just mix together the clumpy cactus powder & alcohol for the 2nd & 3rd washes in a pitcher or something then funnel it back into your container like that? Should reduce the hassle!

Also as far as these washes go you should be able to see most of the green color faded away from the plant material by the 3rd alcohol wash.

## whether you're using citric acid for this step or not try to bring the ph of the acidic h2o solution to ~4 (I believe 3-4 to be ideal but somebody please correct me or verify!) We want to be sure all the alkaloids will be dissolved in the h2o, preferably as a stable & reliable salt. Again, after step 8.) the resultant golden elixir is safe to drink using citric / acetic acid!, using other ones is not recommended (by me, any feedback at all please don't hesitate!).

### Doses can be gauged easily knowing your starting material and the volume of liquid after decanting from the settled fats. For example if you use 500g in the initial extraction and in step 6.) use 500ml you will know that for every 1g of powder per 1ml of elixir so if a typical dose is 30g powder, 30ml (typical shot glass) will send you there.

From here I would also greatly appreciate input into different ways one could work with the elixir to obtain alkaloid crystals. I have some ideas but... you guys are way smarter!

these type of teks are in use, great thread about it recently at the nook

basically, the ethanol extract is pretty hard to clean to purity, but an easy method for tar/resin

Thanks dg, I couldn't find what you're referring to (registered & everything!), I appreciate the info though.

Oh & I didn't really understand this:



That's exactly the point of my method, not to make tar/resin but to dissolve it in acidic h2o and as it sits in the fridge it cleans itself as the sludge/fats fall and stick to the bottom. Decanting leaves a clean, defatted acidic aqueous extract of cactus alkaloids.

Am I missing something though..? Do you think from even this it would be difficult to yield a clean product?